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Caroline Rush: Behind the Scenes
Interview & Words Phadria Prendergast
In a special interview with Caroline Rush CBE, CEO of the British Fashion Council, WOTC thought it was key for the world to know the woman behind the scenes, pushing forward and creating room for the young, emerging designers within the fashion industry.
It’s a Thursday morning, London Fashion Week had ended two days prior and Caroline Rush was my first interview of the day. I could imagine that for her, the end of LFW certainly didn’t mean that her days had become any less busier. Her cheerful voice booms over the phone as she explains how inspired she was with the content created by the designers. Rush fell in love with the fashion industry when she was a teenager. Her mother, who was a teacher, also harboured a great interest in fashion herself, so at home, the sewing machine was always out. The pair spent much of their free time making things and looking at magazines.
She recalls speaking with a career advisor, being asked what career path she wanted to take and after expressing that she wanted to be in the fashion industry, was given two choices; retail or modelling. With little exposure to what the industry had to offer, Rush didn't think much about what her career path would look like. She turned her focus to the subjects and areas she loved most - English, writing, communication, creativity and art. After school, she attended art college however, made the decision not to return right at the end of her foundation year. Instead, she went travelling and began to model. “I was absolutely an awful model by the way,” she says laughing. “But I did get a really nice behind the scenes view of the fashion industry, from a modelling perspective and it was a fantastic opportunity to travel.”
Upon returning to the United Kingdom, she dabbled in beauty, music and financial PR before making her inevitable return to fashion. Rush credits the late Annette Worsley-Taylor, as one of the individuals that kick-started supporting young talent and designers and was one of the brains behind London Fashion Week as a platform itself. “I had a brilliant view of someone that had lived through the London designer collective, bringing together Jasper Conrad and Bruce Oldfield, and those incredible pillars of the British fashion industry.” Of course at the time, much like the young designers Rush now works with, Conrad and Oldfield were just starting out. “So it was a very good history lesson on what British fashion had gone through,” she finishes.
Rush also credits Stuart Rose, former chairman and Hilary Riva, former pro bono CEO at BFC, for setting the vision, not only for what the British Fashion Council could be in terms of playing a role in the reputation and support for creativity, but also the vision for what London Fashion Week could be. “I took that and ran with it. The initial challenge was ‘how do we really build London Fashion Week as this global platform and opportunity for businesses?’ We see this as a platform that communicates to global audiences and media retailers, stylists, the investment community etc..” When she began working for the BFC, the majority of the businesses they worked with were wholesale based. Now, they work with direct consumer businesses - those that are really thinking through their different business models and are putting sustainability at their core. “So everything that we do is focused around taking some of those themes and looking at how we can put some infrastructure in place to support those businesses and give them the opportunity to grow.” We get further into the state of the fashion industry over the past year...
Phadria: how has physically not having London Fashion Week impacted the fashion scene?
Caroline: Well it felt really poignant this year, because last February was the first full fashion week. I guess at the time as the headlines came in through the news were around this potential pandemic, but because we've never lived through that in our lifetime, it was very difficult to to understand or to grasp what that might mean for us as individuals, but also for our industry as a whole. So, it did feel very poignant this time. We've had two fashion weeks through the pandemic so far, so this was our third and the first one in June was very much on a digital platform, but a platform for conversation. At the time retail had closed, manufacturing had closed, borders had closed, studios had closed and so very few businesses actually had collections at that moment in time to be able to share but also, there were the big societal conversations around the Black Lives Matter movement and systemic racism.
The wonderful thing about having a platform where you're reaching international audiences but also where you normally welcome international audiences, it gave us a platform to be able to give our designers and creatives a voice on those subjects, to be able to talk about what's happening in London, the challenges within the UK and actually how potentially we might adapt and change those for the future. So, although it felt very challenging, actually, it did feel like a really hopeful moment coming out of London with so many diverse voices, being given a platform and feeling that they could speak openly and honestly for the first time for some of them, certainly not for everybody and that conversation was going to be taken forward.
As we went into September Fashion Week, the designers had collections. Some people were able to do things in person, in really small ways but it was very much digital first and also a platform for conversations - so picking up on that element of dialogue from June. Again, it's that creativity shown through. I think being able to get back to even small, in-person events felt incredible, [she laughs]. I think it just goes to show that part of humanity is about human connection, isn't it? As much as you can do incredible things digitally; you can - those in-person events are very, very difficult to replicate. So, this Fashion Week, of course, we had to say very early, literally the first week of January that we were going to be digital only, and what that did in a way - talking to the designers, is just [it] gave them that moment to focus on what that storytelling was going to be, through a purely digital platform at a time when they'd almost had a year to adapt to communicating in this way. I think what we saw this February was just brilliant storytelling, beautifully shot collections and inspiring creativity. Again, it's a real sense of pride and I'm trying to catch up on all of the media coverage that has come out, [she laughs]. I didn't get a chance to read during fashion week itself, but I think reading from all of the journalists and posts about Fashion Week, that it's very much echoing that. So that was great to see.”
Phadria: I can imagine! And are there any plans in place to help stabilise the fashion industry?
Caroline: Well, where do I start? [she laughs]. Behind the scenes, we almost talk to the government every day at the moment, around the challenges that the industry is facing. So everything from the impact of Brexit, there's a lot of paperwork challenges around rules of origin, [that] not just our designers, but the international businesses and manufacturers are really challenged with getting right. There's the big challenges around IP, there's challenges around visas and access to talent, so you can imagine the ongoing conversations, trying to understand the legal frameworks for that - both in terms of access to the UK, and access to the EU and then future trade negotiations, is something we're very much engaged in.
And from an economic point of view and from platforms like London Fashion Week, really thinking about how we can use the power of those platforms to potentially kick-start tourism again in September if it's permitted. An idea of celebration in September of being able to get back together and what that highbridge part of it might look like come June.
Signalling and economic stimulus is what we're looking at really for the year ahead, to look at how we support these brilliant creative businesses to grow. When we've been talking to the international retailers, they're very much looking to the UK for that point of difference and that creativity within their stores. As the stores start to reopen and even for those markets where the stores are now, it is about experience, it's about individual products. I think as people get back to events and dressing up, that sense of identity and individuality really plays into the strengths of British fashion.
Phadria: I love that. And, you know, that's why I think this is so important, because people don't see that part and many might just assume nothing is being done, because we don't physically see it happening as of yet. And I guess when something new does happen, no one sees that it took a year, maybe two years, three years, for that thing to come to pass and for that thing to happen. So, I think that this interview is very, very crucial.
Caroline: I guess that is one of the challenges for us; is that we have so much to communicate. And quite often we put our designers first to tell their story, and actually there's so much being done behind the scenes. You're trying to balance the storytelling of our designers with telling everybody about the work that we do, [she laughs].
Phadria: Exactly! What is currently in place to help the fashion industry and designers?
Caroline: Last year, we poured all of the resources of the fundraising we'd done the year before into a covid rescue grant and we raised some additional funds. So over a million and a half pounds went out to sixty seven different businesses. We had many more that applied for it, but we decided that we really wanted to focus on those that had been developing and growing prior to the pandemic and really needed that boost to keep them going, and would have the opportunity to survive past it. So there were quite a few start-up businesses that we weren't able to back, that probably in normal times, we would have backed. There were quite a few businesses that probably were challenged pre-pandemic, not necessarily because of the way that they'd run the business, but just because it is a challenging business; the fashion industry. Of those sixty seven, it was fantastic to be able to do that, however, we do want the UK to continue to be the best place to start and develop a fashion business. So we have committed to going back to our grants that support creativity and support growth.
We're on a big fundraising drive at the moment to make sure that we will be able to continue to do that for future years, because fundraising is incredibly challenging. In doing that, and through some of the commercial partnership deals we've been able to sign like Clearpay and TikTok, it's meant that we've been able to commit to all of those this year. So we will have our scholarships, we will have our NEWGEN scheme, which is really for those businesses that are in their first year of business, up to [their] third year in business. That's really a bit like an R&D grant, as businesses figure out the kind of business they want to be and understand what it means to run a business. There's a huge amount of mentoring that goes on behind it and then we have our fashion fund grants, which are almost those that have gone through that period and have the opportunity really to accelerate their growth. We have our fashion trust grants, which are much more focused on interventions, focused on growth and a slightly broader remit - so isn't necessarily focused on the most creative, but really the opportunity for those to be able to grow sustainably.
Phadria: Sounds fantastic! And how do you send the ladder down, being that you are surrounded by so many incredible women in the industry? How do you encourage these women to also help other women, champion other women and send this ladder back down?
Caroline: Well, I absolutely agree with you, there are incredible women in the industry and many which have inspired me to do what I'm doing today, and many of which continue to inspire me to do what we might do in the future. But I'd say that most send the ladder down when they can. For me, it's really important that I give over my platform whenever possible to improve the quality and to really think about how we can help those that are coming through to do the same. I think as a young person, when I think back to when I was a teenager or even early twenties, is that, of course you're inspired by the people at the top of the game, but sometimes that feels quite unattainable. And so you're inspired by those just a couple of runs above you. I think it's important to empower those individuals to really inspire other women coming through, that it is possible.
You're kind of like God, fifty is a long way off, [we both laugh]. It's quite nice to think about how you're going to get there. So maybe look[ing] at someone who's doing really well in that career, that's a similar age to you or maybe a decade ahead and hear from them, how they got there and the challenges that they've overcome doing that.
Phadria: I love that! And what does the future of BFC look like to you?
Caroline: Well, for me, the next 10 years are all about this decade of change. There are some quite hard targets that we as countries and industries need to help, in terms of reducing climate change. The next 10 years for us is really thinking about how we use our network of influence, our platforms, [and] our connectivity internationally to make sure in 10 years time we look back and say we did everything that we could.
Phadria: And finally, what is your personal pledge for change and for 2021?
Caroline: Well, from a change perspective, I really want the industry to commit to this decade of change. We're year one. Let's not wait ‘till November to make our pledges. let's make them now, otherwise, we're missing out on a year of change. So I am very keen to make sure that we play our role in making that happen. For empowering women's perspective, not just for 2021, but to give over my platform wherever possible to help improve the quality and to give people a voice.