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The British Fashion Council (BFC) has today issued a rallying cry to the UK industry to come together and find common solutions to the challenges it faces, from the cost-of-living crisis to increased sustainability regulation and post-Brexit red tape.
In a letter sent to its members this morning, BFC chair David Pemsel sets out a strategy built on three main pillars: innovation; responsible growth; and the local and global “amplification” of the British fashion industry. However, he says it will take an industry-wide effort to achieve its ambitions.
“Today, we are sharing our refocused strategy that places you, the BFC community, front and centre,” Pemsel writes. “After three years of turmoil — from Brexit to Covid, to the war in Ukraine, to the cost-of-living crisis — taking the time to reset has been essential.”
The letter comes as fashion councils face increasing pressure to support designers, who — after being hit hard by the pandemic — are now battling with rising costs and meeting new legislative requirements around sustainability. Pemsel acknowledges this: “The UK fashion industry is harder to navigate than ever, with new international trading terms post Brexit, challenges to access finance, longer payment terms, increasing regulation on the horizon as our industry transitions to net zero, the need to create a truly diverse workforce with equal access, and the opportunity sighted through Web3.”
He writes that, since taking over the role from Stephanie Phair in October, he has been working with BFC chief executive Caroline Rush and its board to gauge what the industry needs from the organisation over the next three to five years. In a call with Vogue Business, Pemsel says there is an “imperative for the BFC to demonstrate its value”, which it can only do by bringing together the wider industry to create change at scale.
He explains that the organisation is a non-profit staffed by a team of 40 people. “I think sometimes the BFC tries to do too much. If you look at all the things the industry needs to fix, it can’t be beholden on just the BFC to solve them – it’s beholden on all of us to work together.” He adds: “The list of challenges facing the industry is probably more severe than it’s ever been.”
Breaking the cycle
Pemsel says the organisation will continue to champion innovation by positioning British fashion as a “catalyst of change in core commercial and cultural areas of the industry”. Central to this is the Institute of Positive Fashion, through which the BFC fosters conversations and collaborations around diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and the environment. There will also be a renewed focus on the role of Web3.
To fuel responsible growth, the BFC will create new networking, insight and advisory opportunities, such as masterclasses led by experienced industry executives. It will also continue to support the next generation of fashion talent through its early-stage business mentoring programmes and the BFC Foundation — which in the financial year 2022/23 paid out £1.1 million in grants to designers through initiatives such as BFC Newgen, the BFC/GQ Designer Fashion Fund, BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund and BFC Fashion Trust.
“We have a worldwide reputation for cultivating the next big fashion talents, but we need to make sure we’re creating an environment for these businesses to grow sustainably,” Pemsel tells Vogue Business. “We can’t keep allowing the cycle of fanfare about the next up-and-coming designer, who a year later has to go and work for a bigger house or give up on their [own brand] dreams.”
The third pillar is amplifying the British fashion industry’s narrative both locally and globally, which it will do primarily through evolving London Fashion Week and The Fashion Awards.
“These events aren’t just parties. They are moments through which we amplify the British fashion industry – and the national identity of the UK – on the global stage,” says Pemsel. “As a business leader who’s been around a bit [he is the founder of Science Magic Inc and former CEO of Guardian Media Group], I hear from lots of people that the UK is suffering an identity crisis. What does it stand for? What are its superpowers? The fashion industry is one of those superpowers. The UK desperately needs to amplify what it’s good at.”
The political climate
When Pemsel became chair, he made it clear that one of the biggest opportunities, in his eyes, was to ensure fashion is seen as equal and as important to any other creative industry in the UK, and to facilitate more cross-industry collaboration. For this, government support would be “vital”, he said. But, just weeks after Pemsel took on the role, Liz Truss resigned as UK prime minister after the mini-budget delivered by her then chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, decimated confidence in the British economy.
Truss’s successor, Rishi Sunak, has ushered in more stability, but his track record on supporting the industry has, to date, been mixed. In February, he dutifully touted his support of London Fashion Week, pointing to statistics in the BFC’s 2023 Value of the UK Fashion Industry report, which showed the industry employs nearly 900,000 people and contributes £21 billion to the UK economy.
However, he also ruffled the industry’s feathers by scrapping tax-free shopping when he was chancellor in 2021; a policy he has resolutely stuck to since taking over the top job, despite repeated calls from the BFC and chiefs of several large fashion brands and retailers — among them, Harrods, Selfridges and Burberry — to reinstate the tax break.
“What’s been difficult is the transient nature of government,” Pemsel says, diplomatically. “It has made it difficult to build bonds, to ensure consistency. Caroline has some good and productive relationships with government and over the last few months we’re starting to see a better understanding [from ministers] of the wider role of the creative industries, including fashion – an emerging appreciation that our creativity is part of the UK’s superpower. I think that message is getting through.”
Still, he says that there could be more “tangible” support in the form of a boost to its funding. “We believe that, when the fashion industry is strong, it contributes to our national identity, and that needs to be better understood by the government. We need to see tangible evidence of that understanding in the form of financial support.”
The future of fashion week
The timing of Pemsel’s letter, as the June co-ed London Fashion Week kicks off, may reignite the conversation about this particular event s role within the BFC’s offer.
When it first launched in 2012, under the leadership of then-British GQ editor Dylan Jones, the June event had a clear identity as the menswear iteration of London Fashion Week. Then called London Collections: Men (LCM), it featured shows, presentations and events from a mix of British and international brands and heritage labels, including Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders, Richard Nicoll (who debuted his men’s line during the inaugural event), Burberry, Paul Smith, Belstaff, Thom Browne, Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford, Dunhill, Hackett, Margaret Howell, Pringle of Scotland, E Tautz, Hardy Amies and Richard James. The former Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, hosted an opening reception.
By early 2015, after six seasons, the schedule had grown enough to extend the event from three days to four. However, soon after designers began to shift their approach to fashion weeks, and some began to combine their men’s and women’s wear shows. As designers dropped off the menswear schedule, the BFC decided to make LCM more consumer facing, and to that end rebranded it to London Fashion Week Men’s. The pandemic was the final nail in the coffin of a dedicated menswear event.
Last year’s June LFW was a ghost of its former self, however, it managed to attract enough buzzy emerging British designers to keep momentum going. This year, it’s even smaller in scale, with only a handful of shows, presentations and events. The BFC says it is piloting a new strategy that opens up access to brands that may not be able to — or want to — put on a full catwalk show.
Asked about the event’s future, Pemsel says: “The board – and I as chair – need to support Caroline to ensure that every event ties back to the new strategic framework. Every time we deploy money or resources, can we be sure it’ll contribute to the three pillars? Caroline and the team have a mandate to scrutinise all of this and whether it makes an impact. She’ll be very focused on ensuring [the June LFW] contributes.”
His letter concludes with an appeal to the BFC “community” to support its ambitions: “We have unwavering belief in the UK fashion industry, its creative heartbeat and London as a global fashion capital. Our businesses are innovators, challengers and provocateurs, and our ambitions are too great to be constrained by the small team at the BFC.”
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