London Fashion Week, the industry's biggest project, starts on Friday

London Fashion Week, which begins on Friday morning, promises to be an excellent season, with a wealth of new talent; heavy hitter shows; endless fashion parties and afternoon teas in Downing Street for a select few.

Although the city has few powerful brands that can match Milan or Paris, when it comes to raw talent, no city is more important than the UK capital.

The four-day season officially begins on Friday morning with Irish veteran Paul Costelloe and culminates on Tuesday evening with Burberry's third runway show by creative director Daniel Lee. Although the shows and performances are spread across both season ends, they are effectively held over six days.

There are also major university graduation shows throughout the weekend, from joint performances by the London College of Fashion to the Central Saint Martins Masters Show, both on Friday night. All the way to Fashion East. Invented by legendary fashion maven Lulu Kennedy, Fashion East is arguably the biggest launching pad for the world's fledgling designers.

The season will also welcome with a parade, the home of Dunhill. Dunhill, one of the UK's most venerable brands, will present its exhibition in one of London's most venerable venues: the National Portrait Gallery.

Fresh from conquering Paris with her stellar portrayal of Jean-Paul Gaultier (in the latest collaboration with a directional designer from Jean-Paul's couture atelier), Simone Rocha will be a key attraction at LFW. The Irish designer and couturier from Hong Kong, as is her custom, will once again hold her fashion show inside a church. This season it is the turn of St. Bartholomew the Great, a 12th-century church with Norman elements that is said to have miraculous healing powers.

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Immediately after Rocha comes Richard Quinn, part of a busy week for the designer. Four days later, in Milan, Quinn will celebrate his first collaboration with Max & Co with a presentation and then dinner at Terrazza Martini, overlooking the Duomo.

The season also features half a dozen must-see shows from the likes of JW Anderson, Erdem, Roksanda, Molly Godard, David Koma and Edward Crutchley.

In total, there are almost 60 parades listed on the official calendar, along with almost the same number of performances and more than two dozen digital exhibitions. It is often featured as part of DiscoveryLAB, a UK-exclusive immersive digital exhibition featuring emerging talent such as Rhyzem, Savvas Alexander, KYLE Ho, Nyland Studio and Amber W. Smith, among others.

In a very real sense, fashion is the inverse image of football when it comes to the relationship between Britain and France. While in football, the richest league in the world – the Premiership – has dozens of young players emerging from the tough suburbs of Paris, Marseille and Lyon. In the field of fashion, the great houses of Milan and, above all, Paris, meticulously explore London Fashion Week in search of new design talents. Similar, in part, to the annual draft in American sports, where the most talented individuals are detected and hired. The same goes for fashion, as European brands appear with tempting offers, from night jobs and partnerships to collaborations and creative directions.

This has been true since John Galliano and Alexander McQueen first came to Paris to run Dior and Givenchy some three decades ago.

And so far, even if Brexit has seriously crippled UK fashion by turning simple deliveries to Europe into expensive and time-consuming exports, the decision to say goodbye to Europe hasn't stopped UK fashion schools continue to be the best considered on the planet. . Until now.