How Brands Use the Front Row to Mint the Next ‘It’ Item

It’s a well known, but often unspoken fact: the primary purpose of fashion shows today is to sell accessories. But lately, some brands are getting a little more blatant about it.

Chloé kicked it off in February with a front row full of the brand’s Maxime Wedges at creative director Chemena Kamali’s debut in February. The visual impact led to the likes of Elle and Vogue declaring “boho is back!” and “wedges are in again.” And then in September, Tory Burch staged its own shoe coup, dressing its high-profile guests — including actresses Mindy Kaling, Elizabeth Olsen and Michelle Williams — in its pierced heel, a buzzy style the brand is trying to turn into its next sales driver. The praises followed: Elle, WhoWhatWear and InStyle declared it an ‘it’ shoe.

The images — the same pair of shoes one right after the other — stood in stark contrast to luxury’s typical front row strategy, filling front rows with VIPs in carefully coordinated looks that display a full range of items.

The gambit itself, though — flooding a scene with a product to create a sense of hype and sudden inescapability — isn’t new. In 2018, Dior saturated the internet with saddle bags, seeding them to a sea of influencers for creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s big relaunch of the style. After showing its micro-mini skirt on the runway in October 2022, a slew of influencers arrived at Miu Miu’s next show in variation of the look. By then, it was already on its way to peak virality: it was on covers (Nicole Kidman on Vanity Fair, Paloma Elsesser on i-D), in campaigns (Hailey Bieber wore it in a series of ads for the brand) and on countless celebrities, including Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, Emily Ratajkowski, Chiara Ferragni and Saweetie.

Staging a product blitz can create a frenzy that’s irresistible to social media algorithms; the press latches on to the storyline, too. At the same time, the tactic can be tricky in a luxury space driven by exclusivity.

Beyond the most obvious examples, the renaissance of the strategy plays into wider shifts. More brands are focusing on how to best use shows — and, specifically, product placement through VIP guest dressing — to spur sales. At a time luxury is widely under pressure, many brands are in need of a boost that fast-spreading imagery highlighting key products can provide.

“There’s been a huge rise in discussion [among shoppers] about it-items and it-styles of the season,” said Gab Waller, a luxury product sourcer. “Most brands are trying to create that moment.”

Risks and Rewards

If a product blitz hits, it can drive awareness for a brand broadly and quickly. Chloé's viral wedges, for example, helped hammer home a singular vision of who the Chloé girl is under its new creative director, and drive eyes to the collection itself. At Tory Burch, in the midst of a turnaround dubbed “the Toryssance,” the ubiquity of pierced shoes helped create a sense of a clubbiness around the brand in general — InStyle called it “the viral Tory-verse.”

A sense of a brand being its own world — i.e. that there is a Chloé girl or a Miu Miu girl — reflects how younger shoppers especially experience brands today, including with a desire to dress on “theme,” said Alison Bringé, chief marketing officer of analytics firm Launchmetrics.

Still, manufacturing saturation comes with a risk that at some “point [it] becomes cheesy,” said Conor Begley, chief strategy officer at influencer marketing firm CreatorIQ.

Getting an item everywhere all at once can create excitement; but a brand can’t live on excitement alone. Chloe’s wedges and Tory’s heels only make up a tiny fraction of conversation about both brands, said Begley, and the impact of these moments tends to be short lived. After the Chloe show, searches for “wedge heels” shot up 235 percent in the following week, but quickly returned to its baseline, according to fashion data firm Trendalytics.

In an effort to fast-track popularity, a brand could actually end up accelerating the shelf life of an item, especially among certain audiences. “A lot of clients shy away from something that’s saturated,” said Waller. Consumers want things that seem illusive: if an item is suddenly everywhere it’s rarer that it develops that lasting it-item sheen, she added.

Waller didn’t see a lot of demand for the Chloé wedge from her followers, mostly fashion enthusiasts in the US, she said. A blitz is more likely to resonate with a consumer on the accessible end of the spectrum, said Laurent Francois, managing partner at Paris-based creative agency 180 Global.

“You’re going to reach a wide audience, it creates an amazing picture, suddenly you make an impact,” said Francois. “It’s smart in the short term, but when you look at what true luxury consumers want from luxury brands it’s an elevation of product.”

Most importantly, people have to actually want to wear the item that’s being pushed: “There’s a risk in being too impactful without credibility or without general interest to wear the stuff,” said Francois.

Perhaps that’s why most brands take a more subtle approach. Fendi, for example, fronted its new version of the soft Peek-a-Boo bag, launched in August, at its show: it was on the runway, a number of VIP guests including actress Shaliene Woodley, singer Normani and influencer Caroline Daur carried it, and Fendi dedicated most of its Instagram posts in the days that followed to the bag. There was a clear push around a bag already available for purchase, said Bringé.

“Fashion week is a great place to amplify whatever product you’re selling. But if you don’t specifically talk about that product within the context of fashion week, no ones going to know you’re promoting it,” said Bringé. “That’s something we’ve seen brands get smarter at.”

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on 30/9/2024 to correct a mispelling of Launchmetrics chief marketing officer Alison Bringé's name.