UKFT accompanied more than 120 UK brands showing at Paris Men’s Fashion, Pre-collections and Swim Week from 25 June to 2 July 2025. Read our report on the major events and the industry trends that are set to shape the seasons ahead.

Following on from an upbeat start at Pitti Uomo Florence (17-20 June), and Milano Collezioni Uomo, the next stop for UKFT’s International Business team was Paris Men’s, Women’s Pre-collections and Swimwear collections from 25 June to 2 July and beyond. Unlike previous editions of the show, UKFT’s Paris activity was not funded by the Department for Business & Trade (DBT) this season although UKFT continues to campaign for Paris as substantially more UK brands and designers show in Paris than any other city and at all of this season’s events so far, all conversations from buyers from around the world have ended with the words “See you in Paris!”

Because of the central importance of Paris to the fashion industry above all other cities, UKFT financed as much of UKFT’s “Discover British Brands in Paris” programme as possible. The Discover British Brands in Paris Map included over 120 UK brands at over 30 multi-brand showrooms, standalone presentations and catwalk shows. The UKFT team conducted a scaled down social media activation, focusing primarily on UKFT members and companies requiring help and support from UKFT on issues such as compliance, sustainability, Ginetex labelling and ongoing concerns about tariff changes in the US and slow/no-payments from specific US department stores. UKFT also visited and supported the UK-run showrooms in particular, as they are uniquely supportive of British brands and talent.

Menswear:

The largest concentration of UK menswear for SS26 was at Welcome Edition where Barbour, Nigel Cabourn, Far Afield, Fred Perry, Invertère, Kestin, Peregrine, Sanders & Sanders, Sunray and Wax London were showing as part of 20 UK companies in the largest menswear event of the week, near Bastille. Welcome Edition is the largest of the independent men’s spaces and was busy from day one and throughout the show. Kestin Hare representing Edinburgh-based Kestin and Welcome Edition said: “Paris is increasingly the most important part of the sales campaign for us and, so it seems the rest of the industry, and Welcome Edition is the new epicentre for menswear. We had record-breaking days on Thursday and Friday, with the usual cross-section of International buyers, but with lots of new Japanese stores this season. Paris is such an international melting pot, as buyers can come here and do all their buying in one city”.

Man Paris was very well attended from its first day on Place Vendôme, with UKFT member Minnessak reporting good business at the show for upcycled accessory collaborations and launching a separate new ROAK-B jewellery collection by Jas (formerly JasMB) inspired by the grittiness and edge of London’s East End. Peter Keep of Minnessak said: “We had a very good show at MAN which for us was a stronger show than Pitti this season. We saw buyers from Japan, China, the USA, Australia and Europe.” He continued: “We also visited Welcome Edition on the Saturday afternoon and heard reports of a lot of Canadian buyers travelling to Paris in search of non-US brands. Overall this season our buyers have been optimistic”.

Good Place showroom has an impressive international brand list and had a positive vibe throughout the week with brands including Oliver Spencer and Origin Knitwear. Universal Works and Serviceworks reported a good week at 505 Showroom whilst UKFT member Au Concours launched their new capsule collection with Tora Tora alongside Lisa King following an introduction by UKFT. The new collection was especially well received by buyers and press.  Christopher Smith of Au Concours said: “We had a lot of buyers through the showroom, lots of try-ons, and lots of kind words. The buyers were predominantly Japanese, and Italian. Our debut collection launch was a success and I am really proud of the Tora Tora team for all of their hard work bringing au CONCOURS to the right people”. Yuko Fujita of Tora Tora showroom said: “Paris went well for us especially considering the current global challenges affecting traffic and buyer turnout. I continue to find that, as long as a collection is well-designed and offers strong value in terms of price and quality, buyers — particularly from Japan — remain willing to invest in new brands”.

This season Only the Blind and a group of other UK brands including CTRNE showed in their own collective showroom under the banner Showroom Britannia near the Champs Elysées supported by their Middle Eastern agent.

Impossible Objects Showroom cleverly merged its main showroom with its incubator offer, enabling it to show new talents from the UK such as Jin Lee, and new brands from other countries including Korea, alongside its more established clients such as Soar Running. DMSR showroom  showed in Beaubourg with a number of UK brands including Boy’s Own Productions, Le Kilt and Sage Nation.

One of the highlights of the week was visit to the Break.fast showroom in the East of the city. This innovative and edgy showroom in a converted electric transformer station was host to some of the UK’s most creative talents including JordanLuca, Liza Keane, Lueder, Masha Popova and SVRC. Downstairs, in the coolest of spaces (in both senses!) Break.fast also included an innovative pop-up boutique to enable these and others such as Ancuța Sarca and Monique Fei to sell remaining stock and special pieces to consumers. This pop up was organised in a similar but edgier way to the old London Fashion Weekend format which was always so popular with UK designers as it provided them with a direct sales and revenue pipeline.

Rounding off UKFT’s men’s and pre- tour of Paris Fashion Week, we had the opportunity to catch up with YMC at their standalone temporary showroom in Beaubourg.

Women’s Pre-collections:

June is also the time of the womenswear pre-collections for SS26 and an increasingly important part of the international womenswear calendar as buyers prefer to place their OTB earlier especially for outerwear collections.

Polly King reported an upbeat week with good appointments for UK brands including Clark’s Originals, De La Vali, Duke + Dexter and Smythson as did Rainbowwwave in the 7^th arrondissement with UK collections including Le Monde Béryl, Rupert Sanderson and Sunray. Both showrooms said that their appointments were tracking well and running well into the week. Emma Jones was also very upbeat this season with Freya Rose, Leem and Never Fully Dressed on the roster. The BFC’s LondonSHOWrooms saw three men’s plus three women’s pre-collections including luxury tailors Clothsurgeon and designer talents Labrum London, Nicholas Daley and Tolu Coker. Awaykin was supporting its regular curated list of brands including UK made collections from Cawley London, recent winner of the BFC/GQ Designer Fashion Fund Bleue Burnham and sustainable pioneers StoryMFG. PaperMacheTiger features UK based Korean designer Eudon Choi and London-based ready-to-wear brand Jakke. The Alphabet remained split between two locations with Self-Portrait and Roland Mouret near Grands Boulevards and Mandkhai and Mains London in the Marais.

One of the many highlights in this year’s collaborative approaches for womenswear for SS26 was the presence of Laura Pitharas and designer Paolina Russo showing at Paul Smith’s Foundation (effectively Sir Paul’s impressive Paris head office). Both designers are part of Sir Paul’s charity foundation year one intake with substantial support from Sir Paul himself and his many industry friends.

UKFT’s Discover British brands in Paris map highlighted and located the many UK designers and brands showing in Paris in locations suited to their style and budget, as always making it easier for buyers and press to navigate their way around the shows and showrooms and to identify UK brands and designers. Johnstons of Elgin’s permanent showroom was home to their collection throughout the week and fellow UKFT member and Scottish brand  Begg x Scotland showed their men’s and women’s collections from a luxurious apartment close to the Champs Elyéees. Liberty London showed their SS26 fashion collection on the Rive Gauche, close to the Bon Marché department store while Margaret Howell took a pop up showroom space in the Marais in addition to their permanent store on Place de la Madeleine.

In spite of the summer heat reaching 32 degrees over the weekend, all reported that they had had a good sign up for appointments and positive responses from buyers from the US as well as the UK, EU, Asia and the Middle East. The same was also reported by UK designer IA London in the Marais. Ira Avezov said: “When we decided to add IA London’s private Paris showroom in June, in addition to our regular March and October schedule, we weren’t sure what to expect. However, weeks before the show, demand for appointments was promising and we had a full schedule of international buyers who are expected to expand significantly our global distribution this year. UKFT was also pleased to meet the new team at Temperley London with their glamorous collections of day into evening and evening gowns in an exquisite hotel near the British Embassy. Sarita Jha, Interim CEO of Temperley London said: “Temperley London returned to Paris after a short hiatus with a new heritage collection in addition to its SS26 evening wear and ready to wear, each piece incorporating the Temperley DNA. We had very positive response to this very focussed collection. Global buyers in Paris for the market were generally upbeat and enthusiastic about their business with several stating that evening wear was increasingly a growing product segment for their markets.”

Swimwear, Resortwear and Cruise:

As always in June, Paris is home to the first annual edition of UK swimwear tradeshow and showroom Splash! Paris Tradeshow on Avenue Gabriel. The same company also runs Claret Showroom in the 2^nd arrondissement. This company lives and breathes swimwear, cruisewear, kaftans and resortwear with a broad array of luxury collections from around the world. Heading up the show were the UK’s Heidi Klein, Juliet Dunn, Moeva and Karma on the Rocks, all reporting good business and, incidentally, a great start to the season at Cabana in Miami. A short walk away, UKFT was pleased to be able to visit a new cruise/resort knitwear edit from John Smedley alongside Seasalt and some other UK brands at Kiss Showroom. At Claret Showroom, there were four UK cruise and resort brands including Hayley Menzies and Queens of Archive.

Buyer attendance and conversations:

According to most of the brands UKFT visited and spoke to, Paris Fashion Week remains their most important “market” both in terms of a look-see event but also for order-writing event, even if precise quantities and numbers almost always follow later nowadays!

Many of the shows, especially on the men’s side, were dominated by buyers from Asia with Asian buyers (specifically Japanese and Korean) making up the majority of the buyers at both Welcome Edition and MAN on the first days. Chinese buyers were in evidence but many of them were represented by local buying houses, based in Paris, and many of them increasingly look for Chinese collections rather than European ones as China grows the confidence to support its home-grown talent. Traditionally the pre-collections and swim shows start at a slightly less frenetic pace, with more formal appointments going into the Monday, Tuesday and sometimes the Wednesday although Splash! was busy from the start.

US and Middle Eastern buyers were also reportedly active at all the main shows and showrooms and there were mixed reviews on the effects of the US tariff changes. Some companies had remembered that the 90-day pause in the new US tariffs would come to an end in July and were trying to understand how this would affect their business and how they might manage this. UKFT continues to work with members on their strategies on this. Similarly, some companies were unaware that there are a number of major US department stores which are paying slowly, if at all, this season. UKFT would like to hear from UK companies affected by this (email: paul.alger@ukft.org) .

More avant-garde designers were asking UKFT about the what is happening at other international fashion weeks and shows. What we are seeing is a global change as the wholesale market for menswear and womenswear shrinks and consolidates as consumers focus more energy on casualwear and active sportswear and where only larger brands have the resources to advertise. Whilst many of these such as Dior do so in Paris quite spectacularly many do not need to – not even in Paris!

For the first time, UKFT saw real signs of French customs spot-checking on Eurostar customers arriving from London St Pancras International with excess luggage for a show with at least one company being charged a hefty fine for transporting samples without the requisite ATA Carnet. However, this was not a widespread issue and the majority of collections appeared to make it through customs in both directions without being challenge. UKFT will be checking on the ATA Carnet requirements between St Pancras International and Paris Nord with the Department for Business and Trade as the lack of clear implementation of the rules on Eurostar routes remains a matter of great confusion in both directions.

Finally, it was clear that UK and international consumers continue to make good use of the EU’s VAT refund scheme at the border with an increase in the number of terminals being used to process goods where the VAT refund applies. Most of Paris’s Department Stores have also made their own processes simpler and more obvious especially targeting UK and US citizens to encourage them to spend their money in the EU rather than at home. It is clear that more and more UK consumers are choosing to travel to Paris to buy in French stores with a considerable loss of revenue to the exchequer while UK retailers cannot attract international customers to shop in the UK in the same way.

UKFT continues to make the case for a new UK VAT refund scheme to attract UK and international customers to shop in the UK.

Paul Alger, director of international business at UKFT said: “It is extremely important for UKFT to be at the Paris Fashion Week events as we have been for over 30 years. This is where most of our members see their international customers and write their business. I very much hope that we shall find a way to maintain and expand our Discover British Brands in Paris mapping activity as all routes still seem to lead to Paris!”

UKFT’s activity at Paris Fashion Week is part of our Discover British Brands campaign, which showcases and promotes UK fashion and textile brands exhibiting at events across the world. Click on the link below to find out more:

UKFT DISCOVER BRITISH BRANDS