How To Successfully Execute a Fashion Show

Fashion shows are events that define the fashion industry. When people outside of the industry think of fashion, chances are, their mind probably goes immediately to fashion shows. The four major fashion weeks, New York, London, Paris, and Milan are the epitome of fashion year in and year out and if you own a fashion brand, you’ve probably thought about doing a fashion show. This month, we’re going to share some insight into how to execute a successful fashion show. We’ll take you through whether you should be doing a fashion show, the timeline you should consider when doing one, and what factors to be careful of when planning.

Fashion shows are probably one of the biggest annual expenses for a fashion house. Because of this, we don’t tend to see many smaller brands commit to doing them often. So, before you start thinking about how to plan a successful show, it’s important to first consider whether you should plan one. The biggest piece of advice we can give small brands is to look at your finances first and see if you have the extra money to spend. Whilst fashion shows may be one of the best marketing tactics a fashion house could employ, for smaller brands that don’t have the same budget, it could do more harm than good. If your brand isn’t in a place financially to spend tens of thousands of dollars on one show, it’s probably best to hold off on fashion shows for the moment.

Before we talk about timeline, there are some elements you should consider in advance that could impact your timeline. The first and most important aspect to evaluate, is your budget. If after considering your finances, you don’t have as much money to spare as you’d like, but you’d still like to do a show, sponsors are something worth considering. The act of acquiring sponsors, however, takes considerable time. If you plan to go this route, we’d recommend you start at least a year out from when you would like to do your show. The second aspect to consider is how big you want your show to be, i.e., how many guests would you like to invite, as this will also have an impact on how early you need to start marketing the event. The final aspect you want to consider is your concept. The more complicated the set design and theme, the earlier you’ll need to start planning.

Like any large-scale event, a fashion show takes months of thorough planning; it’s not something you could or should throw together in a couple of weeks. Our typical advice to any brand is to start planning your show three to six months in advance. In the next part of this article, we’re going to take you through the timeline of planning a fashion show and what to focus on for each time bracket.

SIX MONTHS OUT

The six-month mark is when you want to begin putting together your team, get your venue secured, and start marketing (if you plan to sell tickets). With regards to your team, this refers specifically to your event team and production team, whether internal or external. You also want to hire a PR team if you don’t already have an internal one. Please also keep in mind that this is for brands who are planning on doing their first fashion show. If you’re considering doing this annually or bi-annually, it’s best to establish a good reoccurring team, as there’s nothing worse than having an unreliable team when you’re already under so much stress and pressure. You also want to reserve your venue during this time, so you’re not left scrambling last minute, but more importantly, you want to start production planning for your set as early as possible. Having a venue confirmed earlier will make everything a lot easier. Finally, if you plan to sell tickets for your show, you want to start marketing at this stage. Since you’re selling tickets and want to sell as many as possible, it’s best to get the word out early. If your show is going to be invite-only, marketing can start a bit later.

THREE MONTHS OUT

The three-month mark is when everything starts to get intense and planning really starts to come together. Starting from the three-month mark, everything will start to get a lot more hectic and time consuming. If you’re not planning on selling tickets, this month is the month you want to start the marketing and PR for your event. To ensure that people can attend your event, you want to give them enough notice to ensure they don’t make other plans, but not too much notice that they’ll forget about it closer to the date. We’ve found that three months is the sweet spot. This is also the month you want to start set production if you haven’t already. Anything regarding the actual runway set-up (lights, set design, etc.) and venue conception should be put into motion at this stage.

ONE MONTH OUT

The one-month mark is when you want to start booking all your talent (hair, makeup, photographer, videographer, casting director, etc.). Of course, if you’re considering booking a very famous makeup artist or videographer for example, you probably want to do this even earlier. You also want to make sure that the collection you are going to show is close to being ready. You don’t want the show date to arrive and not have the collection ready, so this is the month to touch-base with your designer and ensure everything is on track for the show. The one-month mark is also the month you want to do a PR and marketing push. From this month onwards, you want to go in on your marketing tactics and start sending out reminders to any of your guests. How many reminders you send is up to your discretion, however, we would suggest one reminder one-month out, another one-week out, and a final reminder the day before. The final reminder would also have all the venue details attached.

ONE WEEK OUT

The final week is what we would refer to as crunch time. During this last week, you want to cast your models and confirm all other details are ready. This is also the week that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, so expect this to be the busiest week of your year. Some factors that are especially important to pay attention to are music and lighting. Music and lightening should already be confirmed well before this week, but this is the week that you would like to test your music with the venue sound system and venue/show lighting to confirm everything is working as you like. There are tons of little details to confirm this week, so to save yourself an even bigger headache, you want to get everything that can be done earlier completed beforehand, so that this week you can focus solely on fixing anything that needs to be fixed and doing final run-throughs.    

Now that you’re familiar with the timeline of planning a fashion show and what you need to do to ensure your show is successful, here are some final things we believe you should pay special attention to during the planning process.

Budget

We’ve spoken a lot about budget, but budget is one of those things where you should always expect to go over. There are always unaccounted for, last-minute expenses, and so it’s best to be prepared in advance, then to be caught out unaware.

Team

Whilst new designers may be tempted to do everything themselves and only hire necessary external teams, having a solid internal team is incredibly important. A fashion show is a lot more work than people usually anticipate and it’s not something that one can accomplish on their own, as much as they think they might be able to.

Overall Experience

Don’t forget at its core, a fashion show is an event. This means that your guests are expecting a full experience, from the minute they step foot into the venue to the minute they leave. It’s not just about the actual catwalk!

If you can keep all these things in mind when planning a fashion show, you’ll be sure to have an amazing show. Subscribe to our mailing list to learn more about the fashion industry and be notified when we publish another article. You can also follow us on our Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook, to keep track of any future events, recommendations, and discount codes.

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Can Photos Make or Break Your E-Commerce Site?

The year is 2021.

You’re sitting at home on your computer. All your shopping has moved online.

Welcome to the age of e-commerce.

You’re probably hard pressed to find a brand that doesn’t have an e-commerce site nowadays. Whether you’re someone who has been ahead of the game and have had your site for years, or the pandemic has forced your hand and you’ve only just ventured into the world of e-commerce, you’re probably all wondering the same thing: what makes a successful e-commerce business and how can I get there?

There are many factors that contribute to the success of your online business, but the one point that we’re going to focus on today, the point that we here at WOW would argue is the most important aspect to whether your e-commerce site sinks or swims, is … the photos!

You heard me right, the product photos are one of, if not the most, important factor to running a successful e-commerce business. Have you ever shopped on a website where the product photos were more like editorial shoots? Doesn’t that just frustrate the heck out of you? Personally, when I’m shopping online, whether that’s for clothes, bags, shoes, or homeware, I want to be able to clearly see what the product looks like and nothing annoys me more than when websites either have a singular photo, or their photos are so fancy I can’t properly see the product they’re trying to sell me.

Your product photos could literally make or break your online shop. If customers feel like they can’t thoroughly examine the product online, chances are, they won’t be making a purchase and are less likely to return to your website. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have clear, concise, and inclusive (for fashion) photos. I’ll be talking about what makes a strong photo a bit later, so keep reading to find out some tips and tricks on product shoots and which brands we believe do an amazing job at it.

When it comes down to it, the two most defining factors for whether customers are likely to return to your website are how easy your site is to navigate, and how coherent your photos are. You want your photos to make sense to the consumer, which means not including any items that you either aren’t selling, or you don’t currently have in stock. If customers are constantly seeing items they want to buy, but aren’t presently available, it could put them off, which is the opposite of what you want to do. So how, you may ask, do I take a strong photo?

THE THREE MAIN POINTS YOU WANT TO HIT WHEN DOING A PRODUCT SHOOT

Number 1: Keep It Super Simple!

This means, no fancy background, no editorial-like poses, and don’t include anything that your brand isn’t selling or that you no longer have in stock. You don’t want to confuse your customer. Consumers want to be able to clearly see the product. If your photo is too crowded with irrelevant things, whilst it may look pretty, it will also make it more complicated to decipher, which could turn away a potential customer.

You want to have a neutral background, with straightforward poses. Keep the photo as scaled back as possible. Be sure to focus on the product you’re trying to sell. There’s nothing worse than not being able to tell if you’re looking at the top or the bottoms in a photo. Customers don’t want to have to guess when they’re trying to shop.

Number 2: Be Inclusive!

This point is more catered towards fashion brands, but inclusivity of models is so important! As a customer, you want to be able to imagine what an article of clothing would look like on your body, so seeing a model that has a similar body shape to yours is extremely helpful. Remember, product photos aren’t about the models, they’re about the product! Therefore, you want to always make sure your focus is on the product. If someone wanted to see this item on a model, they’d look to a fashion magazine and not an e-commerce site. When you’re shopping online, you probably don’t care whether the model can make the product look amazing, you just want to see what it would look like on an average person, like you or me.

Number 3: Angles, Angles, Angles!

It’s essential that you have multiple shots of the same product, but from different angles. The reason I say this, is because if you think about an in-person shopping experience, you’ll normally pick up whatever you’re wanting to buy and look at it from different angles. Or if you try clothes on, you’d probably turn in a circle to see it from a 360 point of view. This should be the same for online shopping. The customer wants to be able to thoroughly examine the product before they buy it, so having various photos, from different angles, makes a world of difference.

For fashion brands specifically, the inclusion of a video would be the cherry on the cake. This video doesn’t have to be very complicated, in fact, it shouldn’t be complicated at all. All it should include, is a model walking into shot, turning around (so all angles of the article of clothing are shown) and walking back out. This allows customers to see the clothing in motion and whilst not essential, could really propel your website to the next level.

I can’t talk for ages about what makes an incredible product photo and not give you some examples of brands that do an amazing job. So, in case you want to check out some great examples of everything I’ve just talked about, have a look at Lululemon, Kollar Clothing, ASOS, and Knix for some prime representation. Hopefully this helps you advance your e- commerce site, and we’ll see you next month for more industry insight!

If you want to learn more industry tips and tricks, keep up with the ongoings of the fashion industry in general, or get promotional offers, be sure to sign up to our mailing list.

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