London Fashion Week’s autumn/winter 2026 edition kicked off with a surprise guest: none other than the King himself, who sat front row at Tolu Coker’s show at the NewGen Space at 180 Strand on Thursday afternoon. “I heard that rumour as well,” the British-Nigerian designer laughed, when asked a couple of days before the show about the murmurings that His Royal Highness would be making a special appearance.
In many ways, the presence of King Charles marks a full-circle moment for Coker, who received mentorship via The Prince’s Trust when she first decided to set up her own brand back in 2018. “When you’ve got a dream of doing something, you need to understand what’s the reality, the logistics, the practicality of it,” she explained. “The Prince’s Trust was a big resource for that. I met a lot of people who now are entrepreneurs, people from working-class backgrounds who just wanted to start a business.”
While designing her autumn/winter 2026 collection, Coker looked back at her roots growing up on the Mozart council estate in west London, following the death of her neighbour of 20 years just over a year ago. “It took me back to when we were younger, and what it was like to be on our block, playing out and hanging out, the simplicity of things,” she reflected.
As a working-class designer creating luxury womenswear, Coker was also thinking about the idea of social mobility this season. One of her first jobs was as a sales assistant for the Louis Vuitton concession at Selfridges, when she was given her first luxury outfit to wear. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s like my first designer thing’, but it’s your uniform, right?” she recalled, noting that some of the tailoring is reflective of that suit you might have borrowed for a job interview. “The collection is a big commentary on social mobility and how our wardrobes mobilise with us.”
It’s somewhat fitting, then, that King Charles should be sat front row as Coker recreated her block for the show, featuring a performance from Little Simz despite the designer not knowing that the monarch would be in attendance when creating the collection. “It’s ironic, it kind of feels like divine alignment,” the designer said. “I think there’s something very beautiful and powerful to be able to invite the King of England to our block. It’s a big statement of: this is London in all its color, beauty and glory. It’s what I set out to do, having important conversations through clothing. I don’t want to sanitize the space that I came from.”
