A Digital Fashion Week
- Naomi Pendzialek
- Mar 25, 2020
- 2 min read
As Covid-19 is drastically affecting the fashion industry in all types of ways I thought to look deeper into how there are steps taken forward and saw that Shanghai Fashion Week is going to live stream the 6 - day event through the Chinese platform Tmall Cloud, owned by Alibaba.
The platform promises to direct traffic to the designers in order to generate sales and save brands from becoming completely bankrupt in such difficult times (Zhang, 2020). As this is the first fashion week to go completely digital, the platform also wants to give designers the opportunity to work with enhancements such as using green screens as well as augmented reality to boost the visuals and also communicate to Generation Z as the rise of interest in designer fashion has boomed a lot in this generation.
Another feature that TSmall has added to their lives stream is the opportunity for viewers to make comments and buy the items seen on the catwalk immediately. Organisers have said that if this week goes well it will definetely continue in the future as this also saves labour and venue costs (Zhang, 2020).
Overall I think that this is a great example of saving a big event like this and at the same time coming up with new technological features in the fashion industry which is so important as we have and are approaching a digital era of fashion. There has of course already been many shows live streamed before, one of the most succesful ones hosted by Gucci which was streamed through a Chinese platform called Weibo having over 16 million viewers.
Another more recent example is Giorgio Armani's show in Milan, Italy which has been affected harshly by Covid-19. He decided to present his show from an empty theatre and also be able to view as a live stream.
To conclude I think that as harsh as it might sound, this is a wake up call for many designer brands and brands in general to focus on their online presence and interaction with their consumers through social media and their websites. People always talk about how important and effective the online market is but I think there is still a lot of room of improvement for many brands to invest and enhance their social media and overall online presence. I think with brands now basically relying on the internet we will hopefully see new innovative things technology-wise that we probably would not have seen until two to three years time.
Websites used:
Yuh, S., 2020. Shanghai Fashion Week To Go Ahead Online As Virus Disrupts Events. [online] U.S. <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-fashion/shanghai-fashion-week-to-go-ahead-online-as-virus-disrupts-events-idUSKCN20M1GZ>
Berra, T., 2020.16 Million Live-Views For The First Gucci Show On Weibo. [online] nss magazine. <https://www.nssmag.com/en/fashion/19624/fashion-show-gucci-weibo-16-milion-views>
Zhang, T., 2020.Shanghai Fashion Week Goes Online With Tmall. [online] WWD. <https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/shanghai-fashion-week-goes-online-tmall-1203514082/>
South China Morning Post. 2020.Shanghai To Be World’S First Fully Digital Fashion Week. [online] : <https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3076650/shanghai-fashion-week-alibaba-live-stream-all-runway-shows>
McDowell, M., 2020.Forced Cancellations Jumpstart Virtual Fashion Technology. [online] Vogue Business. <https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/forced-cancellations-remote-working-jumpstart-virtual-vr-ar-fashion-technology>
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