Spring/Summer fashion week and Autumn/Winter fashion week are two of the biggest events in the fashion and beauty industry calendar. With a plethora of celebrities and press attending the shows and parties, it is the perfect time of year to boost your brand’s profile and get noticed.
A common misconception is you have to be ‘in it to win it’, but in actual fact you don’t need to have a collection at the shows to get your brand talked about.
Fashion Week presents numerous opportunities for brands to get involved either on a small or big scale, through partnerships, gifting, social media campaigns and out of show partnerships. So don’t believe the Fashion Week season is just for the major brands, utilise it and get your brand noticed using the following avenues next year:
- Official partnerships
Showcase brands and Fashion Week organisers are always keen to explore partnerships for backstage activity, whether that is in the form of food, drinks, or beauty products.
Getting your brand backstage and into the hands of designers, models and VIPs can be a great way to increase brand exposure and get people talking. In addition, VIP celebrities are often inclined to share anything fun or quirky on social media, which can act as additional exposure for your brand.
Example: We arranged for The Pure Package to associate with London Fashion Week and supply food – both backstage and front-of-house – for an array of high profile shows at London Fashion Week such as Mulberry, Alice Temperley, Matthew Williamson, Julien Macdonald, Mark Fast and Mary Katrantzou. We also arranged for The Pure Package to submit material into the front-row goody bags which went out to VIPS and celebrities, providing an excellent opportunity for raising brand awareness and targeting a new audience. From this we secured coverage which appeared in publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, OK! and YOU Magazine.
- Gifting
Fashion Week is a magnet for all types of influencers, from journalists, to celebrities and bloggers. These influencers regularly publicise their experiences at Fashion Week using social media and across their blogs. Therefore being able to get your product into the hands of these influencers could be a hugely beneficial for your brand.
You can do this through numerous avenues, but an effective way for a fashion brand to get its products in the right hands is to work with its audience’s key influencers and journalists and gift them product from your collection to wear to the shows in exchange for an Instagram post. Influencers do what they say on the tin, ‘influence’, and therefore having your product on the right person can lead it to sell out within seconds.
Example: We gifted key journalists and bloggers an item of clothing from our fashion client, Hervia, to wear to London Fashion Week, in exchange for an Instagram post. This included Fashion Editor of Sunday Times Style, Flossie Saunders and popular blogger, Polishing Colours.
This led to Hervia being featured in The Sunday Times Style on numerous occasions, one of their key publications, in addition the top gifted to the journalist Flossie, sold out.
View this post on InstagramFinal day of LFW. Thank you @smartcaruk for the 🚙 and @herviaofficial for the 👕#FlossieFashion
A post shared by FLOSSIE SAUNDERS (@flossiesaunders) on
- Instagram Takeovers
Instagram is such an important social media tool at Fashion Week, and as a brand you can take things to the next level by carrying out an Instagram takeover campaign. This can work particularly well if you are not attending the shows, as you can give your followers an exciting glimpse into the world of Fashion Week, alongside presenting yourself as a credible and engaging brand. By working with fashion journalists and bloggers and asking them to pre-promote the show on their personal channels, you can gain interest from their followers who may have not engaged with your brand before, alongside producing exciting and different content for your existing followers.
Example: We arranged for Hervia to carry out an ‘Instagram’ takeover with two key fashion journalists over the course of Fashion Week. We worked with YOU magazine and TEETH magazine to provide street style shots, front row action and top picks for the Hervia Instagram channel. The fashion editor of TEETH, Camilla Sverdrup-Thygeson’s posts received nearly 3000 likes and increased followers on the Hervia Instagram.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Hervia.com (@herviaofficial) on
- Outside of the shows
Partnerships at Fashion Week don’t have to remain backstage or at the shows themselves. The hub of London Fashion Week is now based in Soho Square and therefore the whole of Soho is buzzing with opportunities away from the catwalk. At Fashion Week you are guaranteed a high footfall of fashionistas, journalists and the general public who are out in force at Fashion Week, it therefore offers a perfect opportunity to engage these influencers with your brand. This can include sampling (a cold drink is gratefully received when rushing between shows), setting up a stand in Soho Square to hand out goodies, providing pop-up blow dry bars and offering rooms for VIP influencers to stay overnight.
Example: Advertising opportunities are limited at Fashion Week, yet the footfall is massive. Therefore, what better way to get your brand visually out there, alongside providing a service, than branding a taxi?! Make-up brand MAC capitalised on the fact that beauty journalists need to get from show A to show B and they have little time to do it. As well as making the streets look stylish with their bright look, MAC taxis provided a VIP service chaffering the FROW members around.
- Social buzz
If you can’t get physically involved in Fashion Week, fear not, there are ample opportunities for you to tap into the buzz remotely on social. Re-gram street style, choose your top picks from the shows and explore competition opportunities.
Example: Snog Frozen yoghurt capitalised on Fashion Week by running a social media campaign competition playing on the commonly used hashtag #StreetStyle and changed it to #SnogStyle. Snog encouraged entrants to snap their most stylish Snog pot with a chance of winning Snog vouchers and treats.
