The brands mark with the stars of K-Pop and the Bella effect

Spring / Summer 2023 was a season of extremes: spectacular productions, debuts and gigantic collaborations met a period of national mourning in England to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II, who died before the start of London Fashion Week, despite the postponement of several catwalks, including Riccardo Tisci’s latest show as creative director for Burberry and Raf Simons’ return to London, the overall mood seemed positive, perhaps partly because nearly all shows have reverted to a traditional runway format. Many brands rely on thrilling moments with an international cast, which behave less like thrilling performances for shoppers and journalists who traveled to the event, but primarily aim for high social media engagement.

Success is known to be relative and can be measured in many different ways. Public relations and image agency Karla Otto has now published a report on the collections for the spring / summer 2023 season and their impact on social media. FashionUnited has summarized for you to what extent social media success is relevant in the fashion world and which brands attracted everyone’s attention during Fashion Weeks.

Star Power, K-Pop Dominance and “Bella Effect”

How does a young French brand manage to overcome traditional and established competition? In Coperni’s case, there are two explanations: Kylie Jenner in the front row and Bella Hadid in a spray-painted dress on the catwalk during a fifteen-minute staging. If we look at the earned media value of US $ 27.7 million (€ 27.80 million) calculated in the report, it is clear that at US $ 13.47 million (€ 13.52 million) almost half is perceptible in the respective posts on the accounts of Jenner and Hadid. They offer a first glimpse of the brightness of the stars. According to the British online fashion search engine Lyst, Gucci is currently the “hottest brand” in the world, but with an EMV of US $ 13.6 million (€ 13.69 million), it is not even in the list. top 10 most successful brands in social networks. Only Dior, Saint Laurent and Fendi were able to surpass the brand of designers Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant in terms of EMC this year.

If at Fendi the mega-collaboration with the stylists Marc Jacobs and Tiffany and Co. is particularly noteworthy, the two Parisian fashion houses focus above all on one thing: the K-Pop phenomenon. Jisoo, a member of Korean women’s group Blackpink, which tops the season’s best influencers list with $ 22.4 million in EMV, was a guest at Dior’s. Brand ambassador Bandmate and Saint Laurent Rosé follows in third place with the $ 21.7 million (€ 21.78 million) EMV. The two are split by Kylie Jenner, who recorded $ 22 million EMVs.

Coperni star Bella Hadid has not only solidified her status as a supermodel this season, but has also been extremely supportive of the media value gained by the 19 brands she has walked the runways for. The model gave the various designers a total of 15.3 million dollars (15.35 million euros) in media value earned with 13 posts. According to the report by the Karla Otto group, Hadid’s presence increases the media value earned by a brand by an average of 29%. For Jil Sander, the model proved particularly profitable. An Instagram post from Hadid represents 90 percent of Jil Sander’s total EMV and helped the brand increase its earned media value by 1170 percent from the previous season.

New York shines, London cries and Milan stagnates

On average, the SS23 season achieved 10% more average value than the previous one, but there were clearly winners and losers, as only New York was able to achieve a significant increase during the fall / winter with the 82% more EMV.

The main reason is the guest brand Fendi, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the iconic baguette bag in the US metropolis under the creative direction of Kim Jones. Paris and London are both stagnant at 5%, but Paris has maintained its place at the top of the four cities. Meanwhile, London, already the smallest of fashion weeks, has joined the queue. Despite the superlative Moncler and Diesel shows, with 17,000 and 3,000 visitors respectively, Milan recorded the most significant decline with 11% less than EMC.

The bigger the better

It is not known how many influencers are present as guests at the various fashion weeks. However, most of them are micro-influencers. These are people with between 10,000 and 100,000 social media following. Overall, micro-influencers are responsible for around 2.3% of the EMV of fashion weeks, while a full 86.5% of the media value gained can be attributed to so-called mega influencers with a follower count of 1 million or more. The remaining 11.2 percent is distributed between macro and top influencers. If we take a look at the geographic distribution of EMV, it is once again evident how essential the Asia-Pacific region is, because it is the second most important factor in the media value gained after America.