The British Fashion Council is joining forces with Amazon Fashion duringLondon Fashion Week to support British fashion designers impacted by theCovid-19 pandemic with a new designer digital storefront.
The Amazon Fashion x London Fashion Week digital boutique will supportand enable small and medium-sized British fashion designers to showcasetheir collections and tell their brand story to Amazon customers, whilstalso providing an opportunity to utilise Amazon’s speed and convenience ofdelivery.
The digital storefront will be available to Amazon customers across fiveof its European websites the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain,including Prime members, reaching tens of millions of customers.
In the UK, customers can shop from a curation of independent and localfashion designers for the first time at amazon.co.uk/LondonFashionWeek,including spring/summer collections and archival product acrossready-to-wear, party wear, loungewear, lingerie, and footwear. Menswear andwomenswear designers taking part include Preen, Les Girls Les Boys, Britishfootwear designer Grenson, De La Vali, shoe brand Kat Maconie, Teija, 1x1Studio, Ponder.ER, and Olubiyi Thomas.
Commenting on the initiative, John Boumphrey, vice president of AmazonFashion Europe, said in a statement: “We admire the work that the BritishFashion Council is doing to support designers during the current crisis andare thrilled to be able to extend our services to some of the most excitingUK designers, introducing them to new audiences and supporting withlogistics.
“We are committed to helping the fashion industry during this difficulttime through Amazon Fashion’s new London Fashion Week digital storefront,supporting both household names and independent brands.”
Amazon Fashion x London Fashion Week digital storefront to supportBritish fashion designers
Speaking about working with Amazon Fashion, Justin Thornton, co-founderof Preen, said: "London Fashion Week will always be unique for both talentand creativity, a must for designers to showcase their collections. Withall the change and disruption we have seen this year, now is a great timeto explore different ways to share 'Preen Line,' our contemporary brand,with millions of potential new customers across Europe. Working with AmazonFashion will allow us to do this, which is very exciting.”
De La Vali founders, Jana Sacha Haveman and Laura Castro, added: “We'repleased to be working with Amazon Fashion and the British Fashion Councilas part of this London Fashion Week initiative supporting independentBritish brands. It's an extraordinary time for fashion, and we're lookingforward to evolving alongside the industry and exploring the new creativeopportunities this opens up for us.”
Also available to purchase from the Amazon Fashion x London Fashion Weekstorefront will be the Great British Designer Face Coverings, a collectionof reusable, non-medical face masks created by Bags of Ethics inpartnership with the British Fashion Council, and designed in London by sixBritish designers - Rixo, Halpern, Liam Hodges, Mulberry, Julien Macdonald,and Raeburn. 100 percent of sale profits will be split between NHSCharities Together Covid-19 Urgent Appeal, the BFC Foundation Fashion Fund,and Wings of Hope Children’s Charity.
The Amazon Fashion x London Fashion Week digital storefront is part of awider project entitled ‘Amazon Fashion Connects’, a collection ofinitiatives with key industry partners that provides Amazon resources andinfrastructure to budding and established young designers throughoutEurope.
The dedicated storefront also features links to the British FashionCouncil’s official BFC Foundation Fashion Fund for the Covid Crisis,established to support creative fashion businesses and individuals tosurvive and navigate the coronavirus crisis. So far, the BFC Foundation hasmade 1,500,000 pounds of emergency funds available, with the majoritysupporting designer businesses and with a portion of funds also allocatedto students, underpinning the future generation of creative talent.
Amazon Fashion, alongside other partner fashion designers and retailers,donated to the fund in early April when the initiative was launched. As anextension to this support, Amazon Fashion has also offered its Europeanphotography studio in Hoxton free of charge to designer members of theBritish Fashion Council looking for studio space during this time.
Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, added:“The British Fashion Council is grateful for Amazon’s support duringCovid-19, helping the brands most vulnerable at this time. The AmazonFashion x London Fashion Week digital storefront provides a unique spacefor designers to access new customers and distribution that will allowtheir businesses to continue to grow, whilst providing them with ongoingsupport and expertise.”
Amazon Fashion makes ties with fashion organisations across theworld
This venture with the British Fashion Council is the latest initiativefrom Amazon, outside of the UK, Amazon Fashion has collaborated withCFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund’s ‘A Common Thread’ to support independent Americandesigners affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. While in France, Amazon hasmade a donation to the Institut Français de la Mode in order to contributeto the funding of social and diversity scholarships for students increative programs. This donation will be renewed over a period of threeyears, corresponding to the scholarships of students.
In Italy, Amazon Fashion has supported Camera Della Moda Italiana’s‘Together for Tomorrow’ Covid-19 relief fund, through a donation thatprovides immediate financial support to Italian fashion brands mostaffected by the pandemic throughout the country, while in Spain, AmazonFashion became an official partner of the Mercedes Benz Fashion WeekMadrid. A number of Spanish designers’ catwalk shows were live-streamedacross Amazon Fashion’s social media channels, with many of theircollections becoming immediately shoppable at Amazon Fashion as soon as theshows finished.
“Through our Amazon Fashion Connects initiative, we have been able towork with some of Europe’s most innovative designers for the first time,”explained Edward Westcott, Amazon seller services director for fashion,Europe. “Supporting local fashion designers is something we are extremelypassionate about at Amazon, and we think our customers are going to lovebeing able to shop these exciting collections at the click of a button.”
The Amazon Fashion x London Fashion Week digital storefront launches onthe first day of London Fashion Week, September 17.
Images: courtesy of Amazon Fashion
