AW24 Fashion Shows: Best Brand Engagement Ideas

Jason Wu Beauty: Pioneering Luxury on TikTok Shop

In a first-of-its-kind activation combining a catwalk show with TikTok Live, Jason Wu Beauty demonstrated a stride forward in marketing luxury brands on TikTok Shop (the social media giant’s retail-focused space, launched in 2023).

The brand broadcast a behind-the-scenes livestream of make-up artists and models during New York Fashion Week, with a pop-up shopping feature allowing TikTok users to see and buy the beauty products in real time.

Supported by live-events-capturing production experts Orca and beauty incubator Bespoke Beauty Brands, which works with ‘influencer entrepreneurs’ (both American), the livestream garnered a 500% increase on Jason Wu Beauty’s average TikTok Live viewership, and a 37% click-to-order rate (anything over 10% is considered good).

For more on navigating TikTok Shop see Social Commerce Summit 2024.

9dcc ‘Crypto Mob’ Collection: Networked Phygital Fashion

Promoting a crypto-fashion experience with its near-field-communication (NFC) chip-embedded clothing, US-based Web3 fashion house 9dcc presented a physical 54-piece collection at NFT Paris (“the world’s largest Web3 conference” covering fashion, finance, gaming, art, sport and media) during Paris Fashion Week.

Scannable via smartphone, the NFC chips (from US manufacturers IYK*) enable different modes of interaction, including:

• Verification of Authenticity: Powered by the Ethereum blockchain, tapping the NFC chip with a smartphone provides an authenticity certificate.
  
  
• Proof of Presence Tokens: If 9dcc wearers scan each other’s chips, they’ll get a Proof of Presence token (aping the more common Proof of Attendance Protocol metaverse visitors use to state where they’ve been). This rewards them with loyalty points granting early access to future 9dcc clothing releases.
  
  
• Gaming: Those who enable SMS communications receive time-sensitive phone notifications prompting them to scan items to activate a gaming interaction, kickstarting online matches of Blackjack and Wordle to earn more loyalty points.
  
  
• Brand Liaison, Marketplace Access & Digital Autographs: Scanning the NFC chip also enables direct brand/consumer communication, access to a resales marketplace, and an autograph feature that gives participants the digital signature of 9dcc’s creator, known as Gmoney.

See also Fashion & Beauty Retailers Tap into Innovative Sonic Branding and Phygital Perks: Transformational Experiential & Bragging Rights in Digital Commerce: 24/25.

Diesel’s Democratic Populuxe: the 72-Hour Show Preview

Illustrating creative director Glen Martens’ vision for a “fashion democracy”, Italian masstige (aka mass prestige or populuxe) fashion brand Diesel granted fans a 72-hour livestream window onto its runway prep leading up to Milan Fashion Week.

Accessible through Diesel’s website and Instagram account, it offered security-camera-style views of Diesel’s atelier, casting room and runway space. Additionally, seven large digital screens displayed a 1,000-person live virtual audience behind the catwalk. Places, secured via its website, were gone within 90 seconds.

National Geographic: Holographic Mixed-Reality Women’s Runway

Chiming with the ‘empowered females’ thematic of its new wildlife docuseries Queens (released on March 5 on Disney+ and Hulu), National Geographic hosted a mixed-reality runway presentation during New York Fashion Week using innovative cinematic-grade XR tech from pioneering American creative technologists.

Life-sized holographic lions, elephants and bears, which appeared to walk alongside the runway models, were created by The Eisley Company (whose clients include Disney and Lucas Film), leveraging its Enhanced Camera Compositing Operation (Ecco) technology. Powered by 3D game creation software Unreal Engine, Ecco enables visual effects teams to produce animations which match the standard of those produced via LED volume walls (the next-gen successor to green screens) in any environment.

Supported by women-led US creative agency Pop’n Creative, the project spotlit an array of rising women fashion creatives, including stylist Sakinah Bashir and designers JêBlanc, Studio 189 and Bed On Water.

See also Retail: AR Added Value and XR-Fuelled Flagships in Brand Spaces: 9 Trends & Opportunities, 24/25.