You put on your shoes, your coat, your bag. But have you ever considered your coffee cup as your final accessory? New York and London coffee shop chain Blank Street is betting on it. The mint green matcha mecca, beloved by Gen Zs on TikTok, is launching a London Fashion Week (LFW) activation today, in partnership with the British Fashion Council, as it aims to build resonance way beyond its barista drinks.
Blank Street will serve coffee and matcha in LFW’s emerging designer NewGen space, host a breakfast for press, and stage a pop-up featuring an art installation for the public at its Strand outpost (a stone’s throw from the main LFW showspace). The brand has also dropped the puffer sleeve, a limited-edition puffer jacket for your Blank Street drink, available in-store and online from February 21.
“Fashion was always an industry that we felt a kinship with, because we see the cup itself as an accessory,” says Mohammad Rabaa, global creative director of Blank Street, who has spearheaded the project. “A quick scroll through our tagged photos will show you that people are including their Blank Street cups in their OOTD videos. We are being photographed as the finishing touch to a look alongside other accessories. The cup feels like part of people’s self-expression, which I think is so exciting.”
Blank Street was founded in 2020, originally as a coffee cart near New York’s iconic Wythe Diner in Brooklyn. The chain soon expanded across Manhattan, before landing in London’s Fitzrovia in 2022. Last year, Rabaa managed the chain’s rebrand, implementing a new serif logo and Pantone “12pm green” branding across storefronts and cups, which was a hit with young consumers. As of July 2025, the company was valued at approximately $500 million, per Bloomberg, operating over 90 locations in cities spanning the US and the UK.
Blank Street is not the only coffee brand activating across the Fall/Winter 2026 season. In New York, Starbucks financially supported five emerging designers — Area, Collina Strada, Eckhaus Latta, Sergio Hudson, and Zankov — to stage their fashion shows, with a view to co-create merch and coffee sleeves. In London, Vogue will once again run its Vogue Café concept at 180 Corner Shop, in partnership with Nike, featuring customized bites and juices. While in Milan, Vogue Italia will host its own Vogue Café from February 26-28, in partnership with womenswear brand Twinset.
It makes sense. Small luxuries like matcha, coffee, or $25 smoothies have become status symbols to the Gen Zs and millennials, priced out of traditional luxury goods, who enjoy romanticizing their daily lives while posting about it online. In turn, brands like Blank Street, or LA greengrocer-turned-luxury brand Erewhon, have become lifestyle labels, while food and drink pose as a key marketing vehicle for luxury brands looking to stay connected with young people.
