Madison Square Garden is a venue with its own mythology: the scene of epic title fights, iconic concerts and Marilyn Monroe’s serenading of JFK. But on February 11, “The Garden” was the epicentre of the world for an entirely different reason.
1,200 models and 20,000 ticket-holders had gathered on a Thursday afternoon in Manhattan to play a part in a new chapter in the extraordinary artist-celebrity-entrepreneur life of Kanye West.
It was the hottest ticket in town – a fashion event to rival New York Fashion Week and a music event to rival the Grammys. For most, it was a chance to breathe the same air as the Kardashians. Anna Wintour came, and a reported global live-streaming audience of 20 million watched on – giddy with excitement.
It was a monocultural spectacle of a kind seldom seen before. And it was entirely powered by adidas.
Back in Herzogenaurach, the adidas execs could hardly have been happier with how its Yeezy Season 3 event was going, when the mood in Manhattan turned tribal: the crowd’s chants of “Fuck Nike!” were a surreal ending to a surreal event.
The only man smiling more broadly was West himself, who had managed to plug his new album and broadcast his unfiltered thoughts to an audience bigger than Scandinavia at no cost to himself.
While long merch lines were forming inside the venue, outside, brands from Burberry to Tommy Hilfiger were joining a line of companies pledging to abandon fashion’s traditional rituals and cycles.
With both disruptions happening at once, are events that merge culture and commerce like Yeezy 3 a sign of the way things are going to be from now on?
Things are certainly pointing that way, judging by brands’ hunger for talent, and the appetite for celebrity-curated products across the fashion market.
Announcements and product releases in recent weeks have included Rihanna’s Fenty show for Puma, Pharrell Williams (adidas designer and now-shareholder in G-Star), Rita Ora (at adidas Originals), A$AP Rocky (Guess?), Kendrick Lamar (Reebok), Courtney Love (Nasty Gals), Ariane Grande (Lipsy London) and Travi$ Scott (Diamond Supply Co.)
Instead of playing the role of clothes-horse, celebrities are pitched as “collaborators” and “creative directors” – claims that many consumers find authentic and energizing.
The word on the street is that consumers want experiences, not products. In a world where artists have names that include the letter “$”, and young audiences think “selling out” means selling through, brands and artists have little to fear by joining forces.
But the recent resurgence of celebrity endorsement in fashion isn’t confined to music’s hip-hop boys and bratty girls, nor to sportswear. Across the spectrum, brands are increasingly identifying themselves through personalities – key individuals, both within and external to the label.
H&M’s Balmain campaign and the bump-on effect it had on the retailer’s Christmas sales show a similar dynamic to adidas Originals’ use of West. Though the H&M collaboration formula is a different one, it was hard to overlook the importance of Olivier Rousteing’s image and personality within H&M’s most recent campaign.
Uniqlo’s immensely popular Carine Roitfeld collections also fit this template. Marks & Spencer is following suit: its new collaboration label, M&S & launched with a 31-piece collection by Alexa Chung. Meanwhile the stream of news announcing product collaborations with fashion editors, bloggers and Instagram stars is becoming a deluge.
The thread that links the likes of plus-sized blogger Gabi Gregg to the plus-sized ego of Kanye West is social charisma and reach. The direct connection social media promises to audiences with shared passions and habits is the dream of every brand marketer. But brands’ innate inability to be authentic and socially compelling means that celebrities and other social heroes can only expect their value as audience middlemen and fashion power brokers to grow, while traditional methods and systems continue to collapse.