As the fashion industry scrambles to adapt to a new landscape of global store closures, minimised manufacturing capabilities and limited consumer demand, it was inevitable that the traditional Fashion Week format would have to change.
Taking the lead, London Fashion Week announced today that for the next 12 months, it would merge menswear and womenswear into one gender-neutral platform. The new strategy is designed to give designers greater flexibility.
As a result, London Fashion Week Men’s, which was due to start on Friday, June 12, will now follow this gender-neutral format, presented on a digital-only platform.
Londonfashionweek.com will relaunch for both trade and consumer audiences, and will become a place where British fashion designers and creatives can show their collections – if they have them – but also, more importantly, share their stories, through exclusive multimedia content.
Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council, organiser of London Fashion Week, stresses that the current environment offers an opportunity “to change, collaborate and innovate”, and hopes that the industry will place a greater focus on creativity and sustainability in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
"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. The other side of this crisis, we hope, will be about sustainability, creativity and product that you value, respect, cherish," says Rush.
“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.
"Designers will be able to share their stories, and for those that have them, their collections, with a wider global community; we hope that as well as personal perspectives on this difficult time, there will be inspiration in bucketloads. It is what British fashion is known for.”
Designers slated to appear in the June fashion week have not yet been confirmed.
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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COMPANY PROFILE
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Company profile
Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
Based: Dubai
Sector: Online grocery delivery
Staff: 200
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The bio
His favourite book - 1984 by George Orwell
His favourite quote - 'If you think education is expensive, try ignorance' by Derek Bok, Former President of Harvard
Favourite place to travel to - Peloponnese, Southern Greece
Favourite movie - The Last Emperor
Favourite personality from history - Alexander the Great
Role Model - My father, Yiannis Davos
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
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THE TWIN BIO
Their favourite city: Dubai
Their favourite food: Khaleeji
Their favourite past-time : walking on the beach
Their favorite quote: ‘we rise by lifting others’ by Robert Ingersoll
