#9 New Show Formats

Long gone are the days of simple department store fashion shows. Enter the new world of runways that are so innovative they should be in a new performance catagory. With the development of new technologies traditional runway shows are being challenged by new formats like holographic models, building projections of enormous polo players, and popularized TV and online broadcasts of live shows. Designers put millions of dollars into their runway shows and make a performance out of them to capture audiences and get people excited about the brand and what will happen next. You always have to be thinking of new ways to get customers, or at least good press.
 

Who can forget when McQueen
put the Kate Moss twirling hologram
on his runway in 2006 right?

Or the Ralph Lauren show that happened in November of 2010 at the opening of the London flagship store. After months of preperations and work with light mapping techniques and building projection they were able to pull of an 8 minute 4D show that when projected onto the building front made the walls dissapear leaving 15 ft tall models walking runways and polo players riding on horses. Thats no ordinary cat walk, that was true brilliance and technology at work.

Ralph Lauren London

Last year Burberry tried their hand with technology at the opening of their Beijing flagship store creating a spectacular vision of a psychedelic runway show featuring holograms walking through one another, bursting into snowflakes and multiplying along the catwalk. The show was a real production lasting almost 20 minutes. It began with projections along the walls and ceiling creating a mood and then when the catwalk began you were amazed when the models suddenly began bursting. It was brilliant, and so lifelike that you have trouble detecting the holograms.

 

 

Burberry Beijing

 
As we progress further into the future I see more and more deisgn houses going in these directions and creating bigger and bigger productions out of their runway shows. They are becoming more like little plays and skits than just models walking in a line. And with the help of the internet they are ever more accessable to to watch even if you are not invited live.