Karine Laudort It is safe to say this year has been a strange one and the uncertainty left us all wondering, will London Fashion Week still go ahead? Well, even in a global pandemic, the show must go on. London Fashion Week went ahead in September this year, with a mixture of digital and physical shows where possible.
Now, it is time to get excited about the next London Fashion Week! Although there is still a great amount of uncertainty, The British Fashion Council announced yesterday that the next edition of London Fashion Week will take place from Friday 19th to Tuesday 23rd February 2021. It will run as a digital-first event on www.londonfashionweek.co.uk with some scaled-back physical shows, the British Fashion Council is in constant communication with the Government to understand guidelines and restrictions.
The challenges around the movement of goods, samples, and people in the single market and customs union post Brexit, as well as conversations with sales showrooms regarding selling periods, were among reasons behind the decision to move the traditional menswear showcase from January to February in 2021. The British Fashion Council will support British menswear designer businesses to show and sell their collections, to enable them to share sales materials with international buyers ahead of the February shows. The organisation will use the London Fashion Week platform to drive reach to the designers’ online showrooms and physical sales contacts, and work on a sales-focused campaign aimed at the industry through January 2021.
Dylan Jones, BFC Menswear Chair said: “When we launched London Collections: Men in June 2012, which then became London Fashion Week Men’s, we were responding to an industry need and to the necessity to have a platform for our brilliant British menswear designers from emerging talent to Savile Row tailoring. A lot has changed since then, and this year’s pandemic made us all rethink the current system in place. We are confident that this move will help designers reach more people via the digital LFW platform, while still allowing them to do business as early as January without the deadline of a show.”
LFW digital platform is a year-round platform and is constantly updated for retailers, media, and consumers to view and buy collections. The platform will continue to serve as the Official Digital Hub and will be freely accessible to everyone, industry professionals and global fashion consumers alike, enabling collaboration and bringing together fashion, culture, and technology.
All of London’s Fashion Weeks will be open to all genders and seasons, as the British Fashion Council and London Fashion Week continue to look at the future and the opportunity to change, collaborate and innovate.
For 2021, the dates will be February (19th – 23rd), June (11th – 14th), and September (17th – 21st ).
The pandemic may have ruined lots of our plans this year, but you can count on London Fashion Week to go ahead. We may not know what the future holds, and how long this pandemic will last, but at least we can look forward to the shows in February.
