The effect of the internet on the fashion industry has been on my mind since I read Donna Karan’s comments during an interview with Valerie Steele, director of the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).
“We need fashion shows, but that’s industry, it’s not for the general public. All the communication has to stop. It doesn’t go out on the wire, it doesn’t go out on the Internet, it doesn’t get out for the manufacturers to copy the designs. I mean, we’re killing our own industry… There’s too much information going out there. We have to learn the word restriction,” said Karan via Fashionologie.
As a fashion blogger, I can’t honestly recommend a complete internet blackout or blacklist. However, during the last fashion season, I found myself feeling overly inundated with fashion events. Countless designers chose to livestream their fashion shows while photographs of most of the other shows were available for all to see on various websites soon after the shows finished.
“There is no excitement about anything anymore as everything is available immediately and all the time— you don’t have to wait for anything… I think it’s too fast and too fake,” said Isabel Marant in an interview with Grazia UK.
Though the idea of democratizing fashion seems wonderful, fashion is anything but a democracy, and as an industry, it has thrived this way for many years.
Livestreaming Fashion Shows
This season, anyone who was willing, could watch livestreams of fashion shows from design houses big and small. During New York Fashion Week alone, some of the shows whose invites are most sought after, were shown online while happening simultaneously in some hip NYC location.
For lesser known labels or brands who tend to have a mass appeal and price point, making the streaming the fashion shows live online is a wonderful way to garner publicity and potentially reach a new consumer. However, in my opinion, there is a time and a place for incorporating such digital media tactics in a pr plan, and with some brands, the access doesn’t work with it’s mission statement and that inclusiveness shouldn’t be forced simply because everyone else is doing it.
The image of many luxury brands is built on exclusivity. By using such tactics as livestreaming, it seems like a contradiction in values when the fashion show is available to anyone who is willing to watch at the same time as the invited fashion elite.
That being said, I’m not yet part of said fashion elite, and the first time I was able to stream a fashion show online, I was elated.
Post-show Internet Coverage
Though, I’m not yet convinced of the merits of livestreaming for all brands, I do believe on having websites and/or blogs cover a fashion show after the event— this coverage can be from someone who has attended the show or simply seen photos or edited videos used for review/commentary purposes.
Having images of fashion shows online soon after the show occurs does make it possible fast-fashion retailers to copy designs, but being completely exclusionary toward a newer form of media and those consumers who are interested in digitally following the work of their favorite designers and brands could prove detrimental to an industry already struggling because of a weak economy.
Also, for fashion pr, embracing social media aids in the evaluation of fashion show post coverage. Fashion week is something that unites all fashion blogs and simply going through a brands fashion week online press hits will help pr practitioners find new sources interested in their client’s brand while making it easy to evaluate the credibility, based on fashion knowledge and willingness to gain such knowledge, of a blog. Without some access, this post-show coverage wouldn’t be possible.
Like most things, accessibility is a double-edged sword, but will this newfound inclusiveness in fashion be its ruin? Only time will tell, but perhaps fashion, for once, should follow Aristotle’s Golden Mean and live between the extremes. Everything doesn’t always have to be all or nothing.
Talk Back: What are your ideas of including the public while maintaining a sense of exclusivity and prestige within the industry?
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