Britain Creates

To celebrate the Olympic and Paralympic Games, our most prestigious and renowned fashion designers will collaborate with leading visual artists on specially commissioned one-off works of art. These commissions, focusing on an Olympic and Paralympic value, will be showcased to a broad UK and international audience through a major engagement programme that will support the commissions - a series of activities both actual and virtual that will reach a broad & diverse audience. 

To date 14 artists and designers have signed up to the project including, Christopher Bailey for Burberry, Charming Baker, Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Giles Deacon, Jeremy Deller, Jess Flood-Paddock, Stephen Jones, Christopher Kane, Marc Quinn, Paul Smith and Vivienne Westwood.  Further artists and designers and their pairings will be announced in autumn 2011.

Created and managed by the British Fashion Council / Bazaar Fashion Arts Foundation in collaboration with the Mayor of London, this exciting new project will be a highlight of the London 2012 Festival, a UK festival which runs from 21st June to 9 September next year and is the culmination of the four year Cultural Olympiad. 

The 2012 project will be the start of an ongoing artistic project and bursary to support and encourage further collaboration between fashion and other art forms.  The money for the bursary will be raised through the auction of the pieces and through the proceeds of a Gala event.

The 2012 Commissions will bring together pairs of leading artists and fashion designers who will work together across different artistic mediums.  Leading creative figures will bring the Olympic and Paralympic values to life through a project that will salute the longstanding connection between fashion and the visual arts and show that when great minds collide, amazing things happen.

The pieces will be unveiled in June 2012 at a Gala event in central London.  They will then be exhibited to the public throughout the London 2012 Festival period.  Further details will be announced by LOCOG in autumn 2011.

The 2012 Engagement Programme will encompass an exhibition of the work (both public and through a high profile Gala for an influential global audience) and a series of stimulating interactions from seminars to film. 

2012 has received a grant from the Arts Council and has raised funds from private donors.  Monies raised from the Gala and from the auction of the pieces will create future fashion and visual arts bursaries.  A bursary committee will allocate funding.

Harold Tillman CBE, BFC Chair said,

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