LONDON, 15th March 2022 - The British Fashion Council is again looking to match the in-person catwalk creativity displayed at London Fashion Week (LFW) and tailor the supporting digital experience. Appointed as the digital agency for London Fashion Week for the year, IBM will redesign the London Fashion Week website, as an innovative cloud-based platform for the global fashion industry to interact with the fashion flair from London.

London Fashion Week is one of the four international Fashion Weeks, known for creativity, innovation, and responsible business. It encapsulates a luxurious high-end perspective and experience, alongside the creativity and emerging talent element.  A celebration of fashion, music, art, and culture, this appointment will see IBM play a key role this year, enabling broader access than ever before, as consumers can look to experience LFW through various digital channels. 

Powered by the IBM iX Experience Orchestrator and enabled by a public Cloud platform, the business design and experience transformation arm of IBM Consulting - IBM iX, has re-imagined the LFW experience by taking a human centred and value driven approach – including re-designing the mobile first website, removing friction in the journey and developing existing features and experiences such as City-Wide Celebrations, Event Schedules, Google Maps and Carousels. An IBM team of design and technology professionals collaborated with LFW, utilising the IBM Garage methodology  to generate innovative ideas and  rapidly turn those ideas into business value.

Kristine Long, IBM iX, UK and Ireland said, “London Fashion Week showcases some of the world’s most innovative emerging designers and established international brands. It’s important that the creativity, style and panache that is seen in the physical event is replicated into the digital experience.”

Clara Mercer, Communications Director, British Fashion Council said: “Immersive engagement plays an important role in connecting designers with buyers, media and consumers during London Fashion Week. As events move to a hybrid state to accommodate both a digital and physical experience, we looked to expand our work with IBM to help deliver the London Fashion Week digital platform and drive the most innovative experience for the fashion industry.”

IBM iX works at the intersection of digital strategy, design and exponential technologies to help transform experiences. The team helps clients embrace business design and takes an outcomes-led approach with the user at the centre to deliver exceptional customer experiences. This involves harnessing real-time insights, automation and AI, creating experiences aligned to a client’s brand vision to fostering engagement and consumer loyalty.

To experience the London Fashion Week platform and see for yourself: https://londonfashionweek.co.uk/designers/palmerharding#shop.

About IBM
IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

About BFC 
The British Fashion Council (BFC) is a not-for-profit organisation set up in 1983 with the role to strengthen British fashion in the global economy as a leader in responsible, creative businesses. It does this through championing diversity and building and inviting the industry to actively participate in a network to accelerate a successful circular fashion economy. The BFC promotes British fashion internationally and does so through fashion weeks, exhibitions and showcasing events. The BFC helps British designer businesses develop their profile and business globally and supports fashion talent beginning at college level, extending to talent identification, business support and showcasing schemes. The BFC Foundation (Registered Charity Number: 11852152) was created in 2019 for charitable purposes and grant giving; attracting, developing, and retaining talent through education and business mentoring. The BFC has donated £1,500,000 from the surplus that was generated from its activities over the past two years, including those generated from The Fashion Awards. Combined with the fundraising efforts of all its talent support initiatives and a call to BFC stakeholders to support fundraising to help businesses survive the COVID crisis, total donations of £3.2m have been received by the BFC Foundation to date. The BFC Foundation offers support to designers through four talent identification and business support schemes: BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund, BFC/GQ Designer Menswear Fund, NEWGEN in partnership with TikTok and the BFC Fashion Trust. With the support of the BFC Colleges Council, the BFC Foundation offers BA and MA scholarships to students, as well as links with industry through design competitions and Graduate Preview Day. In 2020, the BFC launched the Institute of Positive Fashion (IPF), with the aim to help the British fashion industry lead in the goal to be more resilient and circular through global collaboration and local action.

The BFC showcasing initiatives and events include London Fashion Week Presented by Clearpay taking place every February, June and September; LONDON show ROOMs and the annual celebration of creativity and innovation in the fashion industry: The Fashion Awards.

For more information visit: britishfashioncouncil.co.uk / londonfashionweek.co.uk / instituteofpositivefashion.com 

Media Contact
Imtiaz Mufti
IBM UK External Relations
Imtiaz.Mufti@uk.ibm.com