Pre-Fashion Summit 2009 Interview

Pre-Fashion Summit 2009 Interview

By: Myka Volney, FBC Director of Press

For two days in November, the fashion industry’s leaders, visionaries and innovators will come together for one amazing event – Fashion Summit 2009. Organised by Drapersand WGSN, this is the essential event for anyone in the business of fashion, taking place on17th - 18th November2009 at the JumeirahCarlton Tower, London. The programme will includepanels, presentations, clinics, and question times, as well as streamed sessions on buying and merchandising, social networking, pricing, online and more – allowing you to tailor the programme to suit your needs.  Additionally, you won’t want to miss inspirational interviews with fashion legends – Diane von Furstenberg, Barbara Hulanicki, Lulu Guinness, Anne Tyrrell, Giles Deacon, Betty Jacksonand more.

FBCmember Lauretta Roberts, is chairing the Drapers/WGSN Fashion Summit, and has worked extremely hard over the past few months to make the 2009 Summita huge success. And with just weeks to go before the big event, we stole a few minutes of time from Lauretta for an FBC exclusive pre-Summit interview!

Q: The Fashion Summit is in it’s 9th year. Have you been involved
previously?

A: Yes, I attended when I was editor of Drapers and I hosted some sessions but this is my first time as chair of the whole event, which is a huge job since we have more than 70 speakers. Luckily I have help from my colleagues including Drapers editor Jessica Brown, Drapersonline.com’s Keely Stocker and Lorna Hall of WGSN. Also we have guest interviewers for the first time this year such as Grazia style director Paula Reed, TheTelegraph’s fashion director Hilary Alexander and Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion editor of The Guardian. Our event manager Adrian Ting has been a massive support in sourcing speakers and shaping the content and format of the event. It’s a big team effort.

Q: How can FBC members benefit by attending the Summit?

A: I don’t think there’s another opportunity in the year where they could learn, be inspired by and network with such a diverse range of fashion industry leaders from retailers large and small through etailers, brand owners, fashion editors and big-name designers. It’s an amazing line-up if I do say so myself.


Q: What changes have you made to make this year’s Summit a not-to-be missed
event?

A: It’s had a pretty radical face-lift in terms of content and format. For the first time this year we appointed an advisory board made up of industry leaders and they told us they wanted a stronger voice from the design community and from entrepreneurial independents. Hence we have names such as Diane von Furstenberg, Giles Deacon, PPQ, Betty Jackson, Jenny Packham and Maria Grachvogel representing design and we really do have some of the countries best indies. Matches, Sarah Coggles, Flannels, Six Whiting Street, CSee and Richmond Classics are all on the bill. Am really pleased with the big-name business leaders we have secured such as Ultimo lingerie founder Michelle Mone, Sir Stuart Rose of Marks & Spencer, New Look’s Phil Wrigley and Joseph Wan of Harvey Nichols; they’re all so inspiring and the great thing about the format we have created is that it’s much more interactive so the audience will get as much of a chance to quiz them as I will.

Q: You have a line up of speakers that reads like a who’s who of fashion on a global scale. How did you manage to secure so many heavy hitters?

A: I must admit we didn’t expect to pull this off but we had a lot of help from the advisory board and getting the support of the British Fashion Council this year has been key to us being able to reach out to the design community; chairman Harold Tillman and joint CEO Caroline Rush have been hugely helpful. Otherwise it was just a question of asking.

We had an idea that it would be amazing to get Barbara Hulanicki of Bibafame to speak but she lives in America so we thought we had no chance. But we got in touch anyway and we were lucky since it just so happens she’s in London. It was the same with Diane von Furstenberg. Tom Chapman of Matches who runs her UK stores gave her a call for us and she’s in town that day so said yes. Once you get a couple of big names on board, the others follow.

We’ve been overwhelmed with the support we’ve had. At the start of the year we drew up our “dream summit” programme and we’ve pretty much pulled it off!

I should also say the FBC have been so amazing to us in particular FBC co-founder Courtney Blackman and FBC blog editor Rebekah Roy, who are helping us with a surprise element to the event!

Q: Is there anyone you’re particularly looking forward to hearing talk?

A: It’s hard to choose as there are so many great sessions. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and interview Diane von Furstenberg a couple of times and she is extraordinary - I think her joint on-stage interview with Harold Tillman will be a highlight. Am also looking forward to an etail session with Nick Robertson of Asos, Sarah Curran of My-wardrobe, Mark Bage from Sarah Coggles and Kristine Kirby of FatFace - I have a feeling that’s going to be lively!

Q: Current mood?

A: I’m excited and proud of the team who pulled all this together. I’m looking forward to it and to the Drapers Awards on the evening of 18th - it’s going to be an amazing two days!

Other FBC members involved include Harold Tillman, who sits on the Advisory Board and will be interviewed with Diane von Furstenberg by Hilary Alexander; FBCmember and managing director of FCC, Frances Card also has a seat on the Advisory Board; FBC member and founder & chief executive of my-wardrobe.com, Sarah Curran is on the online panel; FBC’s co-founder & co-chairman, Courtney Blackman is a panelist for “The power of the style press” and sits on the Advisory Board; and Rebekah Royjoins Courtney on the press panel.

FBCmembers are offered a substantial discount to attend the event. To register, go towww.emapconferences.co.uk/fashionsummit/and don’t forget to ask for your FBC discount!