Due to the pandemic, small businesses have suffered through the year, among them – local brands. The aim of MBFW Russia has always been supporting local up-and-coming designers throughout the world. With severe restrictions we held one of the first virtual fashion weeks in the world in April and then a successful phygital season in October. For 5 days we kept the attention of millions of people, where the main part was the designers’ target audience.
We created a series of more than 50 online events over five days in one livestream, and became the first virtual Fashion Week to unite more than 74 local designers' shows in real time from six geographic locations. MBFW Russia was the first Fashion Week in the world that launched a 5-day Fashion Week reality show on TikTok. For 5 days a special virtual showroom 360° was available for purchasing the new collections.
Main aims were:
- Provide the worldwide recognition of local brands from different cities and countries during the pandemic.
- Promote participating designers beyond their social media accounts by uniting shows in one broadcast schedule on popular social media platforms: TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, VK.
- Give the new experience to MBFW Russia audience: potential and already existing clients of designers.
- Expand core audience of engaged users.
- Keep in touch with different generations.
- Attract media and influencers' attention to up-and-coming designers since most of them couldn’t join offline.
- Show that fashion week is not just an industry event, but a huge event.
In October, being in the situation where a large part of our guests couldn’t join us offline staying in different countries around the world without possibility to visit the shows, we felt that it is important to provide the best experience for people staying at home. We considered trends in social media and digital to find innovative ways for our ideas implementation. Seeing growing interest in digital and social media platforms, such as TikTok – one of the most widely covered platforms in 2020 – we decided to join the efforts.
The main elements of our project’s strategy and implementation:
- For the first time in the world MBFW Russia united fashion shows from 6 locations with the center in Moscow (Moscow, St. Petersburg (635 km from Moscow), Krasnodar (1,195 km from Moscow), Sochi (1,360 km from Moscow), Yakutsk (4,885 km from Moscow) and Jakarta (9,325 km from Moscow) together with brands’ video presentations by designers from Argentina, UK, Peru, Russia and the USA in one broadcast schedule. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia provided access to the livestream for viewers from all over the world.
- During MBFW Russia we broadcasted shows from different locations in Moscow – 5 sites, including museums and assembly sites for Moscow creative youth with a special safety protocol.
- MBFW Russia reality show was broadcasted during Fashion Week on TikTok platform, including all the shows and backstage of the event. Thanks to the reality show viewers could learn more about designers and the Fashion Week, see the backstage of the event. The hosts of the reality show were popular fashion and lifestyle bloggers, TikTok creators, fashion experts, journalists and actors with millions of subscribers (Lisa Tyan, Rina Nicole, Olesya Potipako, REDGI, Demohot, Kristina Kiria, Lana Nisnevich, etc). They interviewed designers, guests, models, the organising team, etc.
- We placed live streaming players of the event on leading Russian and international media websites with different audiences (Paper Magazine USA, L’Officiel Italy, Numero Netherlands, etc.), online platforms of famous showrooms and concept stores and different social networks including TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, VK.
- Specially for October’s season, MBFW Russia opened a virtual Pop-Up Shop showroom collaborating with BrandLab Fashion where designer collections were available in 360° format for purchase.
- Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia was promoting its live stream on media websites, in accounts of bloggers and influencers, Russian and international media and social media groups to attract a larger audience to the event.
- We organized a high-quality sound, image and total production of the Fashion Week.
- Hashtag #месяцмоды (adopted #TikTokFashionMonth) was launched together with TikTok in order to promote Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia.
- The banner of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia reality show was placed on the main page of TikTok for 4 days.
- The updated symbol of the Fashion Week – Infanta was rendered for the first time in 3D. It is referring to the cult futuristic anime "Ghost in the Shell". “Tattoos” are a special style of the artist Neiz.Vesten – neo-symbolism. Each pattern carried its own idea and expressed the principles that MBFW Russia adheres to.
- In total, the live stream of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia has reached more than 10 mln views in 5 days across all platforms, including social networks and media websites.
- The broadcast of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia was followed by viewers from more than 1000 cities throughout the globe.
- The event was live streamed on more than 100 websites from Russia and other countries, in social networks TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, VK.
- We gained more than 0.9 mln views of the MBFW Russia reality show for 4 days having only 7k subscribers of the account before the event.
- The viewers of the reality show were continuously commenting on the event during 2400 minutes of the broadcast.
- The special TikTok hashtag #месяцмоды (adopted #TikTokFashionMonth) launched by MBFW Russia together with TikTok specifically for the event collected more than 60.7 mln views.
- Thousands of new subscribers on the account of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia in TikTok after the reality show.
- More than 1000 people participated in the MBFW Russia reality show.
- 23 hosts took part in the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia reality show during 4 days: Olga Salenko, graziamagazine.ru, Web Director, Alexandra Nechaeva, Glamour.ru, Fashion editor, Lina Dembikova, famous Russian TV Host, creators from different platforms with millions of subscribers, etc.
- 74 designers participated in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia. During 5 days 30 fashion shows and 15 video presentations were broadcasted, including collective shows, collaborations with international organizations, etc.
- More than 1000 publications about MBFW Russia came out at different media resources from 25 countries, including Vogue Italy, Vogue Russia, The Business of Fashion UK, Paper Magazine USA, The Guardian UK, Financial Times UK, Elle Czech Republic, Elle Russia, Glamour Russia, Harper's Bazaar Vietnam, Harper's Bazaar Russia, WWD USA, Instyle Russia, Cosmopolitan Russia, L'Officiel Italy, Austria, Baltics, Lithuania, Cyprus, Russia, Numéro Netherlands, Esquire Russia, Grazia Russia and many others.
- Major YouTube fashion channels with millions of subscribers supported the shows from MBFW Russia (Fashion Channel – 2.09 mln subscribers, FashionTV – 691k subscribers, MODEYES – 136k subscribers etc).
Video for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia
