The British Fashion Council announced that London Fashion Week will become gender neutral, abandoning binary shows for 12 months beginning June 12. The spring 2021 presentations will be digital-only, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the statement, the British Fashion Council said the combined London Fashion Week would give designers more flexibility and reflect the event's role as a platform for the city's "influence on society, identity and culture."

"The current pandemic is leading us all to reflect more poignantly on the society we live in and how we want to live our lives and build businesses when we get through this," said Caroline Rush, CEO of the British Fashion Council.

"The other side of this crisis, we hope will be about sustainability, creativity and product that you value, respect, cherish."

Britain has been a leader in citizen activism and protests focused on the fashion industry generally and London Fashion Week in particular. CNN notes that without the pandemic, going gender neutral for the shows was already a possibility, cutting in half perceived waste and damage to the environment created by endless fashion shows.

In a general sense, Generation Z (born 1997-2012) makes is clear that they don’t want to be defined by gender. There is no reason to believe that Generation Alpha (born 2010 and later) won’t embrace this same attitude. Beyond gender roles, androgynous style is increasingly popular as a statement of personal values and commitment to being less wasteful.

Yes, the style attitude embraces sustainability and gender fluidity. But it also speaks to a larger issue of not being defined by the clothes on our backs or the brands we wear. If we prefer one brand over another, that fashion tribe must have values that are our values, too. The brand connection goes deeper than the brand dressing me.

Honestly, I was consulting on this topic extensively 15 years ago, and it has taken longer to become a widespread point of view than I anticipated. The fall of Victoria’s Secret is very much tied to their failure to understand this entire concept.

Back to London Fashion Week plans, the British Fashion Council says its digital-only London Fashion Week will include designer diaries, webinars, digital showrooms, interviews and podcasts, which will be made available to the public as well as retailers.

"We hope that as well as personal perspectives on this difficult time, there will be inspiration in bucketloads. It is what British fashion is known for," Rush said.

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