A virtual showroom, Suzy Menkes, and well-known international speakers await the viewers of BFTS

The Budapest Fashion & Tech Summit international digital conference organised by the Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency is starting soon. Professionals from all around the world join the event held in English. Those interested can watch the speakers on the event’s official Facebook page for free. This year’s event will feature a world-famous keynote speaker besides international industry experts and exciting professional discussions. BFTS awaits the views with a virtual showroom, a unique initiative in the Central European region.

The Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency (HFDA) organises its free, digital conference, the Budapest Fashion & Tech Summit (BFTS), between the 1^st and the 2^nd of December. The experts will join the BFTS’s official Facebook page with live video presentations from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Canada, the United States of America, and other countries. The event will discuss topical subjects such as sustainability, e-commerce, education, technological achievements, or the 21^st-century business models of the fashion industry.

The 2021 event boasts a world-famous keynote speaker: Suzy Menkes, British journalist and fashion critic, known as the uncrowned queen of fashion journalism and the most highly esteemed fashion journalist worldwide, will lead the conference. In addition, participants will join the event from many parts of the world: all in all, 26 experts from 12 countries will share their thoughts at the conference. 

Among the renowned professionals speaking at the conference, we will find Amanda Cosco, the founder of Electric Runway; Péter Baldaszti, Nanushka’s co-founder and CEO; Chris Burt Allen, influencer; Gili Biegun, editor-in-chief of the Italian Joys Magazine; Matthew Drinkwater, leader of the London College of Fashion’s Innovation Agency; Samata Pattinson, CEO of the Red Carpet Green Dress; and Zadrian Smith, journalist and stylist.

The first day of the conference will start with the sustainability panel. Its roundtable discussion will examine the challenges of sustainability and the issues of responsibility in the fashion industry. After the talk, viewers can join a workshop where anyone can ask their questions. In the next panel, the audience can learn about how e-commerce has shaped the fashion industry, and the speakers will approach the industry’s future from the point of view of changed customer habits due to the pandemic.

The second day starts with the education and cultural values panel. Its roundtable discussion will reveal the sector’s diversity and complexity and the practices of fashion education. Afterwards, the panel discussions of “fashion business” will analyse the fashion industry of the 21^st century, providing viewers with useful information about building a career in the fashion industry today. The fashion industry conference will be closed by a regional roundtable discussion, at which professional representatives of the V4 countries will reflect on the fashion industry’s sustainability challenges. The participants are Dorota Stepniak, creative director of Content-story; Olo Krizova, CEO of the  Czech Fashion Council; Zuzana Bobikova, CEO of the Slovak Fashion Council; and Zsófia Bata-Jakab, CEO of the Hungarian Fashion & Design Agency. They will have a conversation with Anna Keszeg, cultural researcher.

The conference will continue with a Sustainability roundtable discussion on the 3^rd of December, with the attendance of Hungarian professionals. The discussion will provide an opportunity for the HFDA to call attention to the accentuated importance of sustainability in the changes affecting the fashion industry.

The BFTS creates a professional dialogue for the Central European audience interested in fashion and technological innovations and for whom sustainability is important by connecting international experts and regional professionals.  The event provides an excellent opportunity for industry actors to support each other with professional advice and other tools. The BFTS aims to put Budapest on the world map of international fashion-themed conferences as a regional fashion centre, in the long run, thanks to the regional collaboration.