It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly a month since New York Fashion Week! Now that we’ve had some distance from it, we thought it a perfect time to comment on this past fashion week’s social marketing trends.
You no longer have to be a top editor at Vogue to sit front row at fashion week. Why bother with the hustle and bustle of crowds and squeezing through the street style photographers while trying not to faceplant in Louboutins? Social media is bringing fashion week to the public, allowing followers and fans to “sit front row” at their computers. Kick off your heels, cozy up on the couch, and learn how New York Fashion Week leveraged social media to bring the consumer behind-the-scenes.
Facebook/Live Streaming
As during past seasons, designers and bloggers uploaded photos of their collections post-show lacking the live component most other social media platforms capitalize on during fashion week. This season, designers utilized live-streaming features, partnering with websites like Fashionista, Style.com, and Racked, to live-stream their shows on fan-gated Facebook tabs.
This past season, Pinterest hopped on the fashion week bandwagon, launching its own content hub where brands, designers, retailers, media outlets, and bloggers can curate a feed of images and videos. In previous years, Pinterest was used to preview collections or cover real-time pinning of shows, but this season was the first to showcase the behind-the-scenes story through the eyes of industry insiders.
As in previous seasons, fashion week attendees tweeted using hashtags such as #NYFW and #MBFW. Additionally, Milk Studios’ MADE Fashion Week hosted Twitter Q&A sessions with up-and-coming designers.
(Not all that) long gone are single image shots from front row, live tweeted during fashion week; they’ve been replaced by Instagram videos. This year’s major Instagram initiative was #dayinthelife, where designers and stylists including Rachel Zoe, Michael Kors, Rebecca Minkoff, and Coco Rocha uploaded photos and videos pre-show, giving fans a behind-the-scenes look at the process leading up to show time.
We look forward to what February has in store for the impact of social media on fashion week and seeing how designers can further capitalize on digital media – without over-saturating consumers’ news streams, hopefully.