The first online Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia took place in Moscow
Industry: Fashion & Accessories
Because of the coronavirus situation, fashion shows, concerts, and film presentations were cancelled throughout the world. At first, the organizers of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia intended to enhance security arrangements in Manege, reduce numbers of guests, and cancel the international program, but in the end they decided for the first time ever to hold the Fashion Week digitally at AIZEL.RU, thus supporting the designers who already had their collections ready.
Los Angeles, CA (PRUnderground) April 16th, 2020
Video-presentations of the brands were followed by bloggers and journalists from across the globe. In total, the online stream of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia has been viewed at 100+ web-sites by 800 thousand users from Russia, Italy, the United Kingdom, the USA, India, and other countries.
“The key task of the Fashion Week is to promote new collections. However, the digital Fashion Week has one more function – to support fashion houses that haven’t ceased their operations. The fashion industry is enormous, comprising gifted people, jobs, and last, but not least, emotions, which we should share now. While others are out of action, we are going to move on, developing and enhancing innovative formats that have always been present at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia,” said Alexander Shumsky, President of Russian Fashion Council.
At first, it was planned to stream presentations and private shows, but this concept was abandoned to prevent the virus spreading. The new format of the Fashion Week inspired the designers to approach the matter of presenting their collections creatively: they made their films, lookbooks, moodboards – all of them specially designed for online presentation. The virtual Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia enabled Russian designers to introduce their collections to a wider audience, which joined the online stream.
“Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia streaming gave the chance to designers to be seen by the industry in a difficult historical moment. We need to change the way to see things, fashion weeks are important, we just need to think and organize catwalks in a diverse way,” said Sara Sozzani Maino, Deputy Editor-in-Chief at Vogue Italy, Head of Vogue Talents, International Brand Ambassador at Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana.
Moreover, the organizers arranged a dynamic program on the social media. For instance, they supported VK’s project #ЛучшеДома (in English #BetteratHome). Together with TikTok, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia developed a special project, which comprised workshops by designers and fashion experts, starting a joint tag #СтильнаДому (in English #StyleatHome), which in a couple of days was viewed for 40+ mln times.
A special guest at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia was a virtual model Aliona Pole, who had designed a capsule of digital clothing by means of computer graphics and neuronets.
Time will tell if the experience of a successful online fashion week becomes popular throughout the world.
