ThingLink’s interactive images expand to Facebook, again key for fashion

You might remember this piece about ThingLink - a tool that lets you tag any image, with any content, making it instantly interactive. I wrote about its potential relevance to the fashion industry when it launched embeds in Twitter, demonstrating it in action with a Burberry image (as above in a non-interactive format) that to this day is still getting regular “hovers” over it week to week according to my email alerts.

News now has arrived of its integration with Facebook. When you share a ThingLink-enabled image to your Timeline, much like with how it worked on Twitter already, fans are able to experience the content inside the image without leaving the page.

An example has been released from Médecins Sans Frontières to demonstrate it. But this once again this has enormous application for fashion brands trying to share more than just a still shot of their collections. Their videos, show music, e-commerce pages and more.

As referenced previously from Mashable: “That single photo, in essence, just became a platform of its own.” Armani is an example of one designer officially using it, and already doing so on Facebook.

On a similar note, TechCrunch has just reported on rival tool Stipple’s new social commerce element called Stipple Shopping. This allows photos to be placed on Facebook and Twitter that users can explore, compare and now actually buy from too, likewise without leaving the image. Single photos that instantly become stores therefore.

It’ll be interesting to see what cut-through these tools might have. While increasing interaction and engagement is a worthy aim, whether they can actually impact commerce is another question.

Check out the video below…

Digital snippets: Nike, Bloomingdale’s, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Armani, Sephora

A round-up of stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

• Holographic ad gives live demo of Nike shoes on the street [PSFK]

• Bloomingdale’s installs body scanners to help you find jeans that fit (as pictured) [Mashable]

• Michael Kors releases limited edition sneakers to celebrate reaching 500 million fans on Facebook [Web & Luxe]

• Marc Jacobs to dress famous Japanese holograph, Hatsune Miku [Fashionista]

• Armani touts brand personality in latest Frames of Life eyewear campaign [Luxury Daily]

• How Sephora differentiates in digital [Digiday]

• The Business of Fashion is nominated for a Webby Award [BoF]

• This Bond No. 9 ‘digital fragrance’ is only sold via QR code [Styleite]

• Tavi Gevinson creator of The Style Rookie is the next big media mogul [AdWeek]

• Menswear e-tailer FreshCotton creates drug cookbook to promote Stüssy’s spring line [Campaign]

• Fashion e-commerce flowers in the Middle East [BoF]

• Japanese luxury market evolves to keep up with digital generation [Japan Daily Press]

Digital snippets: Peter Som, Bergdorfs, Prada, Jean Paul Gaultier, American Eagle

There’s been a lot happening in the fashion and technology space over the past couple of weeks, ranging from Proenza Schouler’s new site to Net-a-Porter moving into the beauty space. News of Pinterest’s new analytics platform and Facebook’s planned integration of the hashtag have also hit. Here are the rest of the highlights sourced from around the web…

Don’t forget to check out this wrap-up report from SXSW Interactive as it applies to the fashion industry too.

 

• Behind Peter Som’s 3.3 million Pinterest followers [BoF]

• Insider Access: Q&A with Cannon Hodge, Bergdorf Goodman [Fashion’s Collective]

• Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola made a Prada film (as per above trailer) [Fashionista]

• Jean Paul Gaultier launches responsive web design [Web&Luxe]

• American Eagle spoof video pokes fun at skinny jeans trend [NY Daily News]

• Neiman Marcus launches fashion contest on Pinterest [WWD]

• Justin Bieber plays drums in adidas NEO interactive lookbook [MTV Style]

• Aeropostale launching new tech for teens [Business Insider]

• Puma seeks to celebrate individuality with Worn My Way lifestyle campaign [Marketing magazine]

• 3D printing clothes at home could be reality by 2050 [PSFK]

• Google Glass app identifies you by your fashion sense [NewScientist]

• Zalando concept car spots fashions, transforms into changing room [Gizmag]

• China entering e-commerce and mobile “golden age”. So why are fashion brands lagging? [Jing Daily]

• What real-time branding means for luxury brands [Luxury Daily]

All the winners from the 2013 Fashion 2.0 Awards

Marc Jacobs took the top innovator award at Style Coalition’s fourth annual Fashion 2.0 Awards in New York last night, an event dedicated to celebrating the best in communications strategies across digital media platforms.

Voted for by the public, the event also saw Jacobs taking the best Facebook title. Saks Fifth Avenue won two awards too: best blog by a fashion brand, and best website.

DKNY was named best Twitter for the fourth year in a row, while the Fashion 2.0 visionary award was presented to Rent the Runway founders Jennifer Hyman and Jenny Fleiss in acknowledgment of their “achievements in disrupting the retail industry and democratizing luxury fashion”.

Here’s the full list:

• Best Twitter: @DKNY
• Best Facebook: Marc Jacobs
• Best Pinterest (new category): Anthropologie
• Best blog by a fashion brand: Saks POV
• Best website: Saks Fifth Avenue
• Best mobile app: Gilt on the Go
• Best online video: DVF Through Glass (as below)
• Best fashion start-up: Of a Kind
• Top innovator: Marc Jacobs
• Fashion 2.0 visionary award: Rent the Runway

Pic courtesy of Patrick McMullan

Digital snippets: Facebook, 3D printing, Weibo, Topshop, Calvin Klein, Anthropologie

It’s set to be a little bit quiet on here over the space of the next week as I head down to Austin to check out this year’s SXSW. In the meantime therefore, here’s a quick round-up of some of the best fashion and digital stories from around the web these last few days:

• Facebook redesigns news feed: what’s in it for brands [Inc]

• Dita Von Teese debuts 3D-printed dress (as pictured) [Mashable]

• Dior, Prada, Marchesa, Elie Saab and Giorgio Armani top Sina Weibo’s most buzzed about brands from Oscars red carpet [WWD]

• Topshop is fashion’s most social high street brand [The Wall Blog]

• Calvin Klein launches Dark Obsession fragrance ad starring model Matthew Terry [The Cut]

• Content marketing with Instagram: five lessons from Anthropologie [The Bureau]

• Dove Canada’s Photoshop ‘hack’ reverts airbrushed, edited photos [Huffington Post]

• Five brands that reaped rewards after adopting responsive design [Econsultancy]

• One e-commerce winner, one loser; two lessons – Farfetch vs Luxup [Material World, FT]

• Shangpin taps China’s fashion e-shoppers [Financial Times]

Louis Vuitton’s #PFW live-stream sees shareable three-second video clips

Louis Vuitton rounded out the fashion week season in Paris this morning with a live-stream show that invited viewers connected via Facebook to record and share their own short video clips.

“Share your favorite moments with your friends,” said the intro from the brand. Accordingly, it allowed users to capture up to three seconds of the show in a small window on the bottom left of the stream they were watching. They could then play it back before agreeing to post it to their Facebook timeline for their friends to also see.

The idea is similar to that launched by Topshop last season, which enabled users to “Shoot the Show”, posting still images to their pages. LV’s idea moves the concept on, while simultaneously tying to the success of apps like Vine that are focused on short, easily shareable videos.

In practice it was a little bit sticky, as well as restrictive in terms of what you could capture – the smaller window mainly showed close-up shots of the collection, and the frame didn’t allow you to snap multiple sections like Vine does. Still, it’s a great leap forward again for the social side of fashion weeks.

LV also invited users to its “Social Room” during the show, a side bar that opened out to reveal a multitude of social media updates from both its own official accounts as well as from guests and publications in attendance.

Digital snippets: Alexander Wang, Warby Parker, Gucci, Nars, Ray Ban, J Crew + more

It’s been a little while since one of these round-up posts on other interesting fashion and digital stories sourced from around the web, so there’s far more than usual. Each of them is however, of course, as interesting and relevant as ever…

• Alexander Wang teams up with Samsung for crowdsourced handbag (as above) [Mashable]

• Google reportedly in talks with Warby Parker to design stylish Google Glass frames [Techcrunch]

• Gucci ups mobile conversion 70% via optimised site [Luxury Daily]

• Nars tests Pinterest’s selling potential [Mashable]

• Ray Ban launches real-life ambermatic lens app installation [DigitalBuzzBlog]

• This is personal: J Crew debuts an in-store styling app [Refinery29]

• How John Lewis uses Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ [Econsultancy]

• Lizzy Caplan’s Viva Vena fashion film is one of the best satirical ads you’ll ever see [Slate]

• The business of blogging: Garance Doré [BoF]

• Shopping in the future: Glasses.com’s augmented reality fitting-room app [AllThingsD]

• Will Apple’s plans for an iWatch herald a new era of wearable tech? [The Observer]

• Farfetch fashion hub: meet the curator of curators [Wired]

• Business Of Fashion gets $2.1m seed funding from Index, LVMH and more for its no-nonsense B2B fashion blog [Techcrunch]

• How your tweets during fashion shows are driving sales [Fashionista]

• Fashion buys into social tools [NY Times]

• Online upstarts explore a new model for fashion media [BoF]

• Why retailers are pinning hopes on Pinterest [Reuters]

• 10 great uses of Vine during fashion week [The Cut]

• And just on the off-chance that you didn’t see it already, here is Google’s How it Feels Through Glass video

Dolce & Gabbana: #MFW’s social media winner

I started this post with every intention of writing only about the beautiful videos Dolce & Gabbana has been posting on Vine surrounding its Milan Fashion Week show this week. Three in particular stand out – each of them zooming in on the intricate detail of the brand’s autumn/winter 2013/14 collection; the Byzantine and Venetian mosaic dresses, the elaborate jewellery and the beautifully beaded accessories.

Alas, those six-second loops are only viewable within the app itself and not on the brand’s Twitter or Facebook pages where they could also have been posted. On those instead however, is such a wealth of rich and relevant content on the collection otherwise, that it still seemed worth highlighting.

The craftsmanship and the inspiration behind the line – that would be the golden mosaics of Sicily’s Cathedral of Monreale – are the focus.

“It’s all in the details: the shoes of the Mosaics Collection are as intricate as the clothes,” reads a photo album dedicated to footwear images on Facebook. It was posted less than 12 hours ago and already has 30,000 likes and over 5,000 shares. The shot below by itself, meanwhile, has 7,000 likes, nearly 2,500 shares and over 500 comments.

There are also albums dedicated specifically to the collection as a whole, the handbags individually, and the action backstage at the show. Each were originally posted on Swide.com, the Italian brand’s editorial property, which also hosts pages all about the sunglasses, the jewellery and the textures, not to mention the architecture and the mosaics of the cathedral itself.

For record – albeit a little repetitive by this point – there are also multiple posts on the brand’s Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr pages.

A pre-show video meanwhile documents in a beautiful 30-seconds the artisans at work on their “slow and precise” mosaic-making. “The Mosaics Collection is perhaps one of the most intricate yet by Dolce & Gabbana which makes the video and crafts displayed all the more special,” reads the write-up.

And that’s the point here – the craftsmanship, talent and beauty of fashion is what so often makes it speak for itself if you just push the content out in the right direction. You don’t even have to like this collection to see why it works so wonderfully on social media.

 

British Vogue hits one million followers on Twitter

The @BritishVogue Twitter handle has just reached one million followers after a period of significant growth off the back of its Vogue.co.uk site relaunch in September 2012.

The magazine added 250,000 followers in the past four months to hit the milestone, a fact it attributes to the “enhanced level of engagement that [its] users now have across platforms”.

“Social media is becoming ever more important and apparent in our users’ lives.  Our aim is to ensure that our Twitter feed remains relevant and entertaining, providing our core followers with up to the minute fashion news and authoritative fashion insight,” said Jamie Jouning, digital director of Condé Nast.

In comparison, @VogueMagazine (US Vogue) has 2.1m followers, @VogueParis has a similar following of just over 1m, @Vogue_Italia has nearly 275,000, and @styledotcom has just shy of 500,000. Alexandra Shulman herself has 11,000.

British Vogue has also just achieved 250,000 followers on Facebook and 10,000 followers on both Pinterest and Instagram.

Facebook Graph Search will prove key for local retailers

Facebook Graph Search in action, as seen on Mashable

The web is abuzz today with discussion around Facebook’s Graph Search, its new in-built social search system based on the data it’s been able to gather from all us users over the past eight years.

Safe to say, it marks an interesting move for the platform, and one that’s likely to impact significantly on all businesses alike, but particularly such consumer-facing ones as fashion brands and retailers.

If you’re a local boutique for instance, there’s no time like the present to make sure all your info is up-to-date, you’re doing everything you can to increase your following, and you’re thinking more than ever about how to stand out from the competition. It seems those who interact and engage with their fans the most, will be the ones that appear at the top of search results.

Here’s a good synopsis of what it’s about from Mashable: Facebook Graph Search could be its greatest innovation

And some nice comments from various industry experts over at Econsultancy: Facebook’s Graph Search: what does it mean for marketers?