Brighton Fashion Week Xmas Pop-Up Shop

BFW, the fashion week that keeps on giving

Just over a month ago, the last edition of the Brighton Fashion Week took place at All Saints Church in Hove and it was also the first time that it showcased only sustainable collections and designers. The sustainability theme goes on as BFW keeps on giving till January the 6th with a Xmas Pop Up Shop located at the FAIR shop, in Queens Road (the big road that you find just outside the station going all the way down to the seafront). The location is well know for having been the spot of the Biba's first boutique, that was celebrated at the Brighton Museum with a retrospective exhibition three years ago.

The selection and mix of designers stays true to the BFW ethos to provide a platform for up and coming designers with a distinctive style irrespective of their origin. Infact the 20 designers at the Xmas Pop Up Shop include local, national and international brands and a wide range of products, from jewellery to clothing, accessories, homewear and gifts.

Brighton Fashion Week 2015

This is the English translation of my article on BFW 15 that appeared on Fashion News Magazine in Italian a week ago. I'm translating it to make it accessible to my English speaking audience.

All pictures by Malcom Tam

The success of last year's Sustain event, convinced Lizzy Bishop, the founder and creative mind of Brighton Fashion Week, to focus the 2015 edition entirely on sustainable fashion. Not only upcycling workshops in order to create new garments out of old ones, but also debates, networking events and overall fashion shows whose designers used sustainability as part of their production and business model.

If Brighton Fashion Week doesn't attract thousands of journalists, fashion insiders and buyer like London, with the English capital shares a really strong push towards innovation and the right balance between creativity and business. To have thirty 'sustainable' designers on the schedule is not an easy task but the excellent scouting work done by the BFW shows that it is possible to create an event that proves that sustainable fashion can be real, a viable model for the future of this industry.

Even in the wide ranging diversity of the collections, all the brands share some 'good pratices' like using end of the roll fabrics, digital prints, eco-friendly dyeing techniques and the use of  organic materials and chemically treated as less as possible. Finally in order to show that sustainable fashion is a model that works well globally, in this 2015 edition, there were both designers from Brighton - the talented Isaac Raimond and my bias L.O.M - and from Asia - Angus Tsui and Tiffany Pattinson - who showed the best four collections of the event together with the floral menswear suits by KellyDawnRiot, that were a hit with the Brighton audience

Brighton Fashion Week 2015

I've always been a keen supporter of fashion designers and fashion weeks close to the place I live; it doesn't matter if it's Rome Haute Couture - AltaRoma - and the Vogue Italia talents or the annual Brighton Fashion Week. Since I moved to Brighton, as you know, I've followed and be involved in it and year after year seen it become bigger and bigger. The 2015 edition is upon us, from the 15th to the 17th of October and is going to be entirely sustainable as the events, workshops, talk and last but not least collections show will be eco-friendly.

The Open Market will open the schedule with Fashion Salvage, a workshop that is aiming to show and educate people on how to up-cycle discarded clothes, using a 'Tonne of Clothes' that will be shipped to the Market as source material for the workshop. The same 'Tonne' will also be used on Saturday the 17th by LYC ( Love Your Clothes)  in partnership with Cancer Research UK and is open to the general public.

Brighton Fashion Week Xmas 2014 Pop Up Shop

After the success of its 2014 edition Brighton Fashion Week sprinkles its fashion dust over Christmas too, opening its first Pop Up shop. The aim and the mission of this event, that runs from December the 9th to January the 6th is, as the main fashion event, to showcase talent, innovation and above all give to independent, artisanal and young brands a springboard to reach a wider audience and get to be know. 

The video below gives you a clear idea of the quirky and unique  gifts that can be bought in the shop and the range of products available; from jewellery to clothing and accessories, from homewares and artworks. Here just an edit of the products available on the shop but you can choose from many more as there are over 35 designers selling them. 

The pop up shop is at 12 Meeting Lane, in the South Lanes and is open from 10am to 6pm Monday to friday and 10am-4,30pm on Sundays. Below the banner and the a map to easily find the BFW Xmas pop-up shop. (it-s marked in red).