Although an increasing number of designers are live streaming their Fashion Week shows online, only a very few offer anything beyond semi-blurry, front-camera views of models on a runway. Among those 'very few' is UK retailer Topshop, which is once again engineering a unique, multi-platform show experience for online viewers, this time in partnership with Google, for its London Fashion Week show at Tate Modern on Sunday.
Topshop is calling it "The Future of the Fashion Show," and it's designed to let audiences see the show from every point of view — from that of a model on the runway, to a makeup artist backstage, to the celebrity or buyer in the front row.
Leading up to show day, several models walking the runway, including Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn, kept "digital diaries" on their own Google+ accounts, letting followers trace their journeys from the earliest fittings to the final walk. Topshop hosted viewer Q&As with its design team via Hangouts from Topshop headquarters as well.
About 30 to 45 minutes leading up to the show start, Topshop began streaming "red carpet" arrivals live on Google+ and YouTube — something Burberry has made a standard part of its live streamed runway shows for the past several seasons. (And that's no coincidence: The man leading the initiative, Topshop CMO Justin Cooke, is the former vice president of global communications at Burberry.)
Once the show started, viewers were able to follow models down the runway. Models were wearing high-definition micro cameras that streamed their point of view live on a screen at the show space, as well as on Google+, YouTube, Topshop.com and Topshop's flagship store on London's Oxford Street. (source)Online reach wasn't confined to Facebook: Both #TOPSHOP and UNIQUE trended globally on Twitter Sunday. Conversation was led by the @Topshop and @ElleUK accounts, from which looks were simultaneously tweeted before they hit the catwalk. (Topshop also pinned the live stream video to the top of its Twitter page.) Twitter users were encouraged to tweet 140-character show reviews for a chance to attend the next Topshop Unique show in the spring.
What were the results?
More than 2 million people from 100 countries watched online video of Topshop's Spring/Summer 2012 Unique show in the three hours after the fashion retailer live streamed it Sunday. The London Fashion Week show was broadcast on Topshop's website and Twitter page. It was also shown on large screens at its Oxford Circus flagship store in London and on the websites of more than 200 media partners. Topshop posted video of the 10- to 15-minute show immediately after it ended. (source)
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