Are you ready for medieval-core?

No one was more surprised than medieval armourer Matthew Finchen.

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One of the most memorable looks from all of London Fashion Week was not made in an airy studio in Stoke Newington, but crafted with a forge and anvil in Mansfield Woodhouse, the town in Nottinghamshire.

This season Finchen, owner of Lancaster Armoury, who is on a mission to keep the “back-breaking”, highly skilled tradition alive, was in luck, for the new style pin-ups are not waif-looking supermodels sucking cigarettes in the Nineties but the knights and heroines that fill up history books.

From Burberry to Annie’s Ibiza, it was less about naked dresses you could flaunt at the Oscars after-parties, more about chainmail that would be enviable during the Battle of Agincourt. Medieval-core was an unlikely, yet undeniable, trend to dominate the autumn winter 2025 collections.

It was Annie Doble, founder of Annie’s Ibiza, who commissioned Finchen to make her party-girl suit of armour (complete with chain, micro mini) which was inspired by “strong, inspirational females” from Caterina Sforza (1463-1509) to Joan of Arc (1412-1431).

“We settled on a striking bodice with globular hips, shoulder armour, and a set of greaves for the legs,” explains Finchen, before he embarked on the 30-hour process (20 hours of hammering; 10 of grinding and polishing “to give it that beautiful shine”) to create the outfit.

He was proud as he watched it strut down the decadent Great Hall of One Great George Street, Westminster, on show day. “It certainly caught Daphne Guinness’s eye,” he says. Anyone who really loved it can order their own “Joan Of Arc Armour Suit” for £8,500 on Annie's Ibiza website now. “It will take us a few months,” Finchen says. “But we are happy to make anyone a bespoke version.”