Fashion shows start when their invitations arrive, hiding the core of the designer’s vision and muse within them. They offer a great benefit when it comes to hooking the audience, including the ones who are not attending the physical show.
However, reflecting the right story, concept, and information on one invitation is not so simple. In this reading, I will be talking about some fascinating examples of fashion show invitations and what could be the optimal strategy to turn your invitations into a unique experience, while illustrating your brand image and design perspective onto them.
If we portray the designer’s perspective as a puzzle, an invitation is one of its pieces. It helps you enter the brand’s world to see the whole.
Benefits of creating successful fashion show invitations:
Their ability to go viral: the more exciting and unique it is, the more people will talk about it, both offline and online.
Showcasing the designer’s perspective and brand personality: Invitations could be used as a part of the story to explain who your brand is clearly.
Increased retention for your audience: Successful invitations could be a positive reinforcement for your selected audience and market them to engage with your brand over and over again.
Using invitations as another marketing platform: Seeing invitations as a sort of individual “guerilla marketing” could motivate brands to design different paths to build relationships.
Define your strategy: Fill in the Blanks
To plan a relevant strategy and create an impactful invitation, following are three core questions to ask:
1. How can I emphasize the feeling of exclusiveness?
As we all know, runway shows are invite-only, and obviously, attendees are the ones who are chosen to be part of this event. Thus, being exclusive could be the core feeling of many guests. Focus on this feeling and boost it with other concepts to attract the rest of your audience to invest in you to feel the same way.
For instance, for their show “Cosmogonie”, Gucci’s former creative director Alessandro Michele adopted a star for each guest, making them literally go infinity and beyond. What could feel more exclusive?
Gucci's Cosmogonie
2. What personality trait of my brand can I use to attract?
Overall, having a brand personality just like a human being could bring your creativity another layer and could make your desired consumers engage with your brand more. Think of your brand as a human being and define its characteristic features, and merge it with your show’s theme. To elaborate, let’s talk about Balenciaga’s Cracked Iphone, Fendi’s Pasta, Jacquemus’ Bread, and Louis Vuitton’s Board Games as significant cases:
- Balenciaga has reflected their mentality of oddness and futurism by sending their guests cracked, non-functional iPhones as an invitation. Apple, as a brand, just like Balenciaga, has a high social currency and they are both signs of exclusivity. Not only that, with given unofficial partnership, Balenciaga also displayed their “oddness” by giving people ruined iPhones. So meta.
Balenciaga's Cracked iPhone
- Fendi’s Pasta, Jacquemus’ Bread Bun: Both brands reflected their personality from their food culture on their invitations. In 2019, Jacquemus sent their guests a freshly baked bread bun with a french note and in 2021, Fendi made custom Fendi logo-shaped pasta, partnering with a famous Italian brand, Rummo.
Fendi's Pasta
Jacquemus' Bread Bun
- Louis Vuitton has been illustrating their “fun side, by sending a variety of board games to their guests, giving them the most exclusive Louis Vuitton items and an enjoyable experience.
LV's Board Games
3. What is the right way to connect with my audience?
Act in a Delicate Way:
Fashion is not just a business, but a form of art. Thus, it is highly expectable that high fashion could use taboos as triggers as well.
Still, brands should act in a delicate way while creating their concept for their shows and invitations. It starts with “knowing” who your audience is, so you won’t fail. The best example is Diesel.
Diesel initiated a partnership with Durex and made their invitations a condom, followed by last year’s anal plugs. Of course, it triggered the audience and made some people laugh, and started some discussions. Still, the way they delicately showcased their style of humor and personality helped Diesel to be talked more while giving the audience an important message about safety.
Diesel x Durex
Read the Room:
After the terrorist attacks in 1995 in Paris, security at the following runway shows was significantly strict. To help guests through many security checkpoints, Hermes sent them a plastic, transparent kelly bag along with their invitations for the show. Hermes turned this unpleasant situation, and helped and made their guest happy and became a hit.
Hermes' Transparent Bag
Also, keep the following in mind:
Don’t Go Too Far
Pushing the limits of creativity sounds like a really good idea, however, it is important to recall that invitations work as a form of guerilla marketing that has to follow some rules. For instance, once, Maison Margiela’s invite was an empty envelope with the instructions printed inside, however, many guests threw it away. Apparently, they missed the target.
Tell Them Your Real Story
Invitations add a narrative to your form of fashion expression. Use them as a part of your story by displaying your concept, your innovative mindset, and your creative perspective by being sincere.
Put Your Personality in It
Today’s successful brands are the ones who turned their brand identity into human beings. In that way, they become more up-to-date and relevant. Thus, if you didn’t make it by now, define your brand’s personality and its traits, and invite people to your events as that person.
Offer Them A Unique Experience
High fashion is almost a synonym for exclusivity and uniqueness. Make your guests know how much they are important for you and have them talk about it. It’s a win-win situation.
Lasting impressions matter. Make them as positive and various as possible. Contact us to create your own fashion narrative.
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