Digital snippets: Burberry, Calvin Klein, Moschino, Saks, M&S, Primark

A round-up of all the latest stories surrounding fashion and tech…

 

• Burberry reveals ‘digital innovation’ partnership with WeChat to strengthen social presence in China [The Drum]

• Calvin Klein asks fans to snap selfies in their skivvies for #MyCalvins campaign [BrandChannel]

• Fast-fashion: Moschino offers fans the ability to shop its McDonald’s-themed show live [Dazed Digital]

• Saks recreates in-store beauty tutorials with six-second videos on Vine [LuxuryDaily]

• Marks & Spencer launches new website to replace Amazon platform, after three years in the making [The Telegraph]

• How Primark achieved 1.7m Facebook Likes in just six months [Econsultancy]

• Former GQ editor Lauren Bans comes out as @CondeElevator Tweeter [Fashionista]

• New privacy website lets you opt out of tracking in retail stores [AdAge]

• Ebay buys virtual fitting room start-up PhiSix Fashion Labs [PC Mag]

Digital snippets: Michael Kors, Rebecca Minkoff, Vivienne Tam, Marc Jacobs, Zac Posen

From New York to London, and everything in between, here’s a mega round-up of all the latest stories surrounding fashion and tech…

• Michael Kors dominates social conversation during NYFW [New York Business Journal]

• Rebecca Minkoff gives inside look at fashion week with Keek app [Mashable]

• Vivienne Tam’s WeChat partnership delivers NYFW front-row access [Jing Daily]

• Marc Jacobs opens fashion week pop-up that accepts Tweets as payment (as pictured) [Fashionista]

• Zac Posen curated a Spotify playlist for his new lookbook [Styleite]

• Alexander Wang showed colour-changing clothes during fashion week [Technical.ly]

• Warby Parker tops list of top 10 retail innovators [Fast Company]

• London Fashion Week: Nokia and Fyodor Golan create ‘world’s first’ smart skirt [Marketing]

• Net-a-Porter puts its fashion sense on paper in new print magazine [BrandChannel]

• Miu Miu unveils ‘Spark and Light’ short film [WWD]

• Sass & Bide launches 360-degree shoppable ad [PSFK]

• Bloomingdale’s hosts live-styling event on Instagram to drive interaction [Luxury Daily]

• The new Moda Operandi app is like Tinder for designer clothes [NY Observer]

• Instagram is shaping up to be the world’s most powerful selling tool [Forbes]

• Twitter planning to move into e-commerce [The Telegraph]

• Seven ways retailers are embracing tech, from body scanning to digital wallets [AdAge]

• A trend for fashion search apps [FT Material World]

• What’s so alluring about a woman known as Man Repeller? [NY Mag]

Hunter uses Instagram video as second screen to #LFW show

Hunter might be the new kid on the block this London Fashion Week season, but its show and accompanying social media coverage was as slick as the best of them.

The famous wellington boot brand introduced its new Hunter Original line with models parading along a catwalk covered in water. Under the creative direction of Stella McCartney’s husband Alasdhair Willis, this was a stylish line of practical outerwear, not to mention numerous new footwear pieces, fit for the current UK weather.

But for those watching online, it was the Instagram video posts that particularly stood out. In a sea of thousands of #LFW tagged images, not to mention endless blurry runway Insta-videos, Hunter took to the platform with a series of high quality, pre-produced clips.

Created as part of the wider #beahunteroriginal social media campaign, each one was designed to “capture the inspiration behind the collection and allow a deeper insight into what is being seen on the runway”. What that actually meant was quite abstract, creative work.

Overlaid copy set the theme – “If you’re born a pioneer”, “Forged by the desire to discover” or  “Take the path that others dare not take”, from one to the next. Graphics spliced in then showed a section of a boot, a close-up on a fabric or an original sketch, as well as a series of autumnal outdoor scenes nodding to the heritage of the brand.

Willis said: “Born out of a passion to innovate, a pioneering spirit has always been at the heart of the brand. This spirit is key as the future vision for Hunter is developed and the reason for leveraging Instagram in this way. We are delivering a unique experience for the Instagram community, in real time, providing a deeper insight into the story of the collection and the world of Hunter Original.”

Hunter referred to the Instagram move as its LFW “second screen experience”. See each of the posts below…

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Twitter Mirror arrives at fashion week with Matthew Williamson

Matthew Williamson is introducing the Twitter Mirror backstage at its London Fashion Week show this season.

Already becoming a regular feature of events such as The Grammys, The Oscars and even NBA games, this is a tablet usually positioned off-stage that enables celebs to snap selfies and autopost them to the event in question’s Twitter feed.

This will be the first time it is used at a fashion week. Williamson will have it set up for models to interact with in the build up to Sunday’s show. Each shot will be placed in a bespoke frame by the designer that reflects the new autumn/winter 2014/15 collection and its inspiration.

According to the brand’s head of digital, Rosanna Falconer, the aim was to give fans of the brand access behind-the-scenes in much more of a natural way than ever before. In previous seasons, Williamson shows have seen Vine used to reveal the details of the collection in real-time. Without intending to be, the best ones have always been when the models wearing the looks have been a little cheeky.

“This time we wanted to strip away the camera and the photographer, so it was just the models left, and see what we ended up with,” said Falconer.

Vine will be used during the show itself, with three posts revealing key pieces in full narrative – from sketch, to beading and final look. The brand will also continue its #ohmw campaign, handing out props branded with the hashtag to encourage attendees to similarly tweet and Instagram photos of themselves.

Why Topshop is focusing on shoppers in-store with virtual reality #LFW experience

What’s interesting about Topshop’s digital plans for London Fashion Week this season, is its focus primarily on the store – on shoppers rather than showgoers.

The British retailer is partnering with a company called Inition to offer consumers a virtual reality experience from its Oxford Circus flagship. Specially commissioned Oculus Rift-based headsets will enable individuals to see its catwalk event taking place in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall on Sunday, February 16, through a 3D virtual world – from VIP arrivals and backstage sneak peeks, to the Unique collection show itself. The telepresence technology will make them feel as though the models are walking in front of their eyes, and the celebrities sat right beside them.

This is substantially more advanced than Burberry’s 3D streaming to customers in its stores in 2010. Wired has a great write-up explaining why: “Those wearing the [Inition] headsets – incorporating headphones and the Oculus Rift – will be able to see the live catwalk unfold if they look straight ahead on one virtual screen as well as the celebrities they are sitting ‘next to’, thanks to an 180-degree wide angle on the stream. If they look behind them at a second virtual screen they’ll get a view into the backstage area, where models will be having their hair and makeup done. If the wearer happens to look up, they will ascend into a higher level, where they will be able to see the rafters and a number of 360-degree images of, for example, celebrity selfies. All around the virtual screens and other elements, the environment has been designed to look like the Turbine Hall, with concrete and large girders.

“On top of the live stream will be built a number of animated elements that reflect the theme of decay that characterises the autumn/winter collection. So there will be leaves, flowers and crows that fly around on top of the space. Tweets using a specific hashtag will emerge in the virtual world as petals dropped by the virtual crows.”

Andy Millns, co-founder and creative director of Inition, said: “Virtual reality is the ultimate interface to the digital world with the power to transport the user to another place as soon as they put on a special display. This unique technology has the potential to open up fashion shows to the consumer at home and we believe this will be the first of many executions of this kind.”

Last season, Topshop partnered with Chirp, a start-up that enabled the sharing of content via sound. It was a cute idea, and was fun to play with for those who tried, but the truth is (according to those involved) it wasn’t all that successful. Very few people at the show actually downloaded the app you had to have, let alone then had it open ready to collect the specific sounds emitted as the show took place. The Chirp Garden hosted in the store was no doubt a smarter move in terms of engagement. That said, it led to content shared, rather than an immersive experience.

The headsets for this coming weekend, as abstract as they might look and feel to wear, go back to what opening up show access is really about: making consumers feel involved. And not just via the web or social media, but in the brand Mecca that is the flagship store. Topshop Oxford Circus is arguably one of the best global examples of this – a tourist destination, an immersive consumer experience, and a space that has played host to all sorts of other campaigns; a shoppable Pinterest wall, a series of talks and events for those interested in the industry, a Tweet Shop for Halloween and more.

The one downside with this virtual reality initiative of course is that it’s restricted to just a few. A competition is being held in the run up to Sunday’s show via social media, which will result in five winners who will be the first to experience it. The installation will then be available to further visitors – we presume those who sign up, or queue for it – on-demand, for three days.

But as mentioned, that’s only at the Oxford Circus location, and not any of the other 400+ Topshop stores – directly owned or otherwise – around the UK and the rest of the world.

And that’s part of the issue with in-store tech innovation at present. It’s a costly move, it’s also an experiment most of the time, so it tends to be limited to one place. This campaign specifically is quite a unique example, and undoubtedy one best suited to the flagship on the basis it’s the theatrical homeland of the brand. With most other initiatives, however, the technology – no matter how far away from being a gimmick it is – won’t become more than a PR story if the majority of consumers don’t ever get to see or experience it.

Topshop is referring to this virtual reality installation as not just transporting the viewer, but providing an insight into how we will consume media in the not so distant future. This fashion week, it’ll still largely be an exclusive experience, but the potential is there.

SHOWstudio captured and remixed the sound of four SS14 collections being made

I’m somewhat obsessed with the idea of the fashion industry working out how to nail audio branding. I’m not talking about just straight up music partnerships or even the sounds associated with a brand when being in-store, but the noises that personify the clothing or accessories in particular and whether they have the potential to subsequently be owned by an individual label. Food for thought…

It’s for that reason though that I love this initiative from SHOWstudio called The Sound of Clothes: Studio Sessions. The creative editorial site founded by Nick Knight, captured the sounds of Mary Katrantzou, Sibling, Piers Atkinson and Matthew Williamson’s collections being made ahead of their spring/summer 2014 shows this past September.

From the noise of the knitting machines and crochet needles being used, to beads and gems rustling, jersey being ripped, the pattern cutters in action, zips fastening and even models’ heels clicking during fittings, everything was collected, edited and then remixed into four musical tracks (as below) said to give “a unique audio take on the collections and capture the diversity of London Fashion Week”.

Sound artist Stu Sibley worked on the initiative, stretching and manipulating certain sounds so they seem like beats or instruments, while leaving others exactly as they were recorded. Each track is accompanied by abstract 3D visuals based on the runway collections themselves. Concept and direction was by Lou Stoppard and Neal Bryant. 

There’s also a wonderful essay by Maria Echeverri alongside the project that charts the history of sound through dress: “The various instances of sound in dress ranging from the Renaissance to present day hint at the untapped potential of resonant dress, for ultimately, the act of making and hearing noise is implicit in the experience and interpretation of clothing. And by understanding the enlivened dexterity of sound through its past, we can begin to imagine, and hear, its future.”

Belstaff launches new Legends campaign portraits by Scott Schuman, starring Beckham

Belstaff hosted an elaborate event that played on its motorcycle heritage this London Fashion Week to celebrate the opening of its new flagship store in the capital.

With David Beckham as host, the British-born brand closed off part of New Bond Street to welcome a parade of 50 authentic bikers.  They were wearing both new and vintage pieces from the brand, but as its supposed to be worn, on the road and getting dirty, which is exactly what the team wanted to capture.

As a result, they hired Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist to do so. The well-known street style photographer shot a series of intimate portraits of some of the bikers, seven of which, as well as one of Beckham, are now live on the Legends section of Belstaff’s website, which is also home to images of its oldest jackets and the icons who have worn them.

Each of the stars – David Parr, Nate Petre, Josh Wasserman, Hugo Jezgabel, Mark Phillips, George Barden and Pat McAteer – features alongside a mini interview saying who they are, what bike they ride and where they find their inspiration. Collectively they are referred to as the “modern legends of Belstaff”. (Clicking on their pictures leads to the corresponding product page too).

I’ve also been privy to an early cut of a video set to launch in a couple of weeks time documenting the bikers travelling from the historic Goodwood Estate to Mayfair. It’s a beautiful testament to both Britain and the brand. Look out for it.

Beckham will also front Belstaff’s spring/summer 2014 global advertising campaign. It will be photographed by Peter Lindberg and inspired by the late Steve McQueen, a long-time fan of  Belstaff. Further pictures of Beckham at the opening of Belstaff House in London are below:

 

Anya Hindmarch unveils astrological #whatplanet campaign at #LFW

Anya Hindmarch launched a cute digital campaign alongside its London Fashion Week show today tied to the collection’s planetary theme.

“What Planet Are You On?” allows fans to create personalised charts based on their date of birth. The resulting content (as per the below sample), features astrological facts and quips ranging from your ruling planet to your age in dog years or the amount of energy the candles on your next birthday cake would produce. It also says how many seconds you’ve lived for, which celebrities you share your birthday with and what date you were conceived.

“Boldly go on an astro-biological journey to discover your universal truths, astro-facts and space oddities,” reads the write-up.

Guests at the show were each presented with their own chart, while online followers are invited to visit whatplanetareyouon.com to create one too. The content is being shared over social using the #whatplanet hashtag.

The initiative follows on from last season’s Anyagrams campaign, which invited fans to generate anagrams from their own names.

London amps digital to make fashion week more public than ever

This article first appeared on Mashable

New York Fashion Week came to a close Thursday, heralding the return of another fashion week in London. Once again, anticipation for the week is not limited to the collections themselves: The industry and the public are equally interested in what digital innovations the top design houses will introduce during their shows.

When one fashion house introduces a new digital innovation, it doesn’t take long for others to follow — if it’s good. One need only remember that fashion shows weren’t live-streamed five years ago, nor did designers reveal behind-the-scenes snapshots over Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr. Today, those are a matter of course.

But what’s next? New York saw Tommy Hilfiger introduce Lytro cameras and a “social concierge” service to its show this season, while Rebecca Minkoff experimented with messaging app Snapchat to debut its collection. For London Fashion Week, which runs from Sept. 13 through Sept.17, yet another round of ideas are on their way. Here’s a preview.

Celebrating London

Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter and chairman of the British Fashion Council, published an open letter in UK newspaper The Evening Standard ahead of this season’s shows, calling for the whole of London to help raise the profile of British fashion by engaging in the excitement surrounding Fashion Week.

“All eyes will be on you as our international guests will be tweeting, Instagramming and reporting in nearly 50 countries across the world,” Massenet wrote, adding that this “will help grow our brands, stimulate exports, create new jobs and generally make us a must-visit city.” She invited the public to be their most stylish selves for the week to show their support.

Once a trade-only event, London Fashion Week has increasingly become an opportunity to speak directly to consumers. This is especially the case at the event’s headquarters in Somerset House, where an “Instabooth” has been set up to celebrate the best of the capital’s street style. Visitors will be able to print images of themselves as souvenirs as well as share their favorite looks on Facebook. Highlights will also be posted on the official London Fashion Week Instagram.

Meanwhile, a social media wall in the courtyard of Somerset House will provide running commentary on the shows, as pulled from anyone using the #LFW hashtag. Posts will be regulated to keep them appropriate, but the aim is for a visual insight into the experience of Fashion Week, whether that’s through catwalk looks, front row pics or celebrity sightings.

This consumer-facing strategy is being pushed out across the city in a year-long campaign. The British Fashion Council last week announced that every Friday for the next 12 months it will broadcast a fashion news bulletin, dubbed #FashionFridays, on screens situated on the London Underground. Beyond news and other fashion-related content, the BFC will hold competitions to encourage consumers to engage with the broadcasts using the hashtag.

The BFC is not the only one taking to the streets of London this season. Belstaff, which cancelled its New York presentation last weekend to focus on the opening of its London flagship this Sunday, is doing so with a bold statement. Playing on its motorcycle heritage, the British-born brand is closing off part of New Bond Street to welcome a parade of 50 bikers. In lieu traditional models, Belstaff is using “rugged” British guys in the parade, ones who are passionate about the brand, Emilie Hawtin, senior marketing and digital media manager, tells Mashable. “They are already wearing Belstaff; they’re getting it dirty and using it the way it’s supposed to be used,” Hawtin says.

During the parade, the bikers will perform tricks on vintage bikes, which The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman will be on hand to capture. The well-recognized street style photographer will also shoot a series of intimate portraits of the bikers before and during the ride. The resulting images will be hosted on the Legends section of Belstaff’s website, which is already home to images of its oldest jackets and the icons who have worn them.

Enhancing show experiences

When it comes to the shows themselves this season, the two big moves come from Burberry and Topshop once again. Both are partnering with technology companies, albeit ones at radically opposite ends of the scale.

Burberry is teaming with Apple to capture its Spring/Summer 2014 collection using a set of not-yet-released iPhone 5S devices. Its team will capture both photos and video of the runway looks as well as backstage, which will be shared via social media. It’s a promotional rather than an innovative partnership, a way to leverage the buzz created by Apple’s latest device.

Having partnered with more established technology players in the past, this season Topshop has sought out a young mobile startup called Chirp to create a new experience for its show. Chirp is a mobile app that transmit images, notes or links through “digital birdsong” — users post their content, then hit a yellow button to emit a unique 20-note chirp, which other devices running the app nearby can pick up. The retailer will be using the app to send out images, including prep and backstage shots, to attendees of the show via several “Chirp locations” around the event site. Its Oxford Circus store will also feature a Chirp and Twitter “garden” full of digital content for shoppers to explore.

Other content highlights

Other London designers will be sharing their collections via a variety of digital means. Twenty-nine of 58 shows will be live-streamed throughout the week, including 18 from Somerset House, eight from Topshop’s new Regent’s Park venue, and from off-site locations chosen by Burberry, Mulberry and Paul Smith. The Christopher Raeburn, Sister by Sibling and Simone Rocha shows will also be streamed directly to the BFC’s Twitter feed.

Here’s a round-up of the rest of the social content to look out for:

• The BFC is continuing its live Twitter Q&A sessions with industry insiders, including blogger Susie Lau of Style Bubble, using #AskLFW. This time, all of the responses will be recorded using six-second Vine clips.

• Matthew Williamson is handing out props branded with the hashtag #ohMW (Oh My Williamson), encouraging attendees to tweet and Instagram photos of themselves with the prop. “We wanted a cute prop to make people feel at ease with the camera – we want to show personality and character,” says Williamson’s head of digital Rosanna Falconer.

• Jonathan Saunders will use an app called Slidergram to showcase “slideshow-style videos” of key looks from its show, as well as backstage and close-up shots. All will be accompanied by the show’s soundtrack.

• Paul Smith himself will be taking over the brand’s Instagram for the majority of the week, revealing pictures of Sunday’s show prep as well as the new Mayfair store opening Friday night using the #takenbypaul hashtag.

• eBay UK has teamed up with video blogger Patricia Bright of BritPopPrincess for a series of videos focused on street style at LFW, with looks shoppable straight from eBay’s YouTube channel. eBay will also be revealing a capsule collection by designer Holly Fulton.

• Pinterest’s fashion week hub continues in London, this time showcasing boards from the likes of Harvey Nichols, Anya Hindmarch and Mulberry.

Latest Topshop innovation will see #LFW content shared via sound

Topshop is partnering with a start-up called Chirp for its upcoming Unique show at London Fashion Week in order to share pieces of content via sound with those in attendance. 

Chirp is an iPhone app that refers to itself as a “magical new way to share your stuff”. Essentially it encrypts pictures, notes or links as a type of “digital birdsong” – users post their content, then hit a big yellow button to emit a unique 20-note chirp, which other devices running the app nearby can pick up.

Here’s its own explanation of how it works: “You can think of a chirp as a tiny piece of music. Each chirp lasts about two seconds. The system listens out for a couple of dozen notes played rapidly in a certain order, within a certain range, at a certain speed. The audio engine tries to decode the sequence of notes into a sequence of letters which our server understands. The server then returns a link to the user so they can go wherever the short code points: to a webpage, say. This decode all happens in realtime on your phone.” A more technical introduction can also be found on its website.

What all this means is that users don’t need to login and follow Topshop to be able to receive the content, rather by being in proximity (i.e. at the show) they will be able to simply “hear the data” when they’re running the app. The retailer will be sending out images from several Chirp locations around the site, ranging from shots of the pattern room where the clothes were made, to the collection backstage, the hair and make-up tests, and the models walking down the catwalk. It has also added a new and unique aspect to the application whereby tapping on each image will flip it around to reveal more info and extra content.

Further reading shows Chirps can also work over PA systems, as well as in YouTube videos, meaning Topshop could potentially share the same pieces of content with anyone listening from home.

Its website however will host a gallery of the images so anyone tuning into the live-stream can also see them. As below, they will sit atop additional content pulled from Twitter from both the brand’s own account and from key fashion insiders it has asked to contribute from front row and backstage.

Meanwhile, its Oxford Circus store will feature a Chirp and Twitter Garden full of digital content for shoppers to explore (as the picture above demonstrates).

“Each season, we set ourselves the challenge to innovate and excite in a different way with the Unique show; not only in terms of our collection and show space, but also how to engage with and involve Topshop fans worldwide. The link with Chirp is fun and we love the fact that it allows people to discover new aspects of the collection and what goes on behind the scenes at Unique through creating iconic images to story tell,” said Sir Philip Green.

Topshop has of course previously made its mark in the digital space by teaming up with mega-tech companies including Google and Facebook around its collections. But it says this move is all about supporting emerging talent – taking the same approach it has with burgeoning young designers for instance, to what it believes is a pioneering new app.

Its team members told me they’re “experimenting with something that’s new”, “just having a bit of a play” and “seeing what they can get out of it”.

The brand will also be continuing its Customise the Catwalk and Shoot the Show initiatives, as well as offering followers the option to download the show’s soundtrack from iTunes and click to buy the make-up looks. Check out its trailer for the event below: