This year’s Autumn/Winter London Fashion Week coincided with Valentine’s Day, so property owner the British Fashion Council (BFC), promoted the event through a ‘Love LFW’ campaign.
With a heavy focus on social sharing, the pre-event activity encouraged fashion lovers to share their own favourite fashion image, runway look or brand campaign using the hashtag #LoveLFW.
The drive was promoted via a #LoveLFW YouTube spot and incentivised by the BFC featuring the best images on a dedicated Pinterest board and entered into a prize draw to win two tickets to Vodafone London Fashion Weekend.
An on-site social media wall, in the BFC Courtyard Show Space (in Somerset House), also brought together the largest crowd-sourced insight into LFW with images (from across Instagram, Twitter and Facebook) using #LFW reflecting the wider LFW experience from the catwalk perspective to the front row, and from back stage to street style.
The BFC also ran AW14 Twitter Q&A sessions to give a chance for fashion followers to ask questions (using the hashtag #AskLFW) to selected expert guest tweeters, who responded via Vine clips.
February also saw BFC partner with Rightster to live stream shows from offsite venues at to www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/live and on on the British Fashion TV YouTube channel and official London Fashion Week Twitter and Facebook accounts.
More than 40 shows were amplified live online (18 from the BFC Courtyard Show Space, seven from the Topshop venue, plus shows outside the official platform venues such as those from Burberry, Hunter and Paul Smith).
River Island also partnered with the British Fashion Council to sponsor its ‘BFC Fashion Film’ initiative – which aims to develop the collaborative relationship between fashion designers and film makers.
Films in the AW14 season include the River Island Designer Forum film for Katie Eary; an exclusive preview of the new feature film biopic of Yves Saint Laurent; ‘Catching The Moment: Life Through The Lens Of Terry Jones’ a film for i-D; a film by Craig McDean & Punderson Gardens for British Vogue, and films by Roland Mouret and Sibling.
Another collaborative strand to LFW activation saw a backstage ‘Twitter Mirror’ at three Friday shows (beginning with Matthew Williamson) through which models tweeted ‘style-led selfies’ of themselves in their runway outfits which are then auto-posted to the #LoveLFW Twitter feed – thus capturing the split second moment before the head out on the catwalk.
Each shot was placed in a bespoke frame by the designer that reflects the AW14 collection’s inspiration.
Twitter Mirrors have been a popular event activation platform for the past year or so, with devices appearing at events ranging from The Grammys and The Oscars, the the NBA and Wimbledon. But LFW AW 14 marks the first time they have featured as part of a major fashion week campaign.
According to Rosanna Falconer, head of digital at Matthew Williamson, the objective is to give fans behind-the-scenes access in a more of a natural way than ever before.
(In previous seasons, Williamson has promoted its shows through Vine videos and the most effective and popular of these have typically been those in which the models have been naturally and causally cheeky (rather than when official shot and scripted).
For Williamson’s #ohmw campaign, Vine was once again used during the show itself, with three posts revealing key pieces in full narrative (from sketch, to beading and final look), alongside props handed out with the line’s hashtag to encourage attendees to tweet and Instagram photos of themselves at the show.
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February saw the spotlight shine brightly on London’s creative industries as London Fashion Week (LFW), the BAFTA Film Awards and music’s Brit Awards all showcased the best of each industry’s talents in the space of just one week.
Thus there was an unprecedented collection of global stars and creative industry celebrities right across the capital and many brands tried to leverage as many of the stars as possible into their LFW activation.
But the dominant trend at LFW14 was using social platforms – from livestreaming catwalk shows to backstage content – to connect fans with the fashion world like never before.
Furthermore, using media channels with a certain ‘cool’ cachet and keeping up with contemporary tech trends is part of the wider lure of activating around fashion week.
While clothing sponsors such as Topshop, Triumph and Monsoon all have an obvious industry synergies with the event, a slew of other major global brands – ranging from Canon and DHL, to Mercedes-Benz- all ran campaigns leveraging their LFW association rights.
‘Fashion and style are part of a language of credibility,’ says John Doe founder Rana Reeves. ‘It says something about your brand to be fashionable – people want you and people want to buy you. It’s not about being cool, which is something transient. Credibility has depth.’
Premium auto maker Mercedes-Benz has sponsored LFW since 2009 and the German car giant’s PR manager Debbie Hull says its focus on fashion helps ‘sharpen the brand and make it more attractive, appealing and relevant to a younger target audience’.
Perhaps one slightly surprising aspect of February’s LFW was the lack of an overwhelming presence of tech fashion – which has been much trumpeted by IT brands and the media in early 2014.
Links
London Fashion Week Twitter
#LoveLFW
#AskLFW
London Fashion Week Website
London Fashion Weekend Website
www.londonfashionweekend.co.uk
British Fashion Council Fashion Film Website
www.britishfashioncouncil.com/fashionfilm
British Fashion Council Instagram
British Fashion Council Video Portal
