Nowadays many people just wear some casual clothes and stay at home due to the Covid-19. They don’t know how to follow the fashion tread as most fashion shows all over the world were postponed. Therefore, Shanghai Fashion Week had to be reorganized in just one month, which was a huge challenge for the organizers, major fashion brands and designers.
Eventually, Shanghai Fashion Week had joined forces with Tmall to launch the online fashion show, which would be broadcast from Mar. 24 to 30 via Tmall, Alibaba Group’s e-commerce platform. From the proposal to the online activity operation, it only cost in less than a month, which perfectly showed the speed and fashion of China, and also provided a future way for fashion designers to showcase and promote their products. According to Jiemian, a financial media in China, more than 150 brands and designers as well as more than 10 buyers’ shops and platforms had joined in Shanghai Fashion Week with their fashion products this year.
In the opening ceremony, the models walked in the green screen and they used AR technique to make a virtual background, but the unnatural connection between the scene and the model caused many people to express that it looked like a cheap show. There were even some negative comments about the opening ceremony on social media.
The opening show didn’t end up being what it was supposed to be, but it’s understandable that this was the first time an online fashion week has been held.
However, when it comes to the fashion brands themselves, most of them used different types to display their new products in order to communciate with the audience.
As the defender of peace, AKCLUB brought audience into the world of crossing the line of fire. They used the real, virtual and future world to show the combination of old military uniforms and fashion, which conveyed the concept of Peace Work and Life to the world.
MICartsy, a fashion brand that insists on handmade sewing, displayed its spring and summer 2020 clothing collection in the form of hand-made picnic, bringing everyone to feel the call of nature. The brand also introduced the new special technology – homemade water soluble lace and hand-made nail bead technology.
In addition to the form of display, a lot of brands had also successfully attracted audience attention with their unique designs.
AJIDOU, a jewelry brand, showcased the latest Hua Mulan series, which used simple geometry to express the color matching of the cool tone in the figure’s clothing. The acrylic and metal materials were added to restore the image of Hua Mulan in the way of color printing, showing the heroic spirit of Chinese ancient female heroes.
Also, as a communication platform for the development and promotion of China’s original design, Shanghai Fashion Week has attracted many excellent domestic brands and designers over the years.
Angel Chen, as a Chinese designer, has been well-known in the past two years because of cooperating with some stars such asJackson Yee, and she also showed her talents in the reality show Next in Fashion.
Her autumn and winter 2020 men’s and women’s clothing collection was inspired by the 1988 film Akira. Her studio used 6 sets of lenses and 12 lights, continuously changing camera angles so as to display a clear picture and bring the audience a advanced and comfortable viewing experience.
The theme of Angel’s show is “light reborn”. In the video, five virtual scene filled with sense of future were built, and CG images of catwalk shows and virtual interweave were also combined. Besides, the mass-tone attuned of Akira was used in this series of clothing, full of sense of science and technology.
As one of the most outstanding designers in China, Angel Chen’s design would undoubtedly become the focus of Shanghai Fashion Week.
Although the Covid-19 had a negative impact on Shanghai Fashion Week and the opening ceremony didn’t win good comments from some of the audience, the quality of each new garment has not been greatly reduced. On the contrary, each fashion brand tried to overcome difficulties brought from the coronavirus and become unique. From the form of communicating brand value and the detailed design of the products, it could be seen that great efforts have been made by the designers.
Finally Shanghai Fashion Week turned to sales for most brands. According to Tmall, Shanghai Fashion Week, held from Mar. 24 to 30, attracted more than 4 million people to watch, with a total of 11 million views, bringing the brand revenue of more than 500 million yuan, which helped boost economy during the epidemic to some degree.
It is also worth mentioning that Shanghai Fashion Week had cooperated with the express company that if you live in Shanghai, you could get some of the clothes displayed on the fashion show in two hours. Imagine when you look at a high-level fashion show at home, and you are able to get the clothes you like in two hours, it must be an unprecedented shopping experience.
On the other hand, in the past few years, guests could hardly see the details of the clothes in the fashion show if they were not in a good position to watch the show. In addition, for most ordinary people, they have little chance to watch a offline fashion show. This time the online fashion week undoubtedly provided an opportunity for the general public to have a close look at the fashion shows, and the form of live broadcasting made audience enjoy clothings freely and clearly.
This is supposed to be the fashion industry’s busiest season, while the outbreak of the Covid-19 and its global spread have hit fashion industry. To save itself, the Shanghai Fashion Week, which cooperated with Tmall, generated 500 million yuan in sales in seven days, up nearly 40 percent from the same period in 2019, according to National Business Daily.
It can be seen that the cooperation of Tmall and Shanghai Fashion Week means to use the new retail model combining online and offline to promote fashion brands. For the brand, the more important thing is how to make good use of channels to communicatie brand value in the future, such as live broadcast, concept video and Tmall flagship store. After all, the long-term online and offline combination model is the new trend in the future.
In fact, before the outbreak of Covid-19, online digital marketing development had become the mainstream way for brands to attract consumers. The current impact of epidemic provides an opportunity to get the second upgrade of digital marketing model. From the brand cooperation and business model of online fashion weeks, it can be seen that the omni-channel cooperation of digital marketing and e-commercemodel must be the general trend of fashion industry.
All in all, Shanghai Fashion Week was a good start which made other fashion shows all over the word see the hope. Apart from a little imperfection of opening ceremony, most of the fashion brands showcased their latest and best designs. It is believed that in the near future, more fashion shows will follow the way of digital marketing and open up a new platform for both online and offline fashion shows.
Reference:
1. Alizila. (2020, April 6). WHAT SHANGHAI’S FIRST DIGITAL FASHION WEEK MEANT FOR BRANDS AND DESIGNERS. Retrieved from
https://www.alizila.com/what-shanghais-first-digital-fashion-week-meant-for-brands-and-designers/
2. National Business Daily. (2020, May 15). Sales reached 500 million yuan during the Shanghai FAshion Week. Retrieved from
https://m.weibo.cn/1649173367/4504765365825991
3. Jiemian. (2020, March 24). Shanghai Fashion Week is about to open with 150 brands. Retrieved from
https://www.jiemian.com/article/4157424.html
4. Chaonanclub. (2020, March 31). ANGEL CHEN 2020 autumn and winter collection. Retrieved from
http://www.chaonanclub.com/chaopaizixun/2466.htmlMIKI TANG (2020, April 2). Shanghai Fashion Week | Designer brands that people want to buy. Retrieved from
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Jessie Wu 