LFW: Chinese designer collabs and the rise of the high street

What happened Chinese designers unveiled new partnerships with mass-market brands at London Fashion Week, which closed its five-day Spring/Summer 2027 edition on Monday. Susan Fang (方妍楠) staged her show at the Barbican’s Lakeside, the first fashion show held there, serving guests matcha and bubble tea and debuting Echo Blume, a Crocs collaboration due to launch globally in spring 2027. Joyce Bao’s presentation offered a custom decaf matcha lychee tonic from Enle Matcha, finished with a sugar-lime rim. At Yuhan Ao’s (敖宇涵) show, models wore Charles & Keith bags and shoes, continuing a partnership that goes back to at least his Autumn/Winter 2024 collection, alongside eyewear from 720Armour. Oscar Ouyang (欧阳) took the commercial model a step further: his collaboration with Pull&Bear went on sale as soon as it was shown, in the retailer’s Oxford Street store and online. The Beijing-born designer, who made his London Fashion Week debut in 2025 through the British Fashion Council’s Newgen program, created the line under the Inditex-owned brand’s Canvas for Creativity initiative. Pull&Bear has been Newgen’s principal partner since 2024, giving emerging designers direct funding and mentorship. High-street and mass-market brands also claimed more of the week than in past seasons. Topshop and Topman opened it with “A Celebration of Denim,” a party with Uber and the British Fashion Council that launched their A/W26 denim collection, with guests carried along the Thames by Uber Boat to Woods Quay. H&M staged H&M&YOU&I at Olympia London, a see-now-buy-now show of its Autumn 2026 womenswear. Alex Consani opened the show, and Labrinth, who produced its score, closed it with a live performance. Tems, Cruz Beckham and Myha’la sat in the front row. Spanish accessible-luxury label Bimba y Lola joined the social calendar with a Lolita’s Bar cocktail party. EBay, back for a third year, staged Endless Runway with the British Fashion Council, a pre-loved show sold in real time through eBay Live. The pieces came from the wardrobes of actor Daisy Edgar-Jones, stylist Harry Lambert, designer Charles Jeffrey, filmmaker Akinola Davies Jr. and others, built around the theme “Forever.” By the close, runway collections and retail events were sharing the schedule, a shift the British Fashion Council had signaled in July, when it said the September edition would give retail and consumer engagement a bigger role. Big names still showed. McQueen returned to the official schedule for the first time since 2001 under creative director Seán McGirr, and Christopher Kane presented his first collection for Mulberry, while Burberry closed the week. London remains better known than Paris or Milan for emerging designers, however, and this season those designers competed for attention with the high street. The Jing Take Collaborations between emerging Chinese designers and global mass-market brands point to a wider shift in how fashion companies build cultural relevance and sales. For the brands, these deals are a way to move upmarket, lending mass-market products the cultural credibility that has traditionally belonged to luxury. Shopping data supports the point, within limits. In Lyst’s index for the second quarter of 2026, Inditex-owned Massimo Dutti posted the biggest climb, rising eight places after an endorsement from Bella Hadid at Cannes. A New York Knicks cap topped the hottest-products list after searches rose 4,276% around the team’s NBA title, and the Adidas x Willy Chavarria World Cup jersey placed ninth. Luxury still led the brand ranking, with Chanel first and Miu Miu second, but accessible labels and collaborations are now competing for attention that luxury once held largely to itself. Emerging Chinese designers get something more concrete in return: funding, manufacturing, distribution and exposure that would be hard to secure alone. Fang’s career shows how the exchange works. Her first mass-market collaboration, a Chinese New Year capsule with Zara in January 2022, was also Zara’s first with a Chinese designer and was sold only in China. She has since worked with Ugg, Nike, & Other Stories, Victoria’s Secret, Melissa, Casetify and Rockfish Weatherwear, putting her work in front of far more shoppers than her own label reaches. The high street has made these exchanges a habit in 2026, though most of its deals are with established names. Alongside Pull&Bear’s work with Ouyang, Zara partnered with Willy Chavarria in the spring and began a two-year partnership with John Galliano, H&M brought back Stella McCartney and will release an Elie Saab collection on October 22, and Uniqlo teamed up with Cecilie Bahnsen. AllSaints went further, hiring Aaron Esh, who came up through Newgen, as chief creative officer. Retailers are now paying for designer fashion as well as selling it. For Chinese brands in particular, collaboration becomes a strategic mechanism to connect with global fashion culture while simultaneously supporting the emerging designers who contribute to it. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

LFW: Chinese designer collabs and the rise of the high street

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back

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LFW: Chinese designer collabs and the rise of the high street

How 2026 welcomed ‘Too Cool’ back