On Tuesday 14th September 2021, Narmina Marandi and Tania Fares hosted the inaugural BFC Foundation Patron Drinks. This was an opportunity for our ‘Founding Forty’ BFC Foundation Patrons, to gather together after a very remarkable few years.
In March 2020, the BFC Foundation Fashion Fund was established to support creative fashion businesses and individuals to survive the Coronavirus crisis. This fund supported the industry through emergency funding with the majority supporting designer businesses and with a portion of funds also allocated to students, underpinning the future generation of creative talent. In July 2020, the BFC raised a further £500,000, allowing for applications to open for a second round, that were distributed to an additional 30 British designer businesses.
It is both thanks to the Covid Fund of 2020 as well as the new BFC Foundation Patron Programme (created in December 2020) that the British Fashion Council has managed to regain substantial stability and therefore can keep offering support, resource and hope to those who rely on us to not only build upon their businesses, but to stabilise them too. It has been a tricky time for many, but our continued momentum has all been down to your support.
It has been wonderful to continue to grow our BFC Foundation Patron community, who have so willingly dived in, donated, got involved and attended events in order to future proof our community, network and importantly, the Foundation. We hope to continue these valiant efforts for the Fashion Awards 2021 and into more normal programming in 2022.
Thank you and we hope to see you at the next BFC Foundation Annual Drinks in 2022.