SHANGHAI — Eight months in as chief executive officer of the British Fashion Council, Laura Weir is ready to lay out her vision for the organizer of London Fashion Week and The Fashion Awards.
On Tuesday, she will unveil “BFC 2030: Access, Creativity, Growth,” a 64‑page strategic plan that aims to rewire how the BFC raises and deploys capital, and to shift it from a largely IP‑led, event‑driven body into what she calls “the industry’s incubator.”
She is also pledging to grow the BFC’s gross annual revenue by 38 percent to 18 million pounds by 2030, reflecting an 8.4 percent compound annual growth rate.
The strategy paper even has a fresh look. It was designed by David Lane and AWL Studio and features a new signature digital color called #000BFC blue.
The former journalist and Selfridges creative director took over the CEO role last year, and said she inherited a “support model” that was misaligned with the realities of a post‑Brexit, post‑COVID‑19, high‑cost landscape and an increasingly global, mobile talent pool.
“Innovation, risk‑taking and the productive tension between art and commerce that once defined British fashion are being compressed,” Weir said in an interview. “Talent alone is not enough.”
Her strategic plan is about moving from a “promote and showcase” approach to a “support and sustain” one. She promises to deliver “disciplined, purposeful growth designed to build resilience, increase direct investment in talent and secure the long‑term competitiveness of British fashion.”
For Weir, the document is also a statement about her own tenure. “It’s my first piece of work with the team here that really tells the story of where I want to take [the BFC] until 2030. It sets out why I’m here, what I’m going to deliver, and the legacy I want to leave as CEO,” she said.
When she started working on the plan last fall, she knew that British fashion’s cultural clout far outstripped the structural support behind it.
While the sector contributes 31.5 billion pounds to the U.K. economy, according to Oxford Economics, rising operating costs, constrained domestic demand, global volatility and intensified international competition are eroding the structural advantages that once made London such fertile ground for innovation.
On top of that, the nation has been witnessing a steady outflow of talent. Designers nurtured by U.K. fashion schools and cultural institutions are increasingly drawn to markets offering greater capital and scale.
Against that backdrop, Weir’s plan sets out to change where funding comes from and what it should buy.
Historically, the BFC’s revenue has been dominated by patron income and brand partnerships. Government funding, by contrast, has been trending downward.
“If you look at our government funding over the last four years, it’s decreasing, not only in line with inflation but in real terms. The growth for us is actually in philanthropy and that patron network, alongside brand partnerships and true cross‑cultural, relevant partnerships,” she said.
Under BFC 2030, the organization will adopt what she calls a “renewed model of philanthropic and strategic patronage,” which means cultivating a deeper base of foundation-led and individual patronage, expanding internationally and treating The Fashion Awards more explicitly as “the world’s biggest fashion fundraiser.”
She also sees an under-exploited opportunity in regional and local government funds, particularly as the BFC leans harder into the “British” in its name by focusing on talent across the country, rather than in London.
Weir is eyeing mayoral funding that’s already been earmarked for the creative industries. She said mayors across the U.K. were given “significant funding to spend on creative industries programming. So how can the BFC access some of that? And then how can we create opportunities for designers through that funding?” she said.
She is also focusing on the BFC’s new Fashion Assembly program, which was unveiled last year. The program is already moving into the pilot phase in Hull and Leicester, reconnecting designers with the schools and communities that shaped them in order to champion arts education and showcase fashion as a viable career.
“It’s about embedding fashion and creativity as a career option in early‑stage education, so that the pipeline of talent is really being supported at that young adult stage,” Weir said. Supporting talent nationwide also gives the BFC more capital when it taps regional and local authorities for support, she added.
Layered on top of those local initiatives is BFC International, one of the organization’s four strategic growth initiatives that goes beyond sporadic overseas activity.
Weir said she is still exploring how to work with key foreign markets, potentially using them as a fundraising base and an export accelerator for U.K. designers.
She noted that a recent trip to Mumbai resulted in the Indian label Raw Mango taking a slot on the London Fashion Week schedule in February. She described that as “the first salvo” in her pursuit of deeper international partnerships.
In the coming months she plans to unveil an international advisory board that brings together experts from key territories who can explore “where opportunity is to be found.”
Weir is just as focused on what happens once the money flows in. In a noticeable break with the past, she insists that simply cutting checks and handing out trophies is no longer enough in a volatile and increasingly direct‑to‑consumer landscape.
“Gone are the days when you can give just cash to designers. Designers are telling me they could do with more business acumen, that they would welcome more mentoring, more coaching,” she said. “A menswear designer who recently visited me said, ‘I’m an amazing pattern‑cutter, I know my customer, but what I’m really worried about is how to create a successful business.’”
Her response has been the introduction of the BFC Mini MBA, a business resilience program for emerging fashion leaders.
“It’s a ‘mini’ MBA, to be clear on the language. It’s not going to be a full business administration program, but the main driver is to help designers who want to up-skill in business resilience,” Weir said, adding she is in early discussions with education institutions and brand academies about potential partnerships. The plan is to expand the curriculum, which is expected to cover business fundamentals, technology and sustainability.
Complementing the business training element is the Fashion House, the last part of the four new strategic growth initiatives. It’s billed as a pilot scheme that aims to unlock physical studio space via the BFC’s patron network.
Weir said the idea emerged from meetings with retailers, law firms and tech companies that support the BFC.
“My idea was that we could look at the patron network to see if there’s any opportunity to release physical studio space for designers and to embed them into the beating heart of businesses,” she said.
“And my ultimate goal is to have a BFC space that offers subsidized or affordable studio space for the designer community, either in London or across the country.”
All four of the new strategic growth initiatives will be delivered through a structured three-year growth plan, while a fourth year will be focused on measurement and scale.
During the interview, Weir also expressed concerns about designers’ mental health and expectation‑setting. She has been struck by how many of them struggle with the psychological whiplash of early acclaim, which is often quickly followed by market realities such as lack of funding, cash flow issues and dwindling routes to market.
“I have been thinking, ‘Should there be some kind of support line?” Weir said, referencing the crisis hotline that’s been set up for workers in the U.K. nightlife industry, which has faced a string of challenges post-COVID-19. She is exploring whether the BFC should work with experts to offer a well-being helpline and to expand mentoring beyond prize winners via an open, structured mentor committee.
Weir said she is also trying to broaden the definition of success away from the dream of becoming the next Alexander McQueen or John Galliano.
“It’s important for the BFC to recognize the permutations of what success can look like for the community. It doesn’t always have to be, ‘I took these risks. I grew really fast. I scaled. I raised.’ That’s great for many people, but it can also be, ‘I wanted to create a design practice that was small‑scale, sustainable and provided me with a moderate income and a decent lifestyle.’ That’s also valid,” she said.
With the internal model shifting, the BFC’s flagship moments also need to evolve from stand-alone “moments” into financial and cultural engines within the incubator model, she said.
London Fashion Week, under Weir’s new vision, will become “the world’s laboratory for innovation and creative exchange,” with a more clearly articulated value proposition.
“If Paris is luxury and Milan is heritage, then London is creativity and innovation. It always has been. But it’s about telling that story in a more exciting way,” she said.
She wants the annual Fashion Awards gala to be a bigger fundraising engine and a platform for the stories that underpin British fashion’s soft power.
Under the 2030 strategy, the Fashion Awards event is explicitly described as a “future‑facing global fundraiser that amplifies British fashion’s influence and international authority,” with a renewed emphasis on public participation and cross‑cultural partnerships with film, theater and sport.
Lastly, a key difference from the past is Weir’s insistence on data and AI as tools of both advocacy and efficiency. “At the BFC, we can do much more with better data practices. Government stakeholders want to understand the true value of fashion and the impact we’re having on the industry,” she added.
To that end, Weir said the BFC is preparing to launch a data and innovation hub, a funded program that will produce sector‑wide reporting, help model the impact of policies such as VAT rules and provide the BFC’s network with insight.