British Fashion Council unveils schedule for London Fashion Week 2021

Burberry's SS21 show yesterday (Picture: via REUTERS)

The British Fashion Council has unveiled the dates of the next genderless and digital-first London Fashion Week.

The next edition of the week-long event will take place from February 19-23, 2021 and menswear designers are being encouraged to take part.

While traditionally, the menswear showcase has been held in January, the British Fashion Council has moved to merge men and womenswear. "When we launched London Collections: Men in June 2012, which then became London Fashion Week Men’s, we were responding to an industry need and to the necessity to have a platform for our brilliant British menswear designers from emerging talent to Savile Row tailoring,” says Dylan Jones, the British Fashion Council’s Menswear Chair, “a lot has changed since then, and this year’s pandemic made us all rethink the current system in place.”

Similarly to September’s week-long event, February’s London Fashion Week will be digital-first with several scaled back physical activations

Caroline Rush, the CEO of the British Fashion Council, says: “Moving LFWM into LFW in February will continue to de-gender LFW, allow designers greater flexibility to consider what collection they show when and minimise travel requirements, taking us one step closer to a more sustainable future.”

At September's event - during which brands showcased their spring/summer 2021 collections - featured physical shows from Burberry and Bora Aksu, while Halpern and Victoria Beckham were among those who opted to hold scheduled appointments with press instead.