LFW SS25: Tolu Coker talks the struggles of being an emerging designer

One of the hottest emerging talents at London Fashion Week has to be Tolu Coker, a West London-born, British-Nigerian designer and multi-disciplinary artist who is part of the British Fashion Council’s NewGen programme.

Coker, a graduate of Central Saint Martins, acquired experience in the design studios of J.W. Anderson, Maison Margiela and Celine before launching her namesake brand in 2018. No stranger to LFW, Coker made her debut in AW19 as the winner of the Fashion Scout Merit Award, an accolade that has kickstarted the careers of designers including Eudon Choi, Phoebe English, and David Koma.

Her work has a vintage and joyful sensibility, which celebrates her heritage as well as her sustainable approach to design, utilising upcycled, deadstock and reclaimed materials, and her SS25 collection was no different.

Coker invited her guests into a world built on personal and collective memories, transforming the show space into a British-Nigerian living room, paying homage to her late father Kayode Coker’s photography, and even decorating the walls with 60s-inspired wallpaper projections and offering up mid-century furniture as seating, for an immersive experience into the intimacy of the family home.

Tolu Coker SS25 ‘Olapeju’

The setting provided the perfect backdrop for her collection named ‘Olapeju’, a female name of Yoruba origin translating to ‘where wealth gathers,’ and that of Coker’s mother, the muse of this season, and a look back at the migrant communities in London in the late 60s and early 70s, which acted as a starting point for the collection.

This translated into a narrative of cultural fusion, identity, and community, with timeless and versatile pieces coming down the catwalk emphasising sharply tailored silhouettes, high cinched waists, equestrian-inspired jackets and jodhpurs-style balloon-hem trousers. The retro-infused aesthetic continued with 60s A-line forms, exaggerated collars, and shortened hemlines, with matching co-ord sets, hats and shoes taking centre stage to reflect the influence of top-to-toe dressing.

Sustainability was highlighted with upcycled and deadstock leathers, reclaimed satins with bold 70s-inspired prints, and the brand’s signature upcycled denim houndstooth jacquards, now washed in soft spring pastels. The collection also reaffirms Coker’s commitment to heirloom fashion with garments from previous seasons intricately woven into the catwalk styling, underscoring the importance of extending the lifespan of clothing by revisiting and reimagining existing wardrobes rather than discarding them with the next trend cycle.

This season also included a collaboration with Manolo Blahnik, including three new boot styles designed by Coker, which reimagine the luxury footwear brand’s heritage and equestrian codes from the legacy of the Westway Stables whilst utilising offcuts of deadstock leather from the collection.

Interview with Tolu Coker ahead of her SS25 catwalk show at LFW

Ahead of her spring/summer 2025 show at LFW, FashionUnited caught up with Coker to find out more about the collection, how she designs with sustainability in mind, as well as the issues facing young designers and her advice for aspiring fashion designers starting out in the industry.

How would you describe your brand’s aesthetic?

My brand's aesthetic is polished, tailored, classy, and sophisticated.

What was the starting point and inspiration for the spring/summer 2025 collection?

I was looking at immigration in the late 60s and early 70s, and my late father's photo archives, which was a real reference point for me, where he had documented the migration of Nigerians to England, the communities that they birthed, and the significant contributions they made here in the UK. I just used those images to piece together their stories while looking at them through the lens of the matriarch.

My family has a long history within the North Kensington estates, the Ladbrook Grove and Portobello areas of London. At that time, they were kind of slums, and there was a huge landlord crisis and a mix of Irish, Caribbean, Black, Portuguese and Algerian communities, which you still see today in the area.

I think it's a very special community. I wanted to look at the notion of wealth, the ideas of luxury, and what that means, and luxury being rooted in heritage, and what that could mean for communities that were birthed through immigration. This idea of wealth not being about monetary value but the value of community, the value of culture and cultural preservation, which I think was very prevalent at that time.

How do you go about blending your cultural heritage with contemporary designs?

I don't think it's necessarily something that's done, incredibly intentionally, I think it's very much part of the subconscious. When you design from a space of self, you sort of design with all of the influences, cultural, social, spiritual, and environmental, that shape you as a person.

I think a lot of my cultural heritage is just inherently a part of the lens and gaze through which I design clothing.

I spend a lot of time talking with people and researching before I even begin the design process. It very much is a process of discovery and of learning a story in order to tell it.

How do you implement sustainability in your designs?

It's less just within the designs, and it's more so a way of working. It's in the consideration of how we source materials, the kind of materials that we're sourcing, and what we're using, as well as thinking about the longevity of what we're designing, reinforcing garments, thinking about finishes that allow these garments to last for a long time and be passed down from the actual design process.

It's also thinking about designing pieces that can be worn across seasons, that can be wardrobe essentials, that can be dressed up and dressed down, that can be layered, and worn in a myriad of ways. I think that's incredibly important for building out these essential wardrobes, that people get a lot of use out of their garments and also feel a connection to their garments. That's really significant for me.

I also do a lot of panelling within the tailoring, which is great for kind of contour and shaping, but it also means that I'm able to work around, perhaps defective or end-of-life materials to maximise them and get the most out of them.

Also, a lot of my designs consider using the offcuts of other designs or other patterns to be implemented into other designs, meaning that we're just maximising the usage of anything that we are using for production or sampling.

How has being part of NewGen helped your brand?

NewGen has been significant for amplification and visibility. London Fashion Week is a big stage, a global stage, and there are a lot of eyes on it. It's significant to be a part of this programme to have that visibility as a brand. It's so essential.

Beyond that, the mentorship that comes with it I really find invaluable. Likewise, my peers. I learn a lot from other designers within my cohort. It's just really significant to feel part of a level of community and know that you're not just the only one out here trying to do this.

Do you think the fashion industry is doing enough to support emerging talent like yourself? What more could they be doing?

A lot more could be done, but I'm hopeful about the industry. I think that there is a lot of consideration when programmes are built out for young designers. I think it's really important for the industry to step back and reassess where we are and reassess, actually, what is the actual needs of designers. I think the biggest thing for young designers across the board that I always hear is about financing.

We are on schedules with a lot of the big giants, and it's really difficult to keep up with that. We don't have million-pound marketing budgets, and we have to be incredibly resourceful with any resources that we do have, and where things within the market can be very up and down. We've seen what's happened with the wholesale market and the closure of big e-retailers and how that's affected everybody.

I think young designers are kind of the small fish that feel the impact the most, because we don't have the resources for flexibility or really for contingency, and I think you see a lot of independent brands pack up, as certain tides of the industry shift because they just can't survive it.

I think it's important for there to be consideration of what young designers need, and that is more financing, and also the reality of the pace at which we're able to work at we don't have huge teams or departments that can turn around several collections a year, and I think it's also very highly unsustainable, especially if that's what the industry says it's working towards. That's something that I would love to see shift, and I think there's huge room for improvement in that area.

What’s next for your brand?

Just carrying on - we have, obviously, market and showrooms. For me, it's thinking about sustainable scalability, and how we can have more of a presence, but also more of an impact. Taking it day by day, and just growing and having more visibility and more impact in the most sustainable way.

What are the biggest challenges facing your business?

Finance! I think that's the underpinning of everything. A lot of people don't know that I am an incredibly tiny team of one within the studio most days. I have a team that works across press and other business functions, but as far as design and day-to-day studio, I wear a lot of hats.

I think one of the biggest challenges is finance and workload, you're always trying to manage it, and you're always trying to maintain consistency. It's a lot of work, and it's ongoing. We never really stop. We never really have a break. It's our season's are always in season. If it's not preparing for the show, it's preparing for market. If it's not preparing for market, it's managing production. It's sort of a 365 job.

One piece of advice you’d give a student fashion designer starting out?

Upskills - like lend your hand to helping people so that you can learn.

I think a lot of the perception today for a lot of people is that you can become a huge, global fashion design superstar overnight, and I think good things, just take time. That's not saying you can't have a quick process. The goal is that with each generation, things become easier. But I don't think that skills should be lost for the sake of that. I think it's important to become a master of your craft, and you can only really do that by continuing on. I think graduation is just the beginning of the process. It's not the end of the process. It's your stepping foot in the industry, and it's your opportunity to learn how things work at an industry level because I think there is a big disparity between how students perceive it at university and the realities of it.

I think it's important to also learn the business of fashion. I think that's such a lapse for so many people coming out of university. A lot of universities are churning out creative directors, and not necessarily business people, and not necessarily the most skilled people. I think it's important to continue to upskill and just to always remain a student. One of the best ways of doing that is by trying to get as much experience as you can and recognise that it might not be the most glamorous, or the most highly salaried, paid job, but think about the value you can get from it, to pour into your craft, because the best ways to make mistakes is on someone else’s budget!