London’s first dedicated menswear fashion week is focusing on engaging with consumers via digital, thanks to multiple innovations backed by the British Fashion Council.
London Collections: Men, which kickstarts Friday and runs through Sunday, will incorporate everything from live-streaming to pinning, as well as a film programme and augmented reality-enabled windows.
Here are some of the highlights:
Pinterest
Leading industry figures such as Jeremy Langmead, editor-in-chief of e-commerce site, Mr Porter, will share their moments from the week’s events by pinning onto the British Fashion Council’s newly launched Pinterest page. The public is also invited to participate by using the hashtag #ManAboutTown. The request is for menswear street style photos, whether taken at the event or anywhere else around the world. The resulting images will be collated on a dedicated pinboard and in a Facebook album in a bid to “provide a crowd-sourced visual collection of the best of British men’s style”.
Twitter
On Twitter, @BFC is not only pushing conversation around the #londoncollections hashtag, but hosting a series of Q&A sessions with members of its Fashion 2012 Menswear Committee, including Alex Bilmes, editor of UK Esquire magazine, and designer Richard James. The live interviews can be followed via #AskLCM.
Interactive image gallery
In celebration of The Prince of Wales officially launching the event at St James’s Palace tomorrow, the BFC has published an online image gallery dedicated to his style. Within it, users can explore outfits ranging from highland tartans to Savile Row suits, discovering the origin of each and learning more about the brand that made it. His preferred London labels are also plotted on a map alongside a picture of the related garments.
Aurasma
Following in the footsteps of Net-a-Porter’s Fashion’s Night Out and Karl initiatives, Mr Porter has teamed up with augmented reality technology company Aurasma, to bring the windows of The Hospital Club (the main hub for the event) to life. By scanning the life-sized catwalk illustrations with the Mr Porter Style Help app, users will be able to see the latest show footage.
Film and live-streaming
There is also a screening room within The Hospital Club that will run the BFC’s Fashion/On Film programme, sponsored by high street retailer River Island. Included will be an evening hosted by Test Presents with DJ and fashion luminary Jeffrey Hinton, who will show excerpts from his 80s film archive; as well as panel member Kathryn Ferguson discussing fashion film with female menswear designers, Carri Munden (Cassette Playa), Katie Eary and Martine Rose. Every show held at The Hospital Club as well as those at the Topman Venue will also be live streamed, both online and on mobile.
GQ magazine has launched a new iPhone app in partnership with designer e-commerce site 
Sorry Dior, your new online magazine misses the mark
29 FebDior has unveiled a new online magazine in a continuation of its quest for greater digital presence, but unfortunately the result just isn’t fit for purpose.
According to WWD, Diormag.com launches with eight articles to coincide with the fact the number is a good luck charm to the company. It will follow with daily updates based on a variety of content designed to “both entertain and inform”. News from its 30 Avenue Montaigne headquarters will be included, as well as details on its other activities worldwide.
The aim is to tell the backstory of the brand and its products. As WWD’s piece explains, there is therefore also “house lore galore: The site’s introductory letter notes that Christian Dior was so superstitious, he would sew sprigs of lily of the valley into dress linings for luck on the day of his show.”
In theory, it sounds great. But in practice, it unfortunately comes across way too much as corporate spiel than it does anything that closely resembles that of “news” or a “magazine”.
Take this title: “Silver screen stars and fashion icons: femininity as seen by Christian Dior“. From that, I expect a real insight into the women of Dior, why they’ve been chosen, who they are, history of where they’ve come from. Maybe, even hopefully, then some insight into a fresh campaign, at the very least the latest update on one of its ambassadors like Charlize Theron (though the images of her that are provided are beautiful, if not fresh).
Alas, the text intros as follows: “Backstage Dior: the other side of the show coin. Behind the scenes, the action continues. But it’s another film that’s showing here, a more intimate one. Flanking the runway: director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s cast of four hundred. In the wings: Marilyn, Grace, Marlene, Charlize – Dior-ified, brought together through the magic of cinema.” A further three very similar paragraphs follow.
Unfortunately, the only phrase that comes to mind from that is: PR jargon. Or worse yet, utter mumbo jumbo. The team might have hired a “full-time editor in chief, whose identity has not been disclosed”, but the writing doesn’t come close to offering anything slightly resembling that of true magazine editorial quality. Beautiful if it’s on a page about the history of the brand, a piece of text designed to inspire or merely illustrate, but for a blog? (as that’s essentially what this is trying to be). Don’t expect digitally-savvy consumers to embrace it is all I’ll say.
This post on the house’s latest couture show, is much the same. It claims to offer a “look at it”, but the gallery doesn’t actually overly show the collection itself, and the copy, once again, reads exactly like a press release. Or maybe the show notes.
The post on Miss Dior, or Christian’s little sister Catherine, is better, but not by much.
The key thing that’s missing from Dior’s puzzle here, is creating content that’s shareable. Nothing in any of these pieces screams out “share me on Twitter” or “post me on Facebook” (where it has almost 7m fans), although that functionality is, quite surprisingly, built in.
There are some incredible branded content offerings out there from luxury fashion houses: Dolce & Gabbana’s Swide, Mr Porter, not to mention LVMH’s own Nowness, so plenty for Dior to have learnt from. Even Chanel’s very elusive attempts do a better job.
According to WWD, Diormag.com will cover Friday’s Paris Fashion Week show as its inaugural headline event, live-streaming it for the first time too. There’s also plans for blogger Susie Bubble to oversee a feed on Twitter at the same time. In both of those, therefore there may come something of much more value.
The entire concept has real potential, but from a content standpoint, I just hope they start to drive it properly. When you’re a brand as rich as Dior, you are naturally sitting on an enormous bed of information that people want to know, hear and see more of. By all means tell us about the past, but also show us behind-the-scenes, take us into 30 Avenue Montaigne, and give us a sneak peek at what’s coming next.
Either which way, just write it in a straightforward manner… for if you do, we’ll probably start talking about it. And better than that, we’ll also come back again.
***
ps. This piece from The New York Times fashion desk is worth reading: Editing as a brand investment
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