Skynation Rejects University Fashion Week’s Request For 2020 Season Renewal!

UFW executives land rough Season despite political pressure and one cancelled presentation! 

In what has been a rough Season, UofT Fashion Week pushed strong within the growing demand for Canadian fashion designers, market, and entrepreneurs. What started as a fashion movement at Simon Fraser University would gain steam within the need for a more supportive budget able to advance the growth and advancement of the industry without merely the reliant of it still being a student run enterprise. Seeing other academic communities work to license the platform, and create national exposure for their respective communities, the platform would face various issues that seemed to be connected to Simon Fraser University. While various issues had resulted in the cancellation of the SFU presentation which was ruled as a hostile events environment, UBC’s presentation would be required to support the advancement of the production into the next Season, but given a range of financial mismanagement, non compete clauses of which became compromised due to political instabilities, and a diminished support from a union of which collected student levies but deprived it’s students of resources, for the first time in 6 years, the Founder of the platform would be be politically targeted requiring various executives to step in, and the production called to give other chapters the ability to execute their production as it’s success and failure did impact the extracurricular success of the leaders of whom licensed the presentation of the platform. From a loss in booked commercial space, to fashion designers like Native By Nature of whom would need to be rebooked due to working to order pieces for a production of which was unable to be pushed forward due to political instability. As this initiative had been created to promote fashion designers and give them access to a range of resources they wouldn’t have been able to access unless they got accepted to University of which would cost them upwards of $20,000, the opportunities of being integrated and invited into the university community through University fashion week’s campus promoters and student director networks did help give these brands exposure but as Skynation has been stuck paying the rent, internet, development wages, technology, labour, and much more to keep this project running and supported, the calculation of funding, impact to the bookable facilities that was already leased, stolen funds, and impact to other chapters have caused a growing deficit to the University Fashion Week production.

With the interest of UFW’s audience to see it continue, the platform will need to advance an MOU with Simon Fraser Student Society, that can identity an understanding of the expenses of which was associated and is associated to their growing market of which does need to be cleared, while moving forward with a decision of full cancellation, or partial cancellation of the production entirely. While a full cancellation will mean all national programs will be cancelled until further notice, a partial cancelation would see to it that chapters able to continue can continue while creating an opportunity to relicense communities of whom are interested in franchising the platform into their respective campuses. According to Mo, Skynation’s internal CTO, there’s a range of updates that are stalled given a number of productions of which have impacted the development schedules of the company. Having the C.E.O in the hospital for a deal deal of time did impact the ability for the company to work, for documents to be advanced, and for meetings to be scheduled that would see the necessary development plans advanced. While we are looking at sending each of the portfolio back to the drawing board within evolving the system so we’re able to shift liabilities towards the various markets impacting the grid, there will be a need come to a closure on why University Fashion Week was forced to cancel it’s programming on SFU, within impacting other presentation chapters.  As the next appeal is set for October 22, UFW management looks to make necessary changes towards the potential of advancing this year’s production within gaining support from the development company and it’s growing partners. From photographers, to students much like the founder who invested his funds into supporting the entrepreneurs in his community, the growing expenses of this production, and reduction in community support cannot be the responsibility of other chapters of whom are working to present stories of growing their commercial communities and make valuable Canadian connections and trade networks. While UFW might not be your average trade shows as it’s focus is creating and curating local entrepreneurs, the inability of this year’s programming to break even on it’s production investments has called to question the community impact, necessity, and need for creating such a national platform. With some student workers, and fashion designers have been interviewed on the importance of a platform like University Fashion Week the success of two of three presentations within the various back end finance issues does need the platform to go back to the drawing board. With March right around the corner for this production, management is skeptical that it might be able to make it past the signing if it is unable to come to a resolve. While Skynation executives have slowly resumed operations within the medical approval of the C.E.O to slowly get back to work, the high cost of medical bills, drugs, travel and vacation, and much more have greatly impacted the support renderings of the platform. According to Kayode, he’s sat down with the President of the Simon Fraser Student Society and General Manager towards moving forward within the necessary conversations to understand the next steps, so he’s quiet aware of the issues. As Univeristy Fashion Week would hire a new Associate Producer this year, one of the echo’s had been their interest of moving forward without SFU Fashion Week activation. With it being 2 Seasons behind given issues that started during Creative Director, Dio Wong, and leading into the next Season, having such a market impact the other communities is placing their institutional issues above advancing the Canadian economy. I understand that the founder is an Alumni of SFU, but the fact of the matter is, University Fashion Week is now bigger than SFU, it’s a multicultural platform showcasing communities of which many of us do not know but are invited through each director of whom operationalize national themes into their own communities.

From business management, people management, fundraising, financial management these creatives work behind the scene to being their respective programs to life, but to force other franchises and chapters to slow down because one school’s political environment is not conducive to such platforms, citing various cancellations to other events within the same fiscal year, then it’s vital to look at the cancellation as maybe being limited to that market. If 2 chapters worked hard to make it work. Of which UBC would be the first chapter to have it’s models and fashion designers curated into #LLIV. A programming of which had seen mainly SFU talents in the past. If management is having to navigate the changing political environment of the academic communities, then it takes away from the work associated with keeping the platform operational and at a level where there’s now a need to make the platform that much better with a diverse range of management and mid management resources, cancelling the platform due to one chapters mishap and inexperienced board of directors becomes a detriment to everyone else who worked to pull off such a shaky but historical Season. As a Canadian platform, this year’s theme was focused on showcasing Canadian indigenous creatives of whom might never have the same branding and production exposure from the foriegn and local community. As conversations continue on Season 3 of this growing national platform, do keep a look out as we bring you more updates!