British Fashion Council (BFC) is supporting creative fashion businesses and individuals across the UK. by doling out as much as £50,000 ($60,900) 87extra funding to continue operating during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The grants, awarded from the council’s £1,000,000 ($1.2 million) emergency fund, are allocated to 37 viable businesses depending on their urgency and capability to function and thrive after the crisis.
The emergency fund pools talent support grants that would usually have been awarded for either early-stage showcasing support or business growth and promotion, including the BFC and Vogue Designer Fashion Fund (VDFF). Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, six of these designers—Alighieri, Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, David Koma, Halpern, Metier and Rejina Pyo—were named as finalists for the BFC and VDFF 2020. The winner was set to receive a cash prize of £200,000 ($243,700) and a year’s worth of mentoring, but the BFC and Vogue made the decision to split the prize money among the six designers in early March when COVID-19 upended the U.K. market.
The fund has seen more than 220 applications to date. All applicants who did not receive funding through this round will be informed when new rounds of funding open and will be advised of government support schemes.
Fund recipients will receive a maximum of £50,000 ($60,900) and will also be given access to BFC business support and mentoring from the BFC’s Fashion Business Network including DLA Piper, Eco-Age, Farfetch, FashionEx, Google, HSBC, Instagram, Lewis Silkin, Lloyds, LVMH, Mishcon De Reya, RSM, Sheridans, Taylor Wessing, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, The Bicester Village Shopping Collection and YouTube, plus individual expert one-to-one mentors from across the business value chain.
