The world appears to have moved from house arrest to purgatory, with little prospect of ever escaping completely from COVID-19. Hopefully before long we will have a vaccine, but increasingly this looks like only a partial solution, allied with a danger of worrying repercussions if politicians shortcut the testing process to get it something out early. Even the countries that dealt with the pandemic most effectively and thought they could get quickly back to work have been stalled by the interconnected world where troubles elsewhere impact on their ability to function effectively.

The annual Design a Bag competition continued this year but was held online. There were three finalists and they were interviewed and questioned via a conference call and the interviews, the short results show and the videos from all three were shown as part of the interview process. It was remarkably successful, and the interviews were quite enlightening.

APLF announced on 9th April that the 2020 edition of APLF had been rescheduled to next year due to the travel restrictions. During this 6-month period, APLF continues to offer the industry digital tools to connect with each other.

Perrine Ardouin will be leaving her post as the Director of APLF after 24 years in charge of the company’s portfolio of trade fairs and events. She has decided to leave Hong Kong and move on to a new page of her life. After departure, she will continue supporting the exhibitions in a different form and acts as an independent advisor to the APLF’s portfolio until 2021 APLF exhibitions in Hong Kong.

Due to the recent rapid outbreak of COVID-19, in view of the health and safety of our exhibitors and buyers, APLF has made the most difficult decision to postpone the APLF fairs, including Fashion Access to 30 Mar – 1 Apr 2021. However, the Design-A-Bag Online Competition has continued in a new format. Three finalists submitted a video recording and a design presentation to elaborate their ideas before the final judging ceremony.