Soon you may not have to be an A-list celeb, department-store buyer or magazine editor to get a front-row seat at a fashion show. As the luxury and fashion industries continue to struggle with sagging retail sales and consumers’ diminishing interest in $2,000 It bags, designers are looking for alternative ways to show their wares. And more and more of them are turning to the Internet for a bigger audience and to shrink their overhead.
“The cost of a fashion show has become prohibitive,” says David Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren’s marketing chief. “And because of the economy, fewer members of the press and buyers are making the trip to New York to see the show.” The result is that many designer-initiated brands — including the less-expensive lines, like Donna Karan’s DKNY, that are presented during New York Fashion Week — are rethinking the traditional fashion show. This fall the British designer Alexander McQueen made a splash by live-streaming his Paris show on his website. The season before, Louis Vuitton live-streamed its show on Facebook. And Lauren is the mastermind behind a new initiative to present his company’s brands in virtual fashion shows as opposed to have-to-be-there runway extravaganzas.
On Dec. 11, Rugby, Ralph Lauren’s collegiate brand, will show its holiday collection in an online fashion show that Lauren calls a mix between Harry Potter and Rock Band. Instead of walking down a real runway, the models will be walking on a treadmill in an office with a green screen behind them.
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Source: Time Entertainment
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