Singapore Fashion Week (SGFW) is an annual high-profile fashion event organized by Mercury Marketing & Communications. Casting a spotlight on Asian talent, SGFW is a showcase of world-class collections by top and emerging designers and labels and is the only fashion week in the world that feature established and emerging regional and homegrown designers and labels alongside the world’s most iconic international designers.
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Origin
Singapore Fashion Week originated in 2001 from the Singapore Fashion Festival. Singapore Fashion Festival was an annual two-week long consumer-driven event that took place in 2001 to 2008. The event was organized by MS Twilight, an events management company, from 2001 to 2003. In 2004, Mercury Marketing and Communications, now a fully integrated communications agency, won the contract to organize the Singapore Fashion Festival.
Singapore Fashion Festival was supported by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which aimed to position Singapore as a fashion capital within Southeast Asia. The event consisted of showcases by international and local designers, exhibitions and fashion-related fringe events.
The debut Singapore Fashion Festival hoped to present high fashion in a “fun and entertaining way” to consumers. It saw big names in high fashion such as Kenzo and Christian Dior presenting their collections. Zouk’s carpark was converted into a fashion catwalk for labels like Armani Exchange, Blackjack and Island Shop to showcase their collections.
Audi Fashion Festival
Audi Fashion Festival (AFF) was a fashion festival that took place in May every year from 2009 to 2014. Incepted in 2009, it replaced the Singapore Fashion Festival, and welcomed consumers to conventionally by-invite only shows for media and trade. It was held at Tent@Orchard in the heart of the Orchard Road fashion belt from 2009 to 2012, and 2014. In 2013, AFF moved to Marina Promenade.
Organized by Mercury Marketing & Communications, AFF was the first privately funded consumer fashion event– with Audi as the titular sponsor. It was a high-profile platform for both international and Asian emerging and established designers. During its run, the festival showcased collections by a host of top international designers and labels such as Prabal Gurung, Oscar de la Renta, Christian Lacroix, Vivienne Westwood, Gareth Pugh, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Missoni, Ungaro, Erdem, DSquared, Roberto Cavalli, Mugler, Zac Posen, Roland Mouret, Carolina Herrera, Tsumori Chisato, Peter Pilotto and Hussein Chalayan. On top of international designers, Singaporean designers showcased at AFF. The number of local labels doubled from 2013 to 2014, with four local labels – Hansel, Ong Shunmugam, Exhibit, and Saturday – showcasing at Audi Fashion Festival 2014.
Singapore Fashion Week 2015
Singapore Fashion Week replaced Audi Fashion Festival in 2015. The fashion event claimed the iconic name Singapore Fashion Week and returned with a revamped format. Building on eight successful editions as a consumer-centric fashion festival, SGFW broadened its scope to include thought-leadership initiatives and industry development. One initiative was the SGFW Fashion Talk Series – a series of thought-leadership and industry talks organized in partnership with LASALLE College of the Arts.
In 2015, SGFW introduced strategic global alliances. SGFW partnered with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), which saw CFDA members Diane von Furstenberg and Thakoon Panichgul showcasing their latest collections as part of the tie up. SGFW’s partnership with UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) saw British designer and UK’S “GREAT” campaign ambassador Victoria Beckham presenting her Autumn/Winter 2015 collection at SGFW 2015.
To support homegrown talent, SGFW introduced Fashion Futures, a new talent development programme to internationalize Singapore designers. Singaporean designers Priscilla Shunmugam of Ong Shunmugam, Sabrina Goh of ELOHIM, and Chelsea Schott-Blackhall of Dzojchen presented as part of the pilot edition of Fashion Futures.
Singapore Fashion Week 2016
The Singapore Fashion Week returns in 2016 with a new date, location and initiatives. The 2016 edition will take place in October instead of May, from 26 to 30 October, in order to align with international Fashion Weeks. The new date allows designers to showcase Spring/Summer collections that are more suited to the region’s tropical climate instead of Fall/Winter collections that were previously showcased when the festival was held in May. Further, a six-month calendar of fashion and industry-related activities made accessible to the public would culminate in the Singapore Fashion Week held in October.
SGFW will be held at National Gallery Singapore, housed in two national monuments in the heart of the Civic District – the former Supreme Court and City Hall. At the new location, SGFW would feature a curved runway with more than 350 front row seats, instead of conventional theatre-style seating, for a novel guest experience.
The 2016 edition will include Digital Fashion Week (DFW) after its acquisition by SGFW, which would welcome a larger digital presence for SGFW. DFW is a designer showcase formerly targeted at young designers with an emphasis on online and social media. It has supported more than 50 local designers through fashion events and runway shows held annually in Singapore and Bangkok. Viewers can enjoy 360° virtual reality and live streaming of SGFW content via Digital Fashion Week’s online portal, digitalfashionweek.com.
In addition to SGFW Gallery, SGFW introduced Singapore Fashion Week Access – an industry-support platform that aims to support the Singapore fashion industry by providing designers and businesses opportunities to exhibit their collections through smaller scale, flexible-format fashion presentations.
SGFW turns the spotlight on Asian talents with the participation of top names in fashion such as Chinese couturier Guo Pei, Indian-American fashion designer Naeem Khan, and London-based designer Han Chong who is behind contemporary womenswear label Self-Portrait. For the first time ever, a Singaporean designer – Max Tan of MAX.TAN – will open the fashion week at SGFW Access.