Taiwanese Designers Make Their Mark at London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week has always thrived on contrast. The classic and the radical. The polished and the raw. The heritage house and the breakout voice. This season, one of the most intriguing moments didn’t happen on the runway at all but inside the Institute of Contemporary Arts, where four Taiwanese designers staged a sensory showcase that pushed the boundaries of how we experience fashion.

Commissioned by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, From Taipei to London: A Sensory Showcase of Taiwanese Creativity turned the Brandon & Nash Rooms into an immersive dialogue between clothes, culture, and cuisine. The premise was disarmingly simple: four designers, four distinct visions, and a collaboration with BAO London that translated those visions into dishes, creating a multi-sensory bridge between what you see and what you taste. The execution, however, was anything but ordinary.

A fashion narrative told through taste and texture

Curator Rain Wu framed the exhibition as a narrative rather than a static display. Guests weren’t just looking at garments, they were stepping into four design worlds, each one with its own rhythm, palette, and personality. Like marbles on a traditional Taiwanese marble run, the designers’ ideas ricocheted around the space, bursting with energy and refusing to stay contained.

APUJAN, the knitwear virtuoso, offered three looks that distilled the label’s signature tension between dream and discipline. Chiffon gowns floated against jacquard textiles, suggesting both fragility and strength, while futuristic knitwear techniques hinted at the brand’s cult reputation for storytelling through fabric.

INFDARK brought heritage into sharp relief, drawing on traditional Taiwanese motifs and reworking them for a new generation. It was cultural translation at its most precise: garments that could hold their own on a London street but carried with them a history embedded in weave, colour, and cut.

JENN LEE’s contribution was perhaps the most autobiographical. Her decade-long journey from a fragmented, gothic-inspired return to Taiwan to a romantic and playful present was captured in pieces designed for women unafraid of contradictions. Multi-purpose garments and deconstructed detailing embodied a spirit of experimentation, giving wearers permission to be more than one thing at once.

RAY CHU closed the circle with a focus on sustainability and inclusivity. Using eco-friendly fabrics—tea leaf waste, fish-scale fibres—Chu crafted tailored silhouettes that were both gender-neutral and uncompromisingly stylish. Here was a designer making sustainability feel less like an obligation and more like a creative opportunity, turning waste into something aspirational.

Beyond the showroom

If the garments carried weight on their own, the partnership with BAO London elevated the experience into something unforgettable. Each designer’s vision was paired with an exclusive dish, designed to mirror their collections. Guests at the evening event spoke of flavours that unlocked textures in the clothes, aromas that lingered like fabric on skin. It was a bold reminder that fashion is not only visual—it is sensory, tactile, and even edible when the storytelling is strong enough.

Ambassador Representative Vincent Chin-Hsiang Yao and representatives of the British Fashion Council were among the audience, alongside industry insiders who left describing the event as “a truly remarkable sensory experience… far beyond a traditional showroom.” That reaction is telling. At a time when presentations risk blurring into one another, this was a showcase that carved out space in the crowded LFW calendar.

Taiwan on the global stage

The timing couldn’t be sharper. With London Fashion Week expanding its international reach, Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture used this platform to amplify four voices that are both distinctly Taiwanese and globally resonant. It wasn’t about exporting a singular aesthetic but about demonstrating the creative range that exists within the island’s design ecosystem: the fantastical knitwear of APUJAN, the cultural remixing of INFDARK, the gothic-romantic evolution of JENN LEE, the sustainable sharpness of RAY CHU.

Together, they made a case for Taiwan as a hub where craft, sustainability, and innovation intersect. Just as importantly, they positioned themselves within the wider LFW conversation—not as guests at the table, but as contributors shaping the menu.

What comes next

The exhibition was just the beginning. All four designers are continuing to show during London Fashion Week’s official schedule, where the spotlight will inevitably sharpen. For an industry perpetually searching for the next voice, the showcase served as both an introduction and a reminder: some of the most exciting ideas right now are being forged far beyond the traditional capitals.

In an era where fashion weeks are increasingly about spectacle, this was something subtler and more profound—a meditation on creativity as a sensory experience. From Taipei to London, the message was clear: Taiwanese fashion isn’t just arriving. It’s already here, rewriting the rules of how we see, touch, and even taste what we wear.