London Fashion Week for Men: Turning Digital & Gender-Neutral

Earlier this week the British Fashion Council announced that Men's fashion week, set to be held on the week commencing 12th June, will now be both digital and gender-neutral due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. It will include womenswear alongside menswear, and will be able to be streamed via the londonfashionweek.co.uk website.

The British Fashion Council held their first London Fashion Week almost 40 years ago and so this is the first time in history that any one of the quarterly events, typically divided by gender and seasons, will be shown digitally, as well as being gender-neutral.

Over the recent few years, criticism has grown around fashion weeks for multiple reasons. Some of these are down to: carbon footprint, huge costly shows, production size, and the general treatment of models. Therefore, I definitely think the timing of this update to LFW is perfect (minus the fact it’s only happened due to a global pandemic...) since change, and diversity to the historic industry has been needed for quite some time.

“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.” - Caroline Rush, The British Fashion Council Chief Executive

The virtual event is set to include, 'interviews, podcasts, designer diaries, webinars and digital showrooms'. I think this is such a huge, exciting change for the fashion world. They are enabling everyone, both industry insiders and fashion consumers to enjoy this creative time of year, and to also be immersed in this once exclusive fashion world. Caroline Rush, said “It is essential to look at the future and the opportunity to change, collaborate and innovate” – something which I believe has been a long time coming.

“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.”

This change is something which I'd hope will be evident in the fashion world forevermore. For example, I think designers being able to share their stories, experiences and collections with the much wider global community of fashion consumers, will be very positive for them and their businesses, and I imagine they will develop into doing this more often… more exposure = more fans / consumers = more sales, right?

Now looking at the merging of the genders, although it will be happening this June, the BFC have said this does not signal the cancellation of September’s LFW. They have suggested that this new set up is to “encourage flexibility” for brands which have increasingly demanding schedules. I do think this makes sense, as of course the British Fashion Council will want to keep their heritage and structure in which the industry has always seen. In my opinion, I think the fashion weeks should stick to different gender shows (unless the brand is unisex), but definitely encourage more of a digital and inclusive aspect.

“This will no doubt be an interesting time for brands to test new models and think about how they can really connect with their customers.” - Sara McAlpine, ELLE UK's Fashion Features Editor

Brands such as HAFINA have already chosen to opt for a digital runway, to enable larger exposure, and this brand also chose to premier its new collection at a time which felt ready to them, rather than sticking to the typical timings of international runway shows. Read more about this new, innovative, exciting brand here.

Mia

xo