COULDN’T GET THE CAB

Helmut Lang SS24

By: Tessa Dunlop

Controversially, New York’s Spring Summer 2024 season was as dead and far gone as a pair of skinny jeans in today’s fashion. Whether the responsibility lies on the excess of dull designs or the miserable marketing, the buzz surrounding the latest shows in the Big Apple is silent. Although there were a select few brands that I enjoyed, most of the American fashion designers needed help, simplyWhen it comes to a successful fashion show, it’s all about execution. Brands must deliver amazing designs, yes. But brands must also have a clear concept, and a unique marketing strategy.

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When it comes to a successful fashion show, it’s all about execution. Brands must deliver amazing designs, yes. But brands must also have a clear concept, and a unique marketing strategy.

Where a lot of fashion brands fail is in their marketing strategies. You can have the most fantastic collection, and the most amazing concept, but if you do not effectively and correctly market your brand or your show, you are not maximizing on the best possible results. It’s just failed potential.

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I would like to make an example of a specific New York fashion brand where I saw a lot of potential, a great concept, and a unique show. Where this brand failed, is in its marketing.

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MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Helmut Lang is a luxury fashion brand from Paris, France that is known for their “minimalist, deconstructivist, and often severe designs” (Wikipedia). On Friday. September 8, 2023, Helmut Lang debuted their first runway collection under its new and “highly anticipated” creative director, Peter Do. His role as the new creative director was allegedly supposed to bring the “once-mighty minimalist leader Helmut Lang, back to the front” (GQ).

Although this debut may have sounded exciting to some, I think that the marketing strategies that were delivered were weak, and I personally did not hear a thing about their show, their brand, let alone their new creative direction. After further investigation, here is what I discovered their marketing tools to have been for this Spring Summer 2024 debut: a few posts on Instagram.

As a Gen Z fashion student, I feel comfortably knowledgable on the topic of social media. I also feel pretty qualified to say that if I saw nothing about your brand or your show, despite following hundreds of fashion accounts, models and influencers, fashion students, designers, stylists, and photographers, your “social media strategy” wasn't too successful.

I will say that the content that Helmut Lang posted to Instagram was cool, it was nice to look at, and it was interesting. However, I did not see it. I think that brands try to target the younger generations through social media campaigning, but forget that in order to have a successful social media campaign, you have to do more than create a few posts. You must stand out against the thousandsof other fashion brand accounts on instagram. Helmut Lang did not.

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HOW TO CREATE GEN Z BUZZ 101

Now, in order to gain the ever so easily distracted Gen Z’s attention on social media, you have to make them want to post about your brand. You have to make Gen Z want to create your buzz for you.

For example, you could create a very successful marketing strategy for a fashion collection as follows:

Step 1: Hide tickets or brand promotional t-shirts all over New York City. You could choose to place the items close to the location, or in the same neighborhood of the fashion show itself, or you could go bigger, and hide them around the whole city.

Step 2: Next, you want to make a strategic post to social media. Since Helmut Lang’s brand prefers Instagram, they would post there. This post would be the original brand “marketing” post, as it was, except, at the very end, of the video, there would be an added clip promoting the hidden items, and a clue of how to find them.

Ex. This could be the model/actor picking up a ticket off of the ground before entering the taxicab.

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Step 3: In the caption for the collection advertisement post mentioned, you would include an announcement of a fun scavenger hunt where Helmut Lang lovers can win free merchandise or free tickets to the show. You would give a clue, saying that the items are hidden around New York City.

Step 4: You would ask participants (through the instagram post’s caption) to use #PeterDo123go, #HelmutLanginthecity, or some other unique and catchy hashtag in a post when they find the merchandise.

Step 5: Throughout the week leading up to the show, start posting clue giveaways to the Helmut Lang instagram story, basically telling people where to find the items, so that followers are able to find the merchandise faster than anyone else.

Step 6: A couple days before the show, create one more promotional video for the Helmut Lang SS24 Collection for your new viewers/followers.

Step 7: Watch as Helmut Lang lovers, old and new, spread word of your new collection debut themselves, like wildfire.

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MAKE OR BREAK

The moral of the story, is that creating successful marketing for a fashion show in this day and age requires a lot of strategy. If your market plan is to take the advertising to social media, you must stand out among the rest. Great posts don’t guarantee great results, but a great strategy might.

Helmut Lang’s SS24 debut was a great example of how marketing can make or break the results of a great fashion show. Their concept was well though-out, and interesting, their garments were well-done,and their new creative director passed the test. However, with a bit of adjustment to the way that the brand thought successful social media marketing worked, this show could have been the talk of the town.

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