How Londoners’ fashion preferences stand out from—and align with—the UK

London is not the UK. The capital has its own patterns of speech and life. But how different is it when it comes to shopping? Which high street brands are tops in London and in the rest of the country?  To find out, we compared data from our daily brand tracking tool, YouGov BrandIndex, on clothing brand consideration among Londoners and the general UK population.

Shared favourites: M&S, Primark, H&M

The chart below shows the ten most-considered high-street fashion brands among Londoners. M&S tops the list with a score of 48%, followed by Primark (31%), H&M (31%) and Next (28%). Despite London’s distinct character, there are some broad similarities at the top of the list.

Still, some brands show significantly stronger appeal among Londoners. H&M, for instance, is considered by 31% of Londoners, versus just 25% nationally.

The brands that London loves more (and less) than the rest of the country

While Londoners share much in common with the rest of the UK, some brands set their taste apart. Below we show the brands where London tastes diverge most from the general population. The most-“London” brand according to Consideration scores on British high streets is Zara: 27% of Londoners would consider shopping there compared to only 17% of UK adults overall, a difference of 10 percentage points. Calvin Klein, Gucci and Levi’s are also considered more in the capital than elsewhere.

On the flip side, some brands find greater consideration outside of London. Tu Clothing, Matalan, and George (the latter two owned by supermarkets) show considerable gaps, with George considered by 12% of Londoners compared to 24% nationally. F&F Clothing (from Tesco) and Next also see significantly lower levels of consideration in the capital.

These differences point to a broader trend: while practical and value-driven brands dominate much of the UK, Londoners appear more drawn to brands with international flair, designer appeal, and trend-conscious offerings. For high-street retailers, understanding regional differences in brand consideration can help shape everything from product assortment to marketing strategies.

Methodology: All data is from YouGov BrandIndex, which tracks public perception of thousands of brands on a daily basis. Consideration is based on the question: “When you are in the market next to purchase clothing, from which of the following would you consider purchasing?” and is presented as the percentage of adults who select each brand. Sample sizes are a minimum of 1100 for this research, and data was gathered between 1/1/2025 and 25/6/2025.