Do you wish fashion week could go on forever (and ever)? We hear you, and so does Style.com.
Today, the site launches their first "Video Fashion Week" - an opportunity to look at designers such as Wendy Nichol, Rogan and SOPHOMORE that didn't show in a traditional presentation format during fashion week.
Maya Singer, Style.com's Special Projects Editor has managed to include 12 young designers in the pilot edition of Video Fashion Week. "There are designers out there who are doing interesting work at all different levels and for a variety of reasons they either choose not to show live at all or they show in places that style.com doesn’t cover," she says. With the inclusion in Video Fashion Week, these brands will be reviewed alongside Versace, Celine and more. "Our review drop down is sort of a record of the fashion season," Singer explained, "and there are designers who should be part of that record even though they don’t do shows or presentations that we cover." Why video? "TV has more and more fashion and is migrating online and into a video editorial format. A good use of the style.com real estate is to create a fashion week online for a deluxe group of designers where we offer them the opportunity to decide what a video presentation means."
Starting with Surface to Air today and ending with Opening Ceremony on October 21, Video Fashion week extends the shows and presentations well through fall. "I believe that Video Fashion Week could be its own standalone fashion week and I think for a lot of designers that would have tremendous value being part of the record of the season," Singer explained. It would also take some of the pressure off of these younger designers, "You don’t have to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars and fight for models the same time that Marc Jacobs wants them to convince people to come to look at the collection. Video is a viable way to present. There are lots of questions to be answered about the timeline of the industry at large."
Could Video Fashion Week solve all of Milan's problems? That might be idealistic, but there's no reason it shouldn't change the structure of fashion week for the better.
Take a look at Surface to Air's first video below (and read Singer's review of their collection on Style.com). The multi media design collective, "does a great job of evoking the spirit of the season in this clever piece of film-making," says Singer. "They have made a decision not to show during fashion week and have a deep understanding of the interception of fashion and video."