After postponements and absences from the Portuguese fashion calendar, Portugal Fashion reemerges from uncertainty with a different format, without models on the catwalk, and with a new main curator: Farfetch. Starting this Tuesday, November 29, a digital showcase will begin to be promoted that will run until November 9, the end of which will be marked by a physical event to present the collection at the BMcar Aliados space, in Porto.
The possibility of a new format for Portugal Fashion, initially scheduled for March/April, is nothing new, since designer Alexandra Oliveira, from Pé de Chumbo, revealed to Observador, in March, that an edition without a show was planned. “rather a presentation, or a video,” since it would be “more advantageous to have a campaign, to have content for social networks.”
At the end of October, and one day before this online campaign began, the press arrived with the following news. For Observador, Mónica Neto, director of Portugal Fashion, revealed that although a fashion show is a presentation format that generates valuable content for brands to actively communicate with the public and the market, Portugal Fashion now proposes the challenge of “ create an opportunity for content.” creation, thus seeking, as a fashion platform, to materialize its mission with a collaboration that will be very useful for designers, since they will be able to extract images from here in a more editorial format, as well as specific e-commerce content. whether in live models or product photographs, with an unequivocal seal of quality.” “Content that can now feed online stores, as well as social networks and other means of communication with the press, buyers and clients,” he added.
Portuguese fashion. Between “serenity”, “reflection” and “cloud of fear” in Europe, fashion beyond the shows
This format is already underway, under the name Portugal Fashion Sessions – Phygital Showcase, and aims to continue promoting Portuguese designer fashion but as an initiative focused on digital. For two weeks, starting this Tuesday, photographs and videos of the Fall/Winter 2024/2025 season collections from multiple designers will be shared on Portugal Fashion’s social networks. Without the usual presentation parade, designers and brands participate in this content production Ahcor, Lo sorry, Carolina Sobral, Huarte, House of Wildflowers, Judy Sanderson, Maria Gambina, Nopin, Nuno Miguel Ramos, Pé de Chumbo and Susana Bettencourt.
However, this digital version of Portugal Fashion would not be possible without Farfetch, which with the new ownership continues to make losses and which collaborates to produce photography and video content: “National designers thus have the opportunity to see their pieces photographed by professionals from Farfetch. teams, which turn out to be fundamental communication and sales tools for their brands,” explained Mónica Neto.
“This photography and video content will surprise, since it moves away from the traditional format of e-commerce and follows a creative direction, with contexts and settings that are quite divergent from each other, but always with the purpose of maximizing communication. collections and the identity of author brands.
In the hands of the South Korean Coupang, Farfetch continues to make losses
In addition to the digital project, on November 9, the BMcar Aliados space, in Porto, will host the physical event of Portugal Fashion Sessions – Phygital Showcase, which features the installation of some pieces from the collections with the aim of being an “opportunity to the press, buyers and professionals have contact with the designers and their collections.” “Fashion will always have the most important side in the contact between people, in the feel of the clothes, and that is why it will always be important to be able to maintain that more physical and in-person side,” he stated.
Portugal Fashion was due to take place in July, after the event held annually in March was postponed a week after ModaLisboa, however, two weeks before the scheduled date it was canceled due to lack of support, the same reason that led to the postponement in the first quarter of the year. The editions of the event that began in 1995 were being financed 85% with community funds from Portugal2020, a situation that ended: the financing did not reach the last editions of October 2022, March 2023 and October 2023, with the opening scheduled for Portugal. Within the 2030 framework, it was then estimated in April 2024. The previous year’s editions were possible with the help of private and institutional partners, with emphasis on the Porto City Council.
In March of this year, an investigation was opened into the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) involving Manuel Serrão and António de Sousa Cardoso. The businessman from Porto and member of the Associação Selectiva Moda was considered by the Public Ministry as “the main mentor” of the alleged fraudulent scheme to obtain community subsidies and which led the Judicial Police to carry out, on March 19, 78 searches in the within the scope of Operation Maestro, in which journalist Júlio Magalhães, António Sousa Cardoso, who headed the Young Entrepreneurs Association, and António Branco Silva are also suspects.
Manuel Serrão and Júlio Magalhães, wanted for alleged fraud with almost 39 million euros in European funds
The investigation maintains that, at least since 2015, Manuel Serrão, António Branco Silva and António Sousa Cardoso, “knowledgeable of the procedural rules that govern the application, allocation, execution and payment of funds allocated in the scope of operations co-financed by European funds , decided to capture, for its own benefit and that of the companies it manages, the subsidies attributed to the Associação Seletiva Moda and the companies No Less and House of Project — Business Consulting.”
Portugal Fashion’s recent collaboration with Farfetch comes more than half a year after South Korean Coupang bought the luxury fashion platform. Despite the change, in the first six months of the year, Farfetch continued to post losses, recording losses of $230 million (€210.5 million at the current exchange rate). After José Neves stepped down as CEO in February of this year, the platform announced that it would lay off between 25% and 30% of its employees globally.
Source: Observadora
