Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo is pulled as Covid-19 fears grow

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 2, 2020

Tokyo Fashion week has become the latest high-profile event to be cancelled on the back of the coronavirus outbreak that’s still growing around the world.

On Monday, Japan Fashion Week Organisation (JFWO) said it was cancelling the event, despite assurances in recent weeks that it would go ahead. The decision today has come as no surprise however, with the fashion week, which is officially known as Rakuten Fashion Week Tokyo 2020 A/W, coming at a time when a large number of conferences, exhibitions and other events that would involve big crowds have been pulled by their organisers.

Tokyo Fashion Week had been scheduled to take place from March 16 until March 21.

The organiser said that as “apprehensions due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak rise daily, our primary and utmost concern always being the safety/security of all parties involved, after heavy discussions with related parties, we have come to the painful decision of there being no other choice than to give up RakutenFWT 2020 A/W”.

And it added that for those brands that had been scheduled to take part, “JFWO will continue to do our very best within our power, to provide support in gaining business opportunities, such as introducing collections on the RakutenFWT 2020 A/W official website, support in having looks introduced in national and international medias, etc”.

It also apologised to “all those people who have poured time and effort into participating in this event. We are sincerely sorry for having to reach this disappointing decision”.

The cancellation comes as several shows during Paris and Milan fashion week's were cancelled as well, although the giant events as a whole managed to continue. 

Many trade show organisers that were planning exhibitions in February, March and April have postponed them to later in the year with a number being planned for this summer.