1st May 2021
Graduate Fashion Foundation Digital Platform
The Assembly developed Graduate Fashion Foundation’s debut innovative digital platform, featuring graduate portfolio profiles, fashion university pages and bespoke live streaming of the annual GFW event on www.graduatefashionweek.com.
The state of the art, dynamic portal caters for two distinct functions in the fashion world, attracting a global audience and capitalising on the growing interest for Graduate Fashion Week, whilst utilising technology to match highly talented graduates to potential future careers in the fashion industry.
Graduate Fashion Foundation continues to look to the future and the opportunity to change, collaborate and innovate its support for graduate talent across its UK and international university members. Therefore for the first time in its 30-year history, GFW is fully embracing the digital age, providing a platform where the event is viewable across the globe, as well providing the functionality for the graduate work to be on display and accessible to the industry year round.
During Graduate Fashion Week, which took place 12th-18th June 2021 at Coal Drops Yard, London, the platform housed all live stream event content, featuring 11 runway shows including the globally renowned GFW International Fashion Show, plus exclusive GFWLIVE! industry panel talks, creative university fashion films, refreshing designer diaries and archive footage from the past 30 years of GFW. Users could also register to view and interact with live streams and live chats from all across all venues, all housed within the portal itself.
This dual functionality means the portal has two separate designs incorporating the GFW look and feel. Firstly, during the build-up to and during Graduate Fashion Week, the site will showcase everything that the event has to offer as well as highlighting the schedule, speakers and universities. Registered users could view all exclusive livestreamed content during the event, mixed with brand partners messaging and industry conversation.
From May, industry and media guests were able to scout talent from over 1500 curated graduate portfolio profiles when the Graduate Portfolio Profile hub was activated. This pool of talent stands out from other platforms due to its curation of the very best fashion graduates, allowing potential employers from across the industry to view work from 82 global universities. Additionally the useful search function filters the offering to 40 specialisms making it easier for industry to find the next big hire suitable for their needs. The search filters range from sustainability and designing-for-disabilities, to fashion business, marketing and promotion.
The Portfolio Profile allows the graduate to personalised their page which offers a detailed overview of their work, incorporating their individual imagery, video content, work specialisms and displays links for industry to easily make a connection for recruitment or press requests. GFF provides a platform for universities and graduates from to showcase their portfolios and work to global employers.
This immense volume of content will allow industry leaders to filter and search efficiently for the styles they are interested in and will enable the graduates to have their projects accessible all year round, effectively opening up a whole new channel of communication between fashion graduates and the industry. After the end of Graduate Fashion Week the portfolios will remain active for three years and accessible to anyone looking to view year round.
The year round the platform will continue to serve as the official GFW Hub and will be accessible to all industry professionals and global fashion consumers alike to catch up on content, enabling connection, collaboration and bringing together fashion and technology.
Jane Galpin, from The Assembly, the platforms developers said,
“This year has been difficult for everyone in the fashion industry and we did not want the graduates to have to suffer further with their first steps into the working world that Graduate Fashion Week has always gifted them. The team at GFW have been pioneering to embrace the latest technologies available, to create a perfect hybrid event that will not only solve problems this year, but will build a lasting legacy with the portal that will provide additional support to graduates and the wider industry for many years ahead.”