The Society Of The Spectacle

Fashion brands embracing digital has in the last year become a real hot digital topic. Luxury brands have, in the past been notorious for their lack of forward thinking when it came to integrating digital into their marketing. Well, things started to change in 2009, with the (previously reported) Art Of The Trench from Burberry, the brand pushed home their digital breakthrough with the streaming (in 3D!) of their shows live from Paris, New York and Tokyo Fashion Weeks.

A subtext of the Art Of the Trench was the appropriation of Fashion bloggers by the major brands, for example, the Art Of The Trench featured Spectacle fave the Sartorialist and his wonderful pictures. Louis Vuitton, has taken another Spectacle fave The Selby, and giving him a really interesting platform to explore the ‘Journey Of A Man’s Wardrobe’.

The Journey seems simple enough, follow around and document the story of Louis Vuitton menswear, from it’s inception in the Paris studios of LV, to the shows construction, the craftsmanship, and the flair that goes into each garment. Mark Selby’s photo’s are simple, truthful and engaging. They help frame the entire experience in a calm loucheness that you would expect from a brand with such heritage and quality associated with it.

The digital experience is also rather engaging, it might not have the breadth that the art of the trench campaign. (You can’t share any of this content to your social networks, which seems strange for something that has had such effort and scale put behind it. But as the cities visited and the stories grow, this is certainly one to keep your eye on and shows how hard luxury brands now have to work to engage and spread their digital to their audience.

In tough times, it’s interesting to see how Luxury Brands, specifically ones more associated with frivolity and a certain ‘joie de vivre’ (or recklessness, depending on your point of view) have scrambled to reposition themselves with authenticity at their core. Gucci, with it’s latest ad campaign has taken this one step further by recycling  vintage ads with one of the proto supermodels Veruschka and the languid Jetset glamour of Peter Sellers (above – from behind)

It’s a smart bit of thinking from the Creatives at Gucci, serving two roles, establishing an authenticity of product and making you think twice about the longevity of the brand, and the powerful allure of the jetset. Similar to way Louis Vuitton photographs it’s signature bags adorned on the iconic, the famous or just plain interesting, it’s a great way of proving your sticking power when others around you are floundering. It’s a great story, and I wonder if it presages a trend towards other fashion houses recycling their archives in other interesting ways. More ads after the jump. (Source WWD)
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Selectism got the jump on the masses with it’s exclusive look at the new Kanye West sneaker for Louis Vuitton. Here’s the three colourways.White is doing it for me (although I’m not too sure about the monograms on the side) Ed! You know what to do!