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”.
If there’s one thing to note this New York Fashion Week it’s the enormous number of posts being shared on Twitter’s new video-sharing app, Vine.
Brands, media houses and industry personalities alike are getting into the habit, capturing six-second scenes from around the venues, backstage at the shows and of the collections on the catwalks themselves. Some of the big names include Victoria Beckham, Marc Jacobs, Oscar de la Renta, DKNY, Bergdorf Goodman, the CFDA, KCD, Glamour, Lucky, Elizabeth Holmes of the WSJ, Nina Garcia, Coco Rocha, Man Repeller and the list goes on…
It’s an obvious move for an industry that trades predominantly on visuals. Both Instagram and animated GIFs have been huge for exactly that reason, but the former was static and the latter too complicated to quickly create. Add them roughly together however and the result is something that shows fashion in all its glory – with movement and in real, raw detail. Better yet of course with Vine, in an instantly shareable format too.
“Vine is a big idea, yet it is a simple one—the two basic ingredients for a successful emerging technology recipe,” Raman Kia, Condé Nast Media’s executive director of digital strategy told Fashionista. “It is no wonder that some brands are quick to jump in and experiment with it. This is especially true of fashion brands which have often been amongst the first to experiment with emerging social media platforms.”
On Twitter, Amy Odell of Buzzfeed asked at the beginning of fashion week: “Are runway photos even worth tweeting anymore?? (Kimberly Ovitz) #nyfwpic.twitter.com/VS1wLOfv.” Model Coco Rocha replied: “@amyodell the only worthwhile means of sharing the runway this season is Vine.”
It’s still early days however, with certain refinements including sound, zoom and drafts needed on the platform. There are likely developments to come on what people opt to post too – the endless finale shots from fashion week have become somewhat repetitive for instance, albeit successful when from a good angle. (Note my attempt at better quality by cheating with the live-stream of marc by Marc Jacobs above).
Either way, expect to see a lot more in this space. In the meantime, here are a handful of the highlight Vines from #NYFW so far:
The fashion industry has been celebrating the festive season with all manner of digital initiatives. Here’s a look at some of the things they’ve been doing:
Ralph Lauren transforms online catalog into holiday greeting cards (as pictured) [Mashable]
Coach launches New York-themed gift tags campaign featuring eight animated videos, e-cards and Facebook application [WWD]
Marc Jacobs invites fans to upload their family holiday snaps with ‘MarcFam’ campaign [StyleCaster]
Calvin Klein partners with Shazam for interactive in-store displays and unique holiday song [L2 Blog]
Burberry sends festive cheer with interactive music videos [Burberry]
Tiffany & Co unveils digital storybook, ‘The Winter Carousel’, to tie in with store windows [Luxury Daily]
Macy’s extends annual Believe campaign with augmented reality app [Macy's]
John Lewis launches window display featuring its ‘Top 30 favorite things for Christmas’, allowing shoppers to buy directly via QR codes [PSFK]
JC Penney invites consumers to personalise their gifts with ‘Santa Tags’; QR codes that host voice recordings [JC Penney]
Alexander Wang compiles 12 days of Christmas gift guide [Global Grind]
Uniqlo UK offers shoppers the chance to win their Christmas wishlist [Uniqlo]
Esprit partners with Yvan Rodic of FaceHunter as part of Make Your Wish holiday campaign [PR Newswire]
Gap gives shoppers head start on holiday shopping with Shop Yourself Social initiative [RIS News]
It’s great to see luxury fashion houses finally grasping hold of the fact the web provides an ideal place for them to demonstrate the richness of their brands.
Slowly but surely, we’re moving away from tremendously uninspiring sites built on basic building blocks, to innovative platforms housing everything the company both stands for and creates. Accordingly, that once awful label of ‘digital destination’, might finally be warranted after all.
Admittedly not all of them are quite there…
Dior.com recently relaunched, for instance, and its yet to prove itself as impressive as its preview video implied – a little clunky in functionality, and that’s before we get into the remaining lack of e-commerce debate.
And then there’s say Marc Jacobs, which, as Tony King, creative director of King & Partners, highlighted last week at the Fashion Forward Digital conference in New York, doesn’t quite live up to the luxurious persona with its animated entrance point. (For the record he drew on the likes of Burberry, Oki-ni, Bally and Tory Burch, among others, as examples of digital best practice).
Said to be “an exciting, ever-changing format of exceptional richness and visual appeal”, its design is based on the concept of a journey, tying in, of course, with the brand’s longstanding initiative, The Art of Travel.
On the homepage, a moving cloud of images entices users towards five sections of content:
New, Now: the brand’s online magazine, which offers insights into the house, interviews with international personalities and coverage of events
Journeys: the home of the Core Values campaign, such as this season’s travels to Cambodia with Angelina Jolie, as well as historical content on the brand, details on its craftsmanship, artistic collaborations and store architecture, and links to its Amble application
Collections: a presentation of the entire product range, featuring new moving and 360° images. A multiple search functionality is also integrated, allowing users to refine by category, line, colour or collection
Stores: a detailed information feed of Louis Vuitton stores worldwide
My LV: a dedicated personalised space for users to access bookmarked content such as news and wish lists, and info on past purchases
It’s certainly a hefty offering. The question is, once users have entered in, will they stay long enough to actually navigate their way through it all? While the content is beautifully done (albeit surprisingly in Flash), the functionality is a little slow, and if it’s a sale they’re after, the route to buy is not all that straightforward, once again. But on what level does this matter?
With a brand like Louis Vuitton, is it more important to immerse and engage consumers in the experience with the aim of developing them into sales properties later? Or certainly at least driving them into store instead? Maybe so.
As Rich Tong, fashion director of blogging platform Tumblr recently told me in reference to Oscar de la Renta’s use of social media, it’s about awareness and brand building.
“Oscar de la Renta sells $5,000-$10,000 dresses; there is absolutely no correlation between those dresses and a 15-year-old in the Tumblr community. But Erika [Bearman, director of communications] is aiming more for establishing the Oscar brand in that little girl’s mind, so that when she grows up and does become established or successful, or becomes engaged and wants to get married, she’s thinking: ‘I want to be in an Oscar dress, I want to be an Oscar girl’,” he said.
“For Erika, it’s really about the persistence of the brand; seeding the Oscar brand in these girls’ minds really, really early on. It’s a long-term play.”
Louis Vuitton – once it’s ironed out a few creases – in that case, might just be on to a winner. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
Best Twitter – 
