Everything You Need to Know About London’s First Digital Fashion Week
Stephanie Hirschmiller
European Editor
On Friday, London will be the first major fashion capital to stage a digital fashion week. The British Fashion Council unveiled its schedule on Tuesday which merges men’s and women’s — and combines current and new season collections.
The action will take place via a specially created digital platform, which is accessible for both fashion industry professionals and general public alike.
The platform is hosting multimedia content from designers, creatives, brand partners, media, retailers and cultural institutions. It includes interviews, a podcast with BFC ambassador Tinie Tempah, designer diaries, webinars and digital showrooms. Once the content has been published, it will remain online and be available to watch at any point.
British West Indian men’s designer Bianca Saunders is launching a new zine and hosting a panel discussion. Charles Jeffrey Loverboy is launching a capsule. And Netflix “Next in Fashion” star Daniel w. Fletcher will debut a new see-now, buy-now collection.
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U.S. based creative Natasha Zinko is launching her spring ’21 collection with American retailer The Webster using 3D renderings within a three dimensional space inspired by the latter’s Miami and Los Angeles boutiques.
In collaboration with JD.com, LFW China Ambassador Hu Bing has created three films to celebrate and spotlight three key British brands, Samuel Ross’ A-Cold-Wall, Paul Smith and Smythson. Farfetch is also teaming up with Ross and more via ‘in conversation’ films with Chinese influencers Sunni, Dipsy, Anny Fan and Fil Xiaobai respectively in a series of four films.
British department store group John Lewis is celebrating self expression by backing the first London fashion show created with user generated content. An instagram casting call asked U.K. residents to dress up in an outfit that brings them joy. To recognize each participant, John Lewis will donate around $6.50 to the BFC Foundation Fashion Fund for coronavirus aid.
Drest, the interactive luxury styling game, asked its users submit their own creations showcasing the best of British designers and will feature the winning looks via a a short campaign video.
While London nonessential retailers cannot open until June 15, many European countries including France have now emerged from lockdown. The digital showcase is collaborating with Paris’ Galeries Lafayette Champs-Elysées department store on a physical initiative. This week, the retailer is celebrating 10 British designers, including A-Cold-Wall, Alighieri, Craig Green, Rejina Pyo, Simone Rocha and Wales Bonner with installations in store. Exclusive online content will be uploaded to the LFW platform June 12.
New data released by Oxford Economics shows that in 2019, the British fashion industry directly contributed $44.5 billion to the UK GDP, a 9.38% increase from 2018, with the number of people employed by the industry remaining constant year on year at 890,000. Now the industry is reeling from the impact of the coronavirus.
