Alibaba streams eight-hour shoppable catwalk online featuring Burberry and La Perla
Alibaba ran an eight-hour long catwalk this weekend, with all the looks available to pre-order as part of the video stream, ahead of its annual 11.11 shopping festival.
Alibaba marks 11.11 event with eight-hour catwalk
The catwalk show was the first in a series of major marketing events that the Chinese retailer is doing to promote its annual sales event.
Over 80 Chinese and international brands were shown over the course of the eight hours, using a total of 200 models.
Those watching online and offline were able to pre-order the goods shown at the show ahead of them going on sale on 11 November, part of Alibaba’s ‘see now, buy now’ proposition.
Style expert Nick Wooster was the image consultant of the show. Models used in the show included Sui He and Maye Musk, while photographer Tommy Ton and performers such as Chris Lee also appeared in front of the live and online audience.
Burberry, Trussardi, Paul Smith and La Perla showed their season on the runway. Online, international brands such as Maserati, Guerlain, Rimowa, Vidal Sassoon and New Balance introduced their products using the Tmall platform. At the show Burberry released a ‘mist’ of its ‘Mr Burberry’ after shave to mark its debut on Tmall.
Alibaba also invited Western media and trends partners on board. ELLE, Tmall and trend authority WGSN released a study on six lifestyle trends; curated life, fun is everything, genderless fashion, athleisure, power dressing and the Eastern character.
Chris Tung, chief marketing officer of Alibaba Group, said: “The Tmall Global Fashion Show is a key event that kicks off our 11.11 Global Shopping Festival and one that underscores Tmall’s tremendous growth in the past few years. For big-name fashion brands across the globe, Tmall has become not only a distribution channel, but also a branding powerhouse as well as a global gathering place for lifestyle and fashion trends. We expect the event today to become a lifestyle trendsetter for Chinese consumers and virtually a ‘fashion week at their fingertips.”
Alibaba’s 11.11. Shopping Festival has evolved from its annual sales day ‘Singles Day’ and has grown to become bigger that ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ - the preeminent sales days in the West.