New York Fashion Week: Men’s kicks off today, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America, is looking to generate some social excitement around the four-day event.
“The CFDA takes a Switzerland role in communicating what our members are up to,” said Emilie Fife, senior manager of digital communications at the group. “It’s important to let the mass majority of fashion fans who aren’t at the shows feel like they’re part of it — and not with the typical, blurry runway photos.”
And for the second season of Men’s Fashion Week — where about 60 designers are showing — Fife said the CFDA is working with social platforms Snapchat and Tumblr directly. Snapchat will have a Live Story for the event and Tumblr will give five creative types free rein to create content.
Technology is quickly changing the way the industry and consumers digest fashion.
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“More of our members ask for a contact at Instagram than they do at magazines,” Fife said.
Event sponsors will also do their part to drum up social engagement from showgoers, including Cadillac, which is building a studio runway at Men’s Fashion Week hub Skylight Clarkson North. Nathan Tan, Cadillac’s associate director of brand partnerships, likened the runway to a pop-up video studio that will allow participants to share their walks down the runway across social media channels using a dedicated hashtag. The company will also tell fashion influencer stories to followers on the company’s owned social channels.
“We want to be additive to the experience — particularly in places like the fashion industry,” said Tan. “We don’t just want to associate with things and put our brand next to it. We want to engage with a community in a way that adds value.”
Snapchat’s Live Story will debut on Snapchat on Feb. 3, and designers showing that day — Michael Kors, Perry Ellis, Calvin Klein, Gypsy Sport and Cadet — will all contribute. Snapchat’s Live Story feature allows Snapchatters to access events — from Fashion Week to the Republican Debates — in real-time.
To personalize the experience, Snapchat will create a series of New York Fashion Week: Men’s filters that users who upload to the live story can tag their snaps with. These will range from general Men’s Fashion Week filters containing the event’s official logo to more specific ones that are dedicated to individual shows.
A spokeswoman from Snapchat confirmed that this is the third time that the social platform will partner with the CFDA. The first time was in May for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund and the second was at the CFDA Awards a month later.
“This took place in early summer and it’s been a continuum that only picked up during Fashion Week in September,” she said, adding that with each Fashion Week season, Snapchat sees more and more influencers join the platform from bloggers to designers and models. “There is something to be said that the womens’ Fashion Weeks around the world get so much buzz. This is our chance to expose our community to men’s fashion week, which our community may not be as familiar with.”