London Collections: Men, kick-starting the menswear calendar from Friday 15th June 2012, provides a new opportunity for the British Fashion Council (BFC) to unite fashion and digital innovation, encouraging engagement with this brand new menswear showcase through social media, live streaming and fashion film.
All shows at The Hospital Club, the event hub, will be live streamed online. Anyone can watch these shows at home or on the move, whether on their home computer, portable device or smart phone: www.londoncollections.co.uk/live. The Topman Design show will also be live streamed from the Topman Venue at the Sorting Office, WC1.
As well as live-streamed shows, the screening room at The Hospital Club will have a dedicated film programme, curated by the BFC Fash/On Film sponsored by River Island panel. London's rich cultural landscape inspires and contributes to the success of British menswear and this unique relationship will be showcased by the feature films screened: Test Presents will host an evening with DJ and fashion luminary Jeffrey Hinton who will be showing excerpts from his unique 80s film archive, and GQ.com's Jamie Millar will introduce a film that exemplifies men's style for him. The BFC have teamed up with Dazed & Confused who will present 'RISE Menswear SS13', their selection of emerging talent - Alex Mullins, Claire Barrow and Craig Green - who have produced films to showcase their collections with Dazed directors Alex Sainsbury, Fumi Nagasaka and Zoe Hitchen. These will be screened on Saturday afternoon.
The Fashion 2012 Menswear Committee will share their London Collections: Men moments on the BFC’s new Pinterest account. Influential figures within the menswear industry including Dylan Jones (Committee Chair and Editor-in-Chief, GQ) and Jeremy Langmead (Editor-in-Chief, MR PORTER.COM) will create daily virtual pin boards of their favourite catwalk looks, street style and inspiring moments from the event.
The public can get involved: followers can Tweet or Pin their outfits and menswear street style photos, whether taken at the event or anywhere in the world, using the hashtag #ManAboutTown. These will all be collated into a dedicated pinboard and Facebook album, aiming to provide a crowd-sourced visual collection of the best of British men’s style.
The BFC continue to work closely with Twitter to promote conversation around London Collections: Men using the hashtag #londoncollections. Q&A sessions will be held over the 3 days from the official @BFC account. Tweeters can pose questions in real-time to members of the Fashion 2012 Menswear Committee including designer Alex Bilmes (Editor, Esquire) and designer Richard James (#AskLCM). The London Collections: Men Timeline will take to Twitter, keeping track of the shows throughout the week with live updates of start times (#LCMtimeline). The Show Schedule is sponsored by Swarovski, the Official Timepiece of London Collections: Men.
To coincide with The Prince of Wales officially launching London Collections: Men at St James's Palace on Thursday 14th June, the BFC have worked closely with St James's Palace to create an interactive image gallery dedicated to his style. From highland tartans to Savile Row suits, the user can click on the Prince’s outfits to discover the origin of each item and more about the brand. His preferred London brands are also plotted on a map with a picture of the related outfit.
The gallery will be a key feature of the London Collections: Men website. The site, and newly launched mobile site, both feature maps of menswear show, event and showroom locations, as well as hotels, bars and restaurants. Users can create their own online personal calendar for the event, and use the website for directions between the shows; all features of the site that aim to use digital to simplify and maximize the visits of press and buyers to London Collections: Men.
Aurasma will bring London Collections: Men to digital life with the BFC and MR PORTER.COM. The windows of the Hospital Club will feature a life-sized catwalk illustration: using their mobile device, passers by simply need to download the MR PORTER Style Help app and hold it over the illustration, at which point it will spring to life with the latest catwalk footage from London Collections: Men. Aurasma is a new technology that is capable of recognising images and objects in the real world and seamlessly integrating them with rich video content and audio.
The BFC’s digital innovation strategy aims to harness technology and creativity to promote British designers to global audiences.
To see a full schedule of events and presentations in The Hospital Club’s screening room, visit: www.londoncollections.co.uk/lineup
To view the British Fashion Council’s brand new Pinterest account:
www.pinterest.com/britishfashion
To see full schedule of the guests for Twitter Q&A, visit:
www.londoncollections.co.uk/TwitterQA
www.twitter.com/BFC
For press enquiries regarding London Collections: Men please contact:
Will Rowley, British Fashion Council, +44 (0) 20 7759 1968
will.rowley@britishfashioncouncil.com
Image: TOPMAN Design AW12, at London Fashion Week, February 2012