Saul LeeseThe British Fashion Council (BFC) has announced that for the next twelve months, all London Fashion Weeks will merge womenswear and menswear into one gender neutral platform.
For this June, the fashion trade show will take a new form as a digital-only platform because of Covid-19. It will run from 12 June 2020 through the time period of former London Fashion Week Men’s. The digital platform www.londonfashionweek.co.uk will relaunch and be for both trade and consumer audiences.
Caroline Rush CBE, CEO of BFC, commented: “It is essential to look at the future and the opportunity to change, collaborate and innovate. Many of our businesses have always embraced London Fashion Week as a platform for not just fashion but for its influence on society, identity and culture. The current pandemic is leading us all to reflect more poignantly on the society we live in and how we want to live our lives and build businesses when we get through this. The other side of this crisis, we hope, will be about sustainability, creativity and product that you value, respect, cherish.
“By creating a cultural fashion week platform, we are adapting digital innovation to best fit our needs today and something to build on as a global showcase for the future. Designers will be able to share their stories, and for those that have them, their collections, with a wider global community; we hope that as well as personal perspectives on this difficult time, there will be inspiration in bucketloads. It is what British fashion is known for.”
London Fashion Week June 2020 will put storytelling at its heart and aims give a voice to British fashion businesses and creatives, allowing them to tell their stories in these extraordinary times. Bringing the fashion community together, the platform will host exclusive multimedia content from designers, creatives, artists and brand partners, enabling collaboration and bringing together fashion, culture and technology.
This new digital experience will offer interviews, podcasts, designer diaries, webinars and digital showrooms, giving the opportunity to designers to generate sales for both the public through existing collections and the retailers through orders for next season’s products.
Alongside longstanding brand partners of London Fashion Week, British GQ, Evening Standard, JD.COM, INC, LAVAZZA, LetsBab, Mercedes-Benz, The May Fair Hotel and TONI&GUY, BFC has engaged a number of digital pioneering brands, including Amazon Launchpad, Facebook, Google, Instagram, JOOR, ORDRE/ORB360 and YouTube, who will all be activating content in unique ways, helping British designer businesses reach new public and trade audiences. The event is also backed by the Department for International Trade and Mayor of London.