BFC Fashion Trust names 2019 recipients

The British Fashion Council’s charitable initiative BFC Fashion Trust has named designers Molly Goddard, Eudon Choi, Marta Jakubowsk, Paula Knorr and Roberts|Wood as the new recipients of the 2019 grant, which will see them joining Aries and Nabil Nayal, who were added the scheme last year.

This year’s designers will receive financial grants and business mentoring tailored to specific business needs and awarded to fund key areas of expansion and will take a share of the allocated 400,000 pounds for the 2019 grant.

The structured mentoring programme delivered by the British Fashion Council will offer the designers “international expertise and mentoring” from BFC Fashion Trust’s official partners HSBC and Revlon Professional, as well as legal advice from Taylor Wessing, digital training from Google, and mentoring on sustainability and industry best practice from Livia Firth and her team at Eco-Age. In addition, they will receive support from Farfetch, Launchmetrics and the rest of the British Fashion Council’s Fashion Business Network.

In addition to the trust recipients, the British Fashion Council also stated that designers Hillier Bartley, Huishan Zhang, Mother of Pearl, Paper London and Sharon Wauchob will also receive mentoring.

Since the initiative was founded in 2011, the BFC Fashion Trust has awarded more than 2 million pounds to 42 businesses, helping designer brands to fund the implementation of practical solutions such as introducing new capsule collections and producing additional samples sets and to enable long term strategic plans involving as e-commerce, intellectual property, merchandising and finance.

Molly Goddard and Eudon Choi to join BFC Fashion Trust initiative

The BFC Fashion Trust is part of a group of British Fashion Council business support initiatives and charities aimed at supporting British talent from college to fashion start-ups through to future global fashion houses. Last month, the fashion organisation announced that in 2018 it raised over 2.3 million pounds for its charities and business support initiatives out of which 1.1 million pounds will be allocated directly to scholars and designer businesses.

BFC Fashion Trust co-chairs Tania Fares and Sian Westerman said in a statement: “Thanks to the generosity and commitment from the BFC Fashion Trust’s patrons and partners, we can continue to offer financial and mentoring support to some of the best UK’s design talent and help them develop their creative identity while turning their brands into global businesses.”

Stephanie Phair, BFC chair added: “London is a city that has a special reputation for producing some of the fashion industry’s brightest new talents. Thanks to the BFC Fashion Trust and their partners’ generous support and mentoring, the 2019 grant recipients are given the opportunity to become the creative leaders of tomorrow while reinforcing the UK’s reputation as a hub for fashion business.”

In addition to the grants, the BFC Fashion Trust supports a graduate traineeship programme which offers graduates 12-month paid placements with a British based designer. The programme has the dual benefit of allowing graduates to gain insight and experience and for the designer’s business to benefit from additional support. Previously partnered brands have included E.Tautz, Erdem, House of Holland, JW Anderson, Mary Katrantzou and Roksanda.

Image: courtesy of the British Fashion Council; Megha Mittal, Stephanie Phair, Tania Fares and Sian Westerman with the 2019 BFC Fashion Trust Grant Recipients at Sushi Samba, Covent Garden, London by photographer James Peltekian.