LONDON — It’s the Year of the Fire Horse according to the Chinese zodiac and the city’s designers are channeling the sign’s feisty, risk-taking energy into new projects they hope will spur growth in challenging times.

With London Fashion Week in full gallop, designers are making moves on and off the runway, adapting to the times and looking at style from a 360-degree perspective. It’s no longer just about clothes, but about serving customers’ practical needs and developing a lifestyle offer — as well as dishing up dreams.

“In this climate especially, you have to be very clever and branch into multiple different fields,” said Harris Reed, who shows his signature collection in London and serves as creative director of Nina Ricci in Paris.

Reed said he tells fashion students, freelancers and young designers that success in fashion today “is not just about getting your clothes into stores, and putting them onto racks. I don’t think that’s a really progressive way of building a business.”

Instead, designers have to think more than ever about the needs of the customer. The designer known for his statement looks is delving into a new category of “fluid,” but still larger-than-life bridal dresses, styles that allow people to sit down or move around, rather than just pose in.

“We’ve been doing our take on bridal for around two years without making any noise, and this season we felt like we understood what silhouettes the customer was expecting from us. I feel confident enough to actually show it on the catwalk,” Reed said.

Bridal looks include a fishtail dress and a corset paired with a shift-like skirt, “which is really playing into the idea of practicality and wearability. We’re adorning them all with these colorful veils, which I actually think might be quite a big 2026,” Reed said.

The designer is also moving into home interiors this season through a partnership with Fromental, the specialist English wallpaper company known for its hand-painted and bespoke designs.

“We are about world-building, and we’re playing on this idea of home and what that can look like in the next couple years. During the show, we’re doing a little tease of what’s to come,” Reed said, adding that customers often ask the team to reproduce prints from the show as wallpaper or even paintings. The move into lifestyle “has evolved organically,” he said.

Roksanda Ilinčić has been working in a similar spirit. Instead of staging a runway show this season, the designer is opening a pop-up shop on the Knightsbridge end of Sloane Street, in the former Saint Laurent space.

The space, which opens in early March, spans three floors and will be filled with pieces from her spring 2026 collection as well as art, flowers, books, furniture and a bar serving matcha, hot chocolate and coffee, all done in collaboration with her favorite companies.

The designer described it as “Roksanda’s world,” and said she plans to use the space to entertain clients and host dinners. She sees it as a prelude to a permanent store, which she’s hoping to open later this year. The designer closed her original Mount Street store following the pandemic.  

The pop-up is the first big move under the brand’s new chief executive officer, Patricia Sancho, who said her mission is to spearhead a “new phase of growth and global expansion with intention and integrity.”

Like Harris Reed, Ilinčić is working on broadening her clothing offer, with a new emphasis on tailored clothing. Ilinčić is known for her dramatic dresses, capes and skirts in a rainbow of bold shades, and she’s transferring that aesthetic to daywear, and to suits in particular.

She said her customer has been asking for “versatile” pieces that she can wear every day, so for fall she’s delivering sculptural jackets, some with big, circular cutout backs and others with invisible slots on the lapel so clients can add long, colorful silk scarves.

Other jackets are more casual, with gathered waists and fabric belts, while black tuxedo styles have fil coupé details, and pops of color.

Ilinčić said that in the current market, customers either want “special, occasion pieces, or versatile, easy, practical ones. There is no space for the middle ground.”

Julien Macdonald, who is returning to the London catwalk after three years, has also been thinking about practicality too.

He has re-established his business after putting it into administration in 2023, and his collection has a whole new attitude. The focus is on ready-to-wear rather than occasion and bespoke; the prices are lower, and the pieces are more versatile. They’ll be selling on his website, and at stores including Harrods and Selfridges.

Macdonald said that, no matter the season, he will always deliver a see-now, buy-now “luxury resort collection, because it’s always sunny somewhere.”

He said the time was right for a new approach.

“Everybody knows my dresses, but in the past, they’ve been extremely expensive, with prices from 8,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds. But we’re living in a new and younger world, there’s a new energy. Everybody’s conscious of price and the fashion industry is in a bit of chaos. These are difficult times, so I think we need to be respectful to the amount of money that a woman wants to spend on a dress,” said the designer, whose bespoke clients include Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and Kris Jenner.

Macdonald said his clients tell him they can’t buy 15,000-pound dresses every day, and were asking him for less-expensive options, so he delivered. Prices now range from 800 pounds to 4,500 pounds for a red carpet look. The designs will still sparkle with Swarovski crystals “and have that couture chic, but they come at ready-to-wear prices,” he said.

The pieces are made in and around London, and the embroidery is done in India. “So now my clients can buy 10 dresses at once,” said Macdonald, who also plans to sell through salon shows at luxury resorts in places including Athens, Saint-Tropez and Ibiza.

He believes it’s the modern way to do business. “When you pay a lot of money for something, it becomes quite precious. Now that the price burden is gone, it becomes much more of an enjoyable purchase,” he added.

As part of his new plan, he’ll also be selling directly from the red carpet. If clients see a star wearing a Macdonald look, they can buy a version of it from his website one hour later.  

Macdonald will be breaking ground in other ways, too, staging the first fashion show at The Shard, the Renzo Piano-designed skyscraper. The designer said he was inspired by all the colors — yellow, pink, beige and orange — sparkling from the building’s windows at sunset last summer, and approached the owners with the idea of staging a show there.

Another brand making a runway comeback this season is Joseph, now under the creative direction of Mario Arena, who was formerly director of product and design for JW Anderson ready-to-wear, accessories and runway. Arena has also worked with Christopher Kane and run his own strategic design and trend studio.

Arena said he’s eager to show the “reimagined” Joseph to a wider audience, reposition it as a luxury house, and showcase all the newness on the London runway.

There is a big emphasis on craftsmanship this season, said Arena, who spent a lot of time working with some key suppliers “and pushing them to go deeper.”

He’s “reimagined leather in a new way,” drawing on historic designs, and creating a 3D effect.

“We’ve also brought innovation and technology through a special technique where the components are 3D printed, but they look and perform like natural ones,” he said. He’s using technology to build up patterns in silicone and then gild them.

“Everything is going to be super-tactile, super-visual and interactive. There is even a sound element,” he added — one of the skirts makes a gentle, calming sound when it moves. “I hope you can hear it over the music,” he said.

Arena is also using his first catwalk show to reveal the world of Joseph, with new categories such as eyewear, jewelry, shoes, bags and scarves. One of the accessories is a security cuff that people can put on their handbags to deter thieves. “Even security can be luxurious,” he said.

Labrum is digging deep with its research and looking to appeal to a wider audience.

The founder and designer, Foday Dumbuya, is focusing this season on textiles, and how they tie different cultures, and continents, together.

He’s using a stamp motif, inspired by his mother’s well-traveled passport, for overcoats and suits; working crochet, raffia, Indian embroidery and Chinese silks into the mix, and taking inspiration from the traditional pottery of his native Sierra Leone.

He said the London runway is a great storytelling platform. “The story starts on the runway, and it’s a great marketing platform for us,” said the designer, who sells through his own website and at Browns and Selfridges.

He is also a great collaborator, working with Adidas, End. Clothing, and most recently, Lands’ End. He’s one of a handful of London designers chosen to create a tote bag for the brand. All proceeds from the sale of the bags will be donated to Mentoring Matters, a U.K. organization dedicated to supporting personal growth, career development, and skills enhancement, for those from underrepresented backgrounds in creative industries.

In a few months’ time, he’ll open his first stand-alone store, in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital. The opening will ease the distribution of his collections in Sierra Leone, but also in Ghana and Nigeria, where he said there is growing demand.

In addition to Africa, he’s targeting the U.S. and Japan, which he sees as growth markets. Like his fellow designers, he’s using that Fire Horse energy to take risks “and find space in a congested market,” he said.