Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Image
On Wednesday, the British Fashion Council announced that its upcoming London Fashion Week for the Fall 2021 season — scheduled to run from Feb 19 through 23 — will be entirely digital. The news comes a little over a week after Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered a third national lockdown for England amid a surging Covid-19 outbreak driven by a U.K. variant.
“This further lockdown is incredibly challenging for businesses, freelancers and individuals,” Caroline Rush, Chief Executive of the BFC, said in a statement. “Our industry is one of amazing creativity and this is more true in the U.K. than any other country. The majority of businesses and individuals we work with are independent businesses and creatives who contribute significantly to the cultural and creative reputation of our country.”
At this time, filming and shoots can continue under certain guidelines, including Performing Arts, Shoot Guidelines and Filming Guidelines, but all permitted activity that involves interaction with individuals outside of immediate households is under constant review.
“The BFC continues to ask Government to engage in support of the fashion industry,” Rush said. “One of the main active requests is to allow key creative and model talent to travel to and from the U.K. with a phased introduction of quarantine exemptions for the fashion industry, in order to carry out essential business, to protect the competitiveness of the British fashion industry.”
London Fashion Week will take place on www.londonfashionweek.com, a digital platform, where people can access not just the collections that would typically debut on a runway or at a presentation, but also additional multi-media content, including interviews with designers, podcasts and e-commerce.
“We will continue to push for support and champion our extraordinary businesses to global audiences. Despite all the challenges the last few years have brought, I truly believe that the creativity, agility and business savvy of our sector will prevail and the societal conscious of our British businesses and fashion workforce will see us re-calibrate to not only be strong creatively but strong sustainably too.”
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