Covid-19

Official Statement

Updated: Tuesday 17th March at 12pm.

On Monday 16 March, Prime Minster Boris Johnson announced new measures as part of attempts to combat coronavirus.

Given Mr Johnson has urged Britons to avoid pubs, clubs and theatres and stop non-essential travel in an effort to reduce the impact of the coronavirus, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone most events in York Fashion Week 2020 programme.

All tickets that have been purchased for events that are no longer going ahead at this time will be refunded within 5 working days.

While we put together a proposal designed to support our high street and partners through this unprecedented time, we are urging everyone to adopt these latest measures. Here is the Government’s current advice:

  1. Ensure that if you or anyone in your household has either a high temperature or a new and continuous cough then you should stay at home for 14 days. If possible you should not go out, even to buy food or essentials, other than for exercise, in which case, stay at a safe distance from others. If necessary you should ask for help from others for your daily necessities, and if that is not possible then you should do what you can to limit your social contact when you leave the house to get supplies.
  2. Even if you don’t have symptoms, and if no one in your household has symptoms stop non-essential contact with others, and stop all unnecessary travel.
  3. Work from home where you possibly can, and you should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues.
  4. Only use the NHS when we really need to and go online rather than ringing NHS 111.
  5. Advice about avoiding all necessary social contact is particularly important for people over 70, for pregnant women and those with some health conditions.
  6. By this coming weekend those with the most serious health conditions should be largely shielded from social contact for around 12 weeks.

We will continue to monitor advice from the UK Government and the World Health Organisation and keep you updated. We would like to reassure you that York Fashion Week will re-emerge as strong as ever at the appropriate time.

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who has sent such lovely messages of support about Fashion Week, purchased tickets and supported us online.

With the Coronavirus situation continuing to evolve, I want to reassure you that we’re closely monitoring the advice from both the World Health Organisation and the UK Government and evolving our procedures accordingly. At this point, we really do just want to create the best possible showcase for those taking part, and create as safe an environment as possible.

York Fashion Week, the high street, bars and restaurants are all currently unaffected by Coronavirus – it’s business as usual in our city. But additional measures are in place on this side, that I wanted to keep you all aware of:

  • Our events range from one-on-one sessions, to events with over 100 people. We’ve now capped every event so that no room will have more than 100 guests present. This applies to 6 of our events, with the rest being a lot smaller. But please do contact me if you’d like to discuss a specific event size.
  • Guests are being contacted and we’ll be asking everyone to please stay home if you’re showing any symptoms.
  • Guests will be reminded to adhere to all quarantine restrictions if you’ve been travelling, or have been unwell.
  • All guests will be asked to wash their hands on arrival. to an event.
  • Additional hand sanitation will be available throughout events.
  • Tickets are of course refundable for anyone who might not feel comfortable attending an event. Please do not feel pressured to attend anything, simply get in touch with us directly. We want you to feel safe and will do all we can to ensure this.

We’re staying up to date on any warnings or notifications on the virus, and if anything changes, I can assure you that we’ll move quickly to implement a plan to keep our friends and customers safe.

We will update this release with any key developments.

If you do have any further questions, or concerns, please email do email us at  info@yorkfashionweek.co.uk 

Thank you all so much.

Nicky Hayer, Angela Horner & Mark Bewick