Dressing up the digital way
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New York fashion turns into global entertainment thansk to the social networks.
Once the preserve of the rich and famous, New York high fashion is now more than ever entertainment for the world at large, with catwalk shows increasingly accessible and clothes instantly available. The digital revolution and the explosion in social media means that photos of a model being made up or a snip of gossip can be pinged around the world to avid fans in seconds.
Almost all New York designers now live stream their catwalk shows online. Sometimes retailers, such as US department store Saks with design house Public School and others, carry them online as well.
Fashion houses are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, openly encouraging a new generation of consumers to watch, listen, start a conversation and of course buy.
At the latest New York fashion week, Tommy Hilfiger inaugurated Twitter’s new Halo service, offering a real-time 360-degree view of a show. Givenchy went one step further by inviting more than 1,000 members of the public to ringside seats at its spectacular outdoor show.
Rapper Kanye West may have ensured being in the room at his Yeezy Season Two collection was the most exclusive ticket in town, but he offered tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis to watch it in cinemas at 36 select cities in America, Europe and Australia.
Social media monitors Socialbakers said 22 designers used Periscope and tweeted a total of 107 Periscope live streams |during the week.
Marc Jacobs, another of the more exclusive invitations at |fashion week, held his show partly in the street – allowing fans to mingle with fashion photographers in catching a glimpse of the clothes and the models.
In the digital age, traditional players are losing their influence to those who are more connected online, says Emily Bungert, who founded her own PR company, EB Consults, in August.
“It’s all about how many followers you have on Instagram – a lot of the people that are the most famous in the front row are famous because they have 200,000 followers on Instagram or something,” she explains.
Clothing is also increasingly available right off the runway. When tennis star Serena Williams launched her collection in Manhattan, customers could purchase the items online immediately “You’re going directly to the customer,” Bungert says.
“In the past, you were first screened by the press and buyers, and then your designers were seen by the customers once the clothes hit the stores.
“Now people can go online and immediately buy stuff from the runway. It’s a totally different world.”
