London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week
Genre fashion catwalk shows and surrounding events
Frequency biannually
Location(s) London
Inaugurated 1984
Attendance over 5,000 press and buyers
Organised by British Fashion Council for the London Development Agency with help from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Website
http://londonfashionweek.org/

London Fashion Week is a clothing trade show held in London twice each year, in February and September. It is one of the "Big Four" fashion weeks, along with the New York, Milan and Paris.[1][2]

Organization

Organised by the British Fashion Council (BFC) for the London Development Agency with help from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, London Fashion Week first took place in 1984. It currently ranks alongside New York, Paris and Milan as one of the 'Big Four' fashion weeks.[3] It presents itself to funders[4] as a trade event that also attracts significant press attention and benefit to taxpayers. It is also able to get an official sponsorship from Mercedes-Benz,[5] a worldwide known automobile brand and global hairdressing company Toni & Guy. It states that it is attended by over 5,000 press and buyers, and has estimated orders of £40 million[6] or £100 million.[7] A retail-focused event, London Fashion Weekend, takes place immediately afterwards at the same venue and is open to the general public.[8]

The UK fashion industry is estimated to support 797,000 jobs (source: Oxford Economics 2014). This is a decrease of 2.3% from 2009.[9]

The current venue for most of the "on-schedule" events is Somerset House in central London, where a large marquee in the central courtyard hosts a series of catwalk shows by top designers and fashion houses,[10] while an exhibition, housed within Somerset House itself, shows over 150 designers.[11] However, many "off-schedule" events, such as Vauxhall Fashion Scout and On|Off, are organised by other private-funded groups and take place at other venues in central London.[12]

Manish Arora catwalk show at LFW 2006

Live video stream

In Spring 2010, London Fashion Week became the first major fashion week to fully embrace digital media when it offered all designers who were showing their collections on the catwalk at Somerset House the opportunity to broadcast their shows live on the internet.[13] The video stream can be seen on London Fashion Week's website.

Models at the Ozwald Boateng show, 2010

London Collections Men

In Summer 2012, London for the first time introduced London Collections Men, in addition to the collections shows in spring / summer and autumn / winter.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Bradford, Julie (2014). Fashion Journalism. Routledge. p. 129.
  2. ↑ Dillon, Susan (2011). The Fundamentals of Fashion Management. A&C Black. p. 115.
  3. ↑ "British Fashion Council website". Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  4. ↑ "Agreement for Funding Relative to Creative Sector Support - Designer Fashion. Parties: LDA/BFC website". Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  5. ↑ "London Fashion Week Official Sponsors".
  6. ↑ Caroline Rush. "Record Figures for London Fashion Week". Crush Communications. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  7. ↑ "London Fashion Week factsheet". Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  8. ↑ "London Fashion Weekend website". Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  9. ↑ http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/news/623/Facts--Figures-AW14
  10. ↑ "London Evening Standard article". Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  11. ↑ "London Fashion Week website". Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  12. ↑ "Arts London website". Retrieved 2010-03-10.
  13. ↑ Rice, Simon (2010-02-19). "Independent newspaper article". The Independent (London). Retrieved 2010-03-10.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to London Fashion Week.