With London Fashion Week’s Autumn Winter 2023 shows starting this week, luxury fashion retailer Fenwick has delved into the scheduled shows to look at the split of female vs. male owned brands.

Fenwick’s data showed the increase in female founded brands at London Fashion Week (LFW):

• More than half of LFW shows are from brands founded by women
• Year on year the number of female brands at LFW has increased by 3.3%
• In the last 5 years there has been an increase of 10.7% in female founded brands at LFW

Female founded brands increased by 3.3% between 2022 and 2023

From brands such as Emilia Wickstead and Central Saint Martins graduate, Simone Rocha to more contemporary brands such as Rixo, founded in 2015 by best friends Orlagh McCloskey and Henrietta Rix. This year’s shows are set to be dominated by female brands, while this is an increase of 3.3% from 2022 there is, of course, still room to grow in terms of gender representation in women’s fashion.

London Fashion Week had 10.7% more female founded brands in 2023 than in 2017

More than half of this year’s London shows will feature brands founded by women. Over the past 5 years this number has increased  10.7%, with 62% of London’s shows being from female founded brands. There is still a strong push towards the inclusion of more female designers, founders and creative directors in the fashion world.