GENERATION NEXT

For 33 years, the British Fashion Council’s talent incubator programme, NEWGEN, has cultivated some of fashion’s most exceptional names. Luminaries such as Alexander McQueen and Jonathan Anderson, alongside the exciting new wave of Conner Ives and Tolu Coker, were all handpicked at the start of their careers for their talent, creativity and commitment. Although lauded now, they were once burgeoning designers and hungry fashion students, ecstatic at their selection into the programme. Today, with the announcement of the 2026/2027 line-up, there’s a roster of people who are, no doubt, feeling that same way.

BFC NEWGEN is a vital initiative aiming to uplift, nurture and champion the success of the best emerging talent. Supported through grant funding for showcasing and bespoke business mentoring, all recipients are expected to show at two LFW seasons per initiative year (May to April).

This year, the BFC, in partnership with Pull&Bear, has shifted its focus towards a more sustained, long-term growth relationship, aiming to move beyond exposure alone “to provide stronger designer support and deepened investment at a pivotal stage of growth,” explained Laura Weir, chief executive of the British Fashion Council.

With the industry eager to discover the next crop of talent, here are the three new recipient designers joining the motley of creative minds that is BFC NEWGEN:

FRANCESCA LAKE 

GUI ROSA

London-based Portuguese designer Gui Rosa has already made waves following his 2020 MA showcase, after which Alessandro Michele personally selected him to participate in the digital GucciFest. A Central Saint Martins graduate, Gui Rosa’s celebrated crochet and knitwear blends masculinity with the feminine form — inviting the wearer not to choose a binary, but to play with the space between. This ethos of play and humour is palpable in his garments, seen especially in the thigh-high knit cowboy boots shown at Gucci Vault in 2021. In true John Waters fashion, Gui Rosa leans into subversion, where kitsch meets high glamour in a fun, tactile concoction — a lightness that LFW will surely benefit from.

PETRA FAGERSTRÖM 

Another Central Saint Martins graduate, Petra Fagerström is a Swedish designer known for her lenticular pleated looks. After completing her Master’s, Fagerström launched her eponymous brand, with unique designs carrying a distinctive visual language. Beginning with recollections or fragments of memory, she translates eerie, severe and oftentimes intimate feelings into clothes. Outerwear and eveningwear maintain glamour through carefully crafted silhouettes, while simultaneously evoking a lost memory — like an old friend or a forgotten feeling: beautiful, yet strange.