As if it weren’t enough that, according to Times headlines this morning, bloggers are snatching the LFW front row seats right from under the noses of their traditional print counterparts, it seems that the high-end luxury brand marketeers are no longer directing us in store – or even merely online. But to our iPhone apps.
Flicking through the March Vogue, I started to see brand after brand including a call to action within its glossy DPS advertising that promoted online videos, behind-the-scenes exclusive web content and invariably how to download the brand’s iPhone app in order to access all these goodies.
The luxe oceanic ruffles of Ralph Lauren flow from one page to the next but check out the call to action nestling in the bottom right...
'View the Runway Show and behind-the-scenes video with the Ralph Lauren application on your iPhone or visit RalphLauren.com'
Ethereal brush-stroke imagery makes the message in the bottom left barely visible...
But it's there: 'View the System of Dressing on the Donna Karan iPhone application and at DonnaKaran.com'
Fashion advertising is traditionally a work of art. Hours and hours of painstaking designing, casting, styling, photography shoots and post-production go into every double page spread. For said art teams and designers to soil their canvas with a one-line advertisement for the iPhone, it must really mean business. Literally.
Finally it seems, high fashion has accepted that whilst all of their devotees do still subscribe to the monthly fashion Bible, they probably flick through its glossy pages whilst simultaneously checking their emails on their bejewelled iPhone and surfing the internet all at the same time.
I’m both glad and saddened to see luxury branding rapidly becoming fully integrated in this way. It’s both a positive and necessary adaption to the current market and a shame that the artistry I pour over every month has to relinquish its perfection for the sake of sales. But to every budding fashionista out there who is remotely technically savvy, you can bet these guys will now be coming after you from every possible angle.
