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| Couture goes digital |
| Varada Bhat / Mumbai Mar 14, 2011, 00:08 IST |
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Lakme Fashion Week has entered cyberspace like never before.
Checking out the hottest accessories or the runway collection at the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) venue may be passe, as the organisers and designers are embracing the digital space like never before to reach out to the consumers.
“We are in an era of convergence - of talent, trends and time. We are leveraging the digital medium as a marketing and distribution platform to reach consumers worldwide. We want to connect instantly with audiences and enable people all around the globe to watch all the shows live and catch exclusive backstage action as well,” says Ravi Krishnan, Managing Director, IMG South Asia and Senior Vice President IMG.
For the first time, LFW, which started on Friday, has launched LFW TV, which will live stream all fashion shows through the five days and also behind the scenes action, exclusive designer interviews, daily trend reports, people, parties, celebrity style and more.
The organisers have also created a special content like live tweets and blogs from the fashion shows, updating Facebook pages with latest pictures and allowing fashion enthusiasts to comment on various looks and styles on the web.
“The dynamics of the industry is changing. We are in a fast moving business environment where fashion enthusiasts, buyers and bloggers around the world are constantly looking for relevant and timely content, with easy access,” says Anil Chopra, CEO, Lakme Lever.
LFW decided to launch these digital marketing initiatives this season, after the LFW Facebook community had more than 30,000 followers and the official site had over 50,000 hits in past few months.
“ We were quite surprised to see that an event like LFW had a surge in interest on the internet. But most people do not have access to what was happening on the runaway. So we thought by interacting on the web, there will be greater interest in fashion products and expand the fan base amongst consumers,” says Chopra.
Expanding on the initiative, LFW has also tied up with e-commerce site Fashion and You, an online fashion retail portal, to generate business for the LFW designers.
“There is a strong demand for high-end products around the country, but availability of these products is limited to Delhi and Mumbai, which is where online retail can step in to fill a gap,” says Pearl Uppal, CEO, Fashion and You.
Uppal along with designers has created two unique sales point on the web. The first is called Launch My Line, which will allow upcoming designers a platform to sell their wares to people without having to come up with marketing and logistics solutions. The other is the LFW Prêt Line, which will sell the prêt collections of established designers. By doing so, we are involved with the designers, which helps creating buzz about the Fashion Week round the year, she adds.
LFW tried this for the first time last year. During the fashion week, Fashion and You did nine fresh-off-the-runway sale, and over the next four months did over 50 exclusive sales for designers who took part in the fashion week,” Uppal says. The collection worth around Rs 1.5 crore was sold in 120 cities with Tier-II and Tier III contributing 55 per cent of the sales.
This season, LFW will showcase over 78 designers including Anita Dongre, Manish Malhotra, Pria Kataria Puri, Rocky S, Raakesh Agarvwal, Satya Paul, Shantanu Nikhil, Sabyasachi Mukherjee and eight Japanese designers. The five-day event will see around 180 buyers including international names like Glite Group, Fotune Cookie , Caroline Young and Exclusively.in.
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