Fashinnovation has assembled a Two Day Worldwide Summit, kicking off Fashion Revolution Week
It is hard to turn on the news these days and not get a bit sad about the current affairs of the United States. With everything closed and cases rising, it is hard to feel comforted by the community that has supported everyone through dark times in the past. Where is one to turn when the world has become so grim?
Marcelo and Jordana Guimarães from Fashinnovation are hoping to bring a bit of sunshine to those trapped at home in quarantine. The duo is running what some are calling the TED talks of the fashion world on April 20-21. Streaming through YouTube Live, the event is completely free to the public and will feature talks from some of the biggest businesses in fashion to date.
“Our slogan at Fashinnovation has always been ‘Fashion is to love.’ The meaning behind that is that all the current trends in the fashion world point toward creativity, diversity, empowerment, etc.; it all stems from love.
When all this happened and we were all at home, and everything stopped, and the world kind of stopped—Jordan’s husband and her—looked at each other and we realized that now it is more important than ever that people have this type of message,” Jordana explained earlier this week.
The team decided then and there to host their virtual worldwide talks by the end of April and have been working nonstop since to make this dream a reality.
“We hit the ground running and have been working 24 hours around the clock for the last 13 days to make this possible for this upcoming Monday. We want to show everybody that if a husband and wife duo can put something like this come together in 13 days, then if you really put your mind to something, regardless of what’s happening around you, you can make it happen. I would love to be able to get this message out, now more than ever.”
Marcelo and Jordana have gathered more than 80 different speakers, from fashion designer Kenneth Cole, to the Founder of Fashion Revolution, Carry Somers, to even President Elizabeth S. Marcuse of LIM college, a leader in fashion industry education. At the head of it all, the Keynote Speaker is the former princess herself, Diane Von Furstenburg.
“Obviously you look at the big names and it is always exciting to hear from them. But I think what is really exciting for me is that we have some speakers not necessarily known just by looking at their name, like Bethany Williams. She’s in her early 20s and is already a business of fashion 500 designer. Even though she has all these acclamations, people hear her name and you wouldn’t really know who she is. But when you look her up, you’re really like wow. I really think every speaker is a Diane Von Furstenburg of life for their own reasons.”
This event marks the first online conference that Fashinnovation has ever done, but Jordana implies that it won’t be the last. “Even if they take everyone out of lockdown, I think it is going to be a while for people to want to be in a space with a lot of other people again and I completely understand this. Before all of this happened and next week’s event wasn’t even a plan, we had our fifth Fashion Week summit coming up on September 10th. We are hoping, crossing fingers, that still happens. I am not sure what that is going to look like, but right now we have this summit next week, and then we will be implementing a lot of other online things into the business, at least for the time being.”
The event begins at 9 a.m. EST and ends at 6:30 p.m. April 20-21. To get the link to watch, register on the Fashinnovation website anytime between now and the convention’s end.
