YEEZY SEASON 6, Are paparazzi style campaigns the next trend in fashion?
New York Fashion Week may not begin until next week, but Yeezy Season 6 is on the way and Kanye West has a unique approach to teasing the collection. He may not be on the official schedule, but he made his presence known a week ahead nonetheless. Using his better half, wife Kim Kardashian as his initial muse, Ye recreated her 9 looks from November when she debuted the collection. Sporting 9 Yeezy looks all in one day; an undefeated goal of how many outfits you can change in a day. Social media's frenzy soon realised Ye was dropping his 6th collection since, debuting the Season 5 range last February.
Kanye decided to ditch the fashion runway tradition for Season 6, he did not produce any runways looks and hasn't attended fashion week since. Most likely because he was banned, due to his antics of double booking show dates which made fans choose which show to attend. Or the extreme flop that was Yeezy season 4. 7 words scorching sun, fainting models and ditched stiletto boots.
Yeezy Season 6 became available in Virtual lookbook style with, faux paparazzi shots for the line sported by several social media influencers.
Creatives are having to find new ways to project their ideas and convince people their stuff is worth buying. The “See-now-buy-now” concept has put immense pressure on creative directors. The root cause of so many leaving their good work, with iconic fashion houses since the decline in consumerism. Another plausible reason to why we haven’t seen Ye at fashion week all fall.
Kim is an incredibly popular celebrity, with her growing family which gets even more popular every day. In essence, the family is a great marketing tool, hence the concept of Ye’s ad campaign. A few days later luxury brand Balenciaga released their Spring/Summer 18 campaign, which seems to have taken notes out of Yeezy's book. Using highly-stylised images that look as though, they've been exported straight off a pap's camera...
Kanye West one of the few black designers you can count by hand began a frenzy with this innovative idea of using social media to your advantage. Eventually, his wife will Snapchat her favourite pieces. Eventually, TMZ will potentially get a shot of Khloe in some pregnancy Yeezy joggers. So why not jump the gun, set up your own staged paparazzi shoot to promote your collection, that continually sparks innovation.
Are paparazzi style ad campaigns the next trend. It was a clever piece of marketing and self-aware cultural commentary. Do we applaud Mr West on the playful ode to his wife and muse? For this art piece examining the way, celebrity shapes our purchasing decisions and self-presentation.
While the fashion immediacy concept of “see now buy now” appeals directly to consumers; who will be able to buy garments immediately after they appear on the runway (or in this case advertised). The traditional lag between show and shop floor is fundamental to longer-term commercial gains. The fashion industry believes in this concept, thanks to millennials that are apparently “easily bored” and constantly searching for newness. Thus this Yeezy collection was available right away.
Vanessa Freidman stated quite clearly in her NY Times opinion piece on the campaign that: “there’s a lot of talk in fashion about direct-to-consumer marketing", Talk about how designers can use the internet to end runway shows, but mostly that the current system doesn’t work”. Everyone is experimenting with different ways to communicate with exhibitions, parties and more. She continues "there’s a lot of chopping and changing, and rarely has any of it seemed like a truly successful alternative to the traditional show.” It's hard to showcase a brand new collection without facing criticism on the message behind the clothes. How you present it. Which models you use. Also how you market to ensure consumers are going to spend.
Does Yeezy's AD campaign have a strong message?
The minority designer has been praised for the diversity used at his shows. He specifically claimed to only want a "multi-racial" cast for his shows. Kicking off the start of "Season 1" his show, expressing precisely his stance in the fashion industry. Furthermore, it's been noted that his "Season 3" show features models of colour exclusively. Whilst the "Season 4" show featured 97% ethnic models and the rest well "white" the usual. TheFashionSpot credits Ye for being the first to cast hijab-wearing model Halima Aden, who broke boundaries of beauty and perception by being herself.
This ad campaigns further shows what he wants his clothes to say. He is inclusive. They are for everyone. Although not anyone can afford them; and he should have contacted Urban Outfitters to work out a reasonable/ affordable partnership (he didn't). Ye's collection speaks. Women of all shapes and sizes can wear his clothes (because his wife has been all shapes and sizes and its no secret that she is his muse) but Ye might be one of the few designers who actually sort kinda care about his consumers?
Again the "models" he selected are a diverse bunch that, we somewhat chose. We made them popular via social media namely, the Instagram following numbers don't lie.
The fashion industry has been taking a toll and honestly. Will it be a matter of time before the industry takes a break to rethink or reimpose its strategies? For the first time Yeezy is ahead of the game with innovation, a large fan base, and consumers.
What's more "Athleisure" is hottest and longest running trend to be implemented in high fashion. Meaning his products have long-term consumer gains and his products will never go out of style... well for now.