London Fashion Week in facts and figures

The SS18 edition of London Fashion Week kicks off this morning and 85 designers will present their collections in an official on-schedule catwalk show or presentation with a further 33 events featuring emerging talent through to global brands also taking place over the next five days. But those stats, while impressive in themselves, only go some way towards explaining the importance of this bi-annual event to the fashion industry and of far more significance is fashion's contribution to the British economy as a whole.

As has become tradition on the eve of London Fashion Week owner the British Fashion Council has released some pertinent facts to explain this, some of which are already known by industry insiders and followers but most of which bear repeating as London prepares, once again, to prove it is open for business to the world.

So while scanning the catwalks for the most outrageous looks, perusing the front row for celebrities and poring over shots of bloggers and influencers desperate for attention outside the major show venues, it's worth bearing in mind that all of that is a mere sideshow to the main event.

Here's some food for thought from the figures from the BFC:

• - The British fashion industry makes a direct contribution to the economy of £28bn (Oxford Economics)
• - Womenswear value sales rose by 1.3% to £27.25bn in 2016 and are predicted to rise to reach £28.77bn in 2021 (Mintel)
• - £12.4bn was spent on fashion online in the UK in 2015, up 16% from £10.7bn in 2014 (Mintel)
• - £9bn is the value of the web-based fashion and footwear market in the UK, it is predicted to grow to £11bn (Euromonitor, 2015)
• - 880,000 jobs supported by the UK fashion industry (Oxford Economics)
• - Close to 7 in 10 (67%) women have bought clothes online in the last 12 months (Mintel)

Of course while fashion is serious business, London Fashion Week does have its fun side and getting between those 85 shows and presentations will require some fuel for the 5,000 official visitors to the event. Happily for them that will come in the form of 5,000 serves of Scavi & Ray prosecco at the official event venue, The Store Studios, and 20,000 Lavazza espressos. And the lucky ones will be chauffeur driven between the shows by a (fuel-efficient of course) Mercedes-Benz. If you are going to help generate £28bn for the UK economy, you may as well do it in style...