Ralph Lauren 4D Experience (2010)

A really amazing fusion of fashion and digital technology (3d graphic). Ralph Lauren’s 4D show in London and New York. Movies that you might have missed. Pieces of art that are absolutely worth seeing:

Great animations and apps by CHANEL MAKEUP CONFIDENTIAL

You might have missed it, but CHANEL has it’s awesome website devoted to beauty issues.
Am I gonna write about it?

YES.

Because it’s full of great animations and contains a cute Valentine’s Day app. I wonder why, fashion peeps don’t usually talk about it and there aren’t many posts about that on CHANEL’s Facebook profile.

CHANEL make up guru – Peter Philips – shares his secrets about make up in a few tutorials – and this is a core of this site, but people who were engaged in CHANEL cosmetics campaign, also created some cool animations, like:

PARTICULIÈRE

HERE COMES THE BEAUTY PACK

or

MAGIC FINGERS

and here’s a cute and simple flash app, where you can write whatever you want (actually it was a Valentine’s Day gift from CHANEL to its’ customers) :

CHANEL LOVE LETTERS

Fashion on Pinterest: what and why do they do there and who does manage well?

Out of curiosity, I browsed through some huge fashion brands’ pages on Pinterest recently. I did a few observations and I picked a few favourites. Below I will try to explain what exactly fashion brands do on this social media site and a strategy of which brand is my favourite. This post should prove valuable for all designers who want to promote their brand through the web and for those who work in social media marketing and wonder whether it’s worth to promote fashion on Pinterest.

Reasons why fashion brands are on Pinterest

A lot of fashion brands have an account on Pinterest, most likely because of following few reasons:

• Women are the majority of Pinterest users, and obviously they are more interested in fashion that men are
• It’s good to reserve one’s unique address – to avoid having it done for us by someone anonymous

Fashion and Facebook: why don’t luxury brands invest in Facebook applications?

Recently, while seeking some inspiration, I browsed through a lot of the luxury fashion brands’ fanpages. I looked for the facebook applications, which would have widened my horizons regarding those. What I found, surprised me a lot. It appears that the majority of the facebook profiles, at least the ones I browsed, doesn’t have not only a variety, but any games, quizzes or similar entertaining application. Why?

1. Luxury trade

Even though the Internet democratizes fashion more and more, is still not fully available for a regular customer and all the same remains quite royal. One can ask – why would brands like Versace or Chanel need to engage a mass customer? They are not directed towards them after all. Not for love or money such brands would like to and they do not have to draw fans or engage them and entertain in a traditional social media way. While making applications for tablets or mobiles, luxury brands aim to just be present and available for their customers, allow them to identify with the brand.

Dior Facebook Apps

They also want to be associated with modernity and they manage that with different means (see Burberry, Maison Margiela, Chanel or Dior). However they don’t want all world’s fashionistas to be a part of their luxuriant, magical ring. New media are used by the luxury brands just, and only just, to maintain in consciousness of the regular and e-customers, engage them is a subtle and often purposeful method, moreover straightly directed in a targeted way. But for sure they are not used to senselessly entertaining millions of ‘likes’.

2. Not this target – after all

Mature and serious women 25+ are usually the contemporary consumers of the luxury brands. They do not have time nor will for silly games. Often those women work, and are busy managing their careers, family and lifestyle. People hidden under the brands’ ‘likes’ are most often not their real customers.

What’s interesting, to win the hearts of the future customers, the luxury brands like to co-operate with different magazines, such as Teen Vogue, from time to time. Their strategy changes there a little bit. I am 200% sure, that they perfectly know that that’s where their regular customers’ base is set.

3. Evolution of social media – a little bit more mature approach

Just a few years ago there were a lot more new social media applications popping up. Most of them, which I found, were produced in 2009/2010. Nowadays, both marketing and fashion brands seem somewhat more mature and approach social media with carefulness.

Amazing campaigns are set up, which engage people brilliantly, acquire huge might of branding and selling interaction, and at the same time are put into practice in a wiser way and more traditional method. Summing up – their creators regain the control over what they do and how they do it.

Fashion marketing in 2013

To summarize, the luxury brands are very specific and even though they try to implement novelty from IT and marketing into their campaigns – they still remain quite conservative. What I can predict for 2013 from all those information – other industries will draw from this approach.

The interactive future of the fashion ecommerce

In my last post I wrote shortly about fashion ecommerce evolution and I drew my vision of the future of the online cloths shops. Today I would like to elaborate more about this future and answer the question of how will fashion ecommerce develop in the upcoming years.

Selling fashion online – where to find a good bargain for couture?

In the next 5 years, clothing retailers market is expected to be in the biggest bloom of all ecommerce categories in USA. It’s associated with technology improvements. Technology opportunities offered to fashion retailers are huge. I especially await the prevalence of the following trends:

• Augmented Reality – fitting-room in your home, while buying online

It’s not science fiction, such technology already exists. Few start-ups already tried and succeeded with online fitting-rooms. Even Microsoft worked on this project. Widened reality can replace ropo, while users can at last make a good use out of their camcorders, Kinect or loop technology.

• Ecommerce video in fashion – buy this look

Few months ago I wrote about the very first music video which allows to buy clothes presented in it. Similar projects were set up by for example Topshop and Gucci.

I think it lays in YouTube and Vimeo future. They should look into the possibilities of profitable videos.

• Shop on Pinterest – using all those beautiful photos at last

Social shopping is already happening on Facebook, while its Pinterest which has the biggest selling potential. I’m sure that a great step for Pinterest team would be allowing users to sell and buy – executing full transactions throughout the website.

Michael Kors on Pinterest

 

Right now Pinterest is just accumulating a massive database full of users and brands. What’s important, most of the users are women, while most of the brands are fashion brands. Such correlation shouldn’t go unnoticed. Even today Pinterest is a good converter for retailers, it would be great if they could have they shops on it as well.

• Siri – your personal shopper

Or even a personal stylist. Siri should know who am I, how do I look and what do I like. And even what do I already have and what do I need. It may appear a bit scary, but these days all those information are already floating around the web anyway – on Facebook, on ecommerce on my Foursquare or even on Pinterest. What’s more, we don’t even guard those information anymore. We just lack an application which would gather them all together and secure. Siri can intercept such functions, it already knows a lot. In the future it could buy me shoes or clothes, fitting them to my silhouette and preferences.

• Facebook search with social graph

Fight over users-clients cannot go without Facebook, which already tests new search engines. It has a great market potential and I think that Facebook will even more improve retailers possibilities of selling and promotion. The main reason is so that Facebook users won’t really need to go anywhere else, just stay on it. Thanks to that shopping will become even more social.

From the beginnings of the fashion ecommerce, through social shopping, to a vision of the clothes and accessories shops of the future

Fashion ecommerce – beginnings were bad

It took a long time for a fashion industry to fully acknowledge the technology progress. That’s why the first decade of21st century wasn’t rich in online shops. Today, of course, there are a lot of them. In all languages, they deliver their goods to every corner of the Earth.

Short history of the fashion ecommerce

Boo.com was the first well-known fashion ecommerce (today the site links to a portal about hostels). It was hosted in 1998 and came to grief in 2000. Then net-a-porter.com took its place. The site, found by Natalie Massenet, is nowadays one of the most famous Internet shops.

Fashion week online – how can fashion marketing management let you be an insider at the event

It is a continuation of my article about social media in the fashion marketing in the context of MBFW, especially NYFW. In the previous post I wrote about the benefits from such social media sites as Twitter, Istagram, Pinterest and Facebook. Today I will tell you why it is important to follow the Caroline Palmer crew, how to watch fashion shows live and how bloggers and models show us what nobody else would (even the press).

Fashion shows livestream

Why should you watch livestreams?

One can watch livestreams through both designers’ or specially dedicated sites. It allows watching live what’s happening on the catwalk, participating in the (online) event.

Fashion Week Live

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (Fall 2013) on the Internet – how can you take a part in an online event

New York Fashion Week (NYFW) takes place in February. All of the true fashioholics awaits for it – though, most of them don’t really have real access to it. However, thanks to a good fashion marketing management undertaken by fashion brands and Mercedes Benz Fashion Week’s organizers, nowadays even ‘normal’ people have access to the fashion world.

MBFashionWeek Social Media

As first fashion weeks of 2013 are approaching, I would like to tell you (in the next two posts) more about social media in fashion marketing and how technology improvement democratizes fashion. In today’s I will look into Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. In the next one I will describe bloggers’ and celebrities’ activity and also the fashion magazines and livestream impact.

„Shoppable” video by Gucci – own cruise 2013 collection by a click – pluses and minuses

Some time ago I wrote about the very first music video, thanks to which you can buy the clothes wore in it just by clicking on them. There are more and more such projects, and even though “shop this look’ by ssense.com is one of my favourites –this Gucci one is quite interesting as well.

The video is a part of Gucci Cruise 2013 collection campaign. After clicking during the video on a redisplayed button, you can see an application demonstrating a chosen product, including price and social buttons (Facebook, Twitter). Any product can be bought like that straight away. Below you can watch the video:

100 years in 1 minute: history of fashion

Here’s a beautiful animation about the history of fashion.

By Julie Perfezou.
Amazing!