After three years of reflections and gatherings, a consortium of 8 partners (Flanders DC, German Fashion Council, Fashion Week Corporation Ltd, Not Just A Label, ModaLisboa, Baltic Fashion Federation, Maisons de Mode and MAD Brussels) and 23 other associate partners has been set up for the United Fashion project. It is the first fashion related Cooperation Project in the Creative Europe program. Our combined goal is to promote entrepreneurial creativity and innovation to enhance business opportunities for European fashion designers.

Enhancing business skills

The United Fashion project will address the need for fashion creatives across Europe to be more business minded, without limiting their creativity. This 4-year project is a response to the urgent need to focus on the future, to share market information and to stimulate transnational collaboration and cultural exchange from West to East, from North to South and vice versa.

A number of international network events and cross-border transdisciplinary training workshops will enable more than 150 European fashion designers to participate on a transnational level. It will also be an opportunity to exchange best practices, to learn about innovative design and business skills, and to gain specific market insights at a larger level than they are used to.

Connecting designers, producers, buyers and consumers

The United Fashion project is carried out by a cluster of eight European fashion support associations, from seven different countries, promoting entrepreneurial creativity and innovation to enhance business opportunities for European fashion designers.

The consortium members represent a spread of traditional fashion design centres (such as UK, France, Germany, Belgium), traditional manufacturing regions (such as Portugal, Latvia) and newer, growing regions (such as Macedonia).

Via a cross-border cooperation set up in Denmark, Germany, France, the Baltic region, Macedonia, Portugal, UK and Belgium, international designer showrooms will enable fashion professionals to have access to on-site market knowledge and new business opportunities by meeting local buyers, producers, press and consumers.

Partners

The European fashion support associations involved in the United Fashion project are:

Activities

  • 14-15 November 2017: European Fashion Summit @ MAD Brussels, Brussels
    An introduction to the Creative Europe Cooperation project United Fashion. More than 30 national and regional European fashion councils, promotion associations, incubators and a number of fashion professionals unite to improve the exchange of information and knowledge about best practices in the fashion sector.
  • 16 November 2017: Fashion Talks @ Flanders DC, Antwerp
    International representatives will join the conference to broaden their international network while getting inspired by relevant professional speakers.
  • 3-7 July 2018:Berlin Fashion Week — Read the report of our Flemish participant Tom Duhoux of HNST.
  • 24-28 October 2018: Riga Fashion Week — with Sander Bos
  • 15-17 January 2019: Berlin Fashion Week — with César Casier and Oscar The Collection
  • 29 March-1 April 2019: Fashion Weekend Skopje — with Toos Franken and Red Juliet
  • 12-15 September 2019: Maisons de Mode Lille — with Mieke Dierckx and Toos Franken
  • 19-22 November 2019: FashionTech Works by Flanders DC — with Avail, Bioracer, Cosh!, Flora Miranda, Macty, Shavatar and w.r.Yuma
  • 5-7 March 2020: Lisboa Fashion Week by ModoLisboa 

United Fashion is a 4-year project, co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Commission. It was chosen among 14 other large scale applications, out of 548 projects.

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