It’s official: fashion designers are joining the world wide web. As of this year, the internet has become, and is still becoming, an essential medium for designers to showcase new seasonal collections.
Many runway shows are now being streamed live on the internet. Alexander McQueen is one of the first fashion designers to utilize this medium to its full potential. He teamed up with SHOWstudio and streamed his brilliant and other-worldly Spring 2010 collection, “Plato’s Atlantis,” live from Paris. Not only was his designs revolutionary, but so was his showcasing to the entire world as it was happening.
Fashion has always been a small world—only the invited were allowed into the show, with the exception of a few guests who were lucky enough to snatch up tickets, and the rest of the unprivileged world had to wait months to see the new designs in print. Designers during the fashion weeks also followed suit and allowed their shows to be filmed live.
Live streaming adds a whole new dimension to the fashion industry. Instead of only a handful of people being able to experience a live show, everybody in the world is now able to tune in. And people, such as myself, who always wished to be front-row during a fashion show, can now fulfill that dream. Granted, watching a show from a computer can never compare to being at an actual runway show.
However, designers such as Donna Karan, are opposed to this new development because they want the traditional show to remain and keep its “mystique.” But let’s face it, Ms. Karan: technology is taking over and it was only a matter of time before fashion reached the media. If the fashion world ever wants to expand, it needs to find a way to reach out to a lot more people, and live streaming is certainly a fantastic new medium to use. And designers will most likely make more profit since hundreds of people are now able to see the new clothes as they’re being introduced.
So for all of you people out there who can’t find tickets to your favorite shows, just sit back, spray on some clothing, tune in to stylelist.com (where fashion week shows were streamed), and enjoy a front-row experience without the cost.
...and we've already admitted that Web 2.0 means you're as much a consumer as you are a producer. We've seen this transformation from "normal" to "celebrity" with acts like Justin Bieber (YouTube), Sean Kingston (MySpace), and Perez Hilton (web logs). Is there an avenue for someone with a web cam and a dream to broadcast their own fashion shows and, perhaps, make it in such an exclusive world?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. If somebody is able to create their own 100% original and stunning designs, film people wearing it, and promote it like crazy on the internet, then they definitely have a chance of being "discovered", however slim that chance may be. If music artists are able to get discovered on the internet, who's to say that a fashion designer can't? It seems as though the internet is the center of the world...anything can happen.
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