The Runway Meets Social Media

Monday marked the first-ever Tweetwalk. For those of you scratching your head in confusion, Tweetwalk was birthed by the ever-classic British brand, Burberry, in order to combine fashion and social media. It was debuted at this season’s London Fashion Week.

Burberry tweeted to its 539,243 followers, “Excited to announce the first ever #Tweetwalk Show. SS12 looks will be on Twitter before the runway. Follow @Burberry today at 4pm #LFW”. The clothing brand known for its upscale style and easily recognizable plaid fabric teamed up with Twitter so that those not as lucky as people like Kanye West and that new girl from Transformers 3 who were sitting front row for the fashion show could experience it even faster than “real time”.

Tweeters and fashion lovers who followed the @Burberry account were able to view photos of the models before they hit the runway. As the models lined up backstage to display the looks before the audience, the official tweeter for the day took a photo of each model in their perfectly pressed and highly styled outfits and tweeted them out before they were displayed on the runway.

“We are thrilled to create the first ever “Tweetwalk show” in partnership with Twitter. Twitter is instantaneous and I love the idea that streaming a show can be in many different forms. This collection is all about the most detailed hand crafted pieces and fabric innovation, creating a beautiful physical experience that is communicated digitally in dynamic and diverse ways and I love balancing those two worlds,” said Chris Bailey, Chief Creative Officer of Burberry.

Above is a screen shot of what tweeters were experiencing during TweetWalk.

The presentation was also streamed live via the website but still, those who followed the Burberry Twitter stream were able to see the looks before anyone else. Because fashion week is so exclusive and home to celebrities, wardrobe stylist, top magazine editors, buyers and bloggers for an entire week, allowing the general public to see a collection before those sitting in the very arena its being debuted in is total new age. But how will this affect the future of Fashion Week?

Fashion Weeks occur all over the world including New York, London and Milan and the best of the best are invited. These people view the collections designers spend months, even years creating so that they can report back to the general public about their finds. So if other designers follow in the footsteps of Burberry, will there be a need for Fashion Week anymore? Designers could save lots of money by having their social media teams tweet and Facebook their collections rather than creating a huge production to show off their new garments. I highly doubt that will ever happen but there is certainly something to be said for Burberry’s attempt at breaking fashion and social media barriers.

How do you feel about Burberry’s innovative way to share its collection with the world and what do you think the future holds for social media and fashion?

  Jessica Mosley – Admittedly addicted to anything related to fashion.