From the Runway to the Web
Los Angeles-based startup FashionShowOnline.com (FSO) is banking on the notion that everybody loves a fashion show to open up a new channel of business for the California fashion trade.
Next month, the company is set to roll out its Web site, which company chief executive officer Jin Cho hopes will open the doors to the world of catwalks, slinky models and more important, early edition previews of the latest fashions to more than a select few. In a high-tech studio armed with the latest digital photography equipment, a stable of models and super-highspeed Internet lines, Cho will be producing runway fashion shows for local designers, retailers, students and others so they can be webcast over the Internet for marketing, educational and promotional purposes.
The idea is to give the smaller guy a chance to compete in a big player’s world. Though cost structures vary, FSO can produce shows for as little as $1,000, said Cho, a Korean-born designer who along the line also became a tech wizard. Cho launched the FSO concept about 2 1/2 years ago. He saw that while fashion shows created excitement, they were only open to a limited group—the fashion press, VIPs and elite-level buyers. And smaller companies haven’t been able to afford them, given the cost of modeling agencies, stage props, theater rentals, etc.
“We want to be the fashion providers for the industry. You can find this and that at MAGIC [International] or wherever, but nobody is supporting the fashion element and we want to do that,” said Cho.
Knowing that fashion shows are a huge marketing vehicle, Cho thinks he can fill a niche that, according to him, competitors have been not covering well.
“They’ve been using photo galleries, which doesn’t capture the real essence of a fashion show,” he said.
The big fashion houses have been following the same line of thought and have been bringing fashion shows down to the consumer level through their own Web sites and more recently at point-of-sale via checkout monitors that have trickled down to even the supermarket level.
At the trade level, companies such as firstview.com have capitalized on the concept, but Cho wants to take it a step further.
“The competition has been locking out viewers with hourly fees. We will let our clients control who can view the shows but they will be more accessible.”
FSO’s director of marketing, Ashley Fontaine, said she thinks there’s no better way to highlight lines through lifelike presentations.
“How else can you better showcase a collection than by movement, on a live body?” she said.
FSO’s general services will allow clients to stage 10 runway walks using the company’s own production studios, though it has the capability of shooting client-produced shows and then saving them to videos, CD-ROMs or other formats for Web site hosting or other vehicles. Cho said turnaround times will give designers and other clients plenty of time to highlight product for trade shows, markets and other events. In some cases, the company will also produce live events, perhaps during fashion weeks, said Fontaine.
The fashion show will be the starting point to the company’s menu of product offerings, which include Web site production, CDROMs, e-commerce sites and image production. The FSO site will also contain a fashion industry job clearinghouse as well as a source for fashion news.
Borrowing proprietary technologies such as RichFX’s zoomcam, e-commerce sites including Cho’s Stylemake.com will allow visitors to zoom in on outfits for close-up views of fabric textures and print designs.
Local designers such as M’Backe Fashions, based in the California Market Center, have been early customers. Company principal M’Backe Seye used Cho’s services for his new Web site, mbackecouture.com, and said of the Web fashion show concept, “[It] is a good idea, but they’re going to have to back it up and follow through.”
Bebe, Ann Taylor, Charlotte Russe, Gap, GUESS? and others will have affiliations with FSO offering links and information to their own Web sites. FSO is scheduled to be operational by Aug. 11.
