Shanghai’s first online fashion week: Will virtual fashion shows become a new trend?

Due to the lockdown in many countries, fashion industry has been hard hit as various fashion shows across the world are being cancelled over safety and health concerns.

Fashion shows are an important platform for designers to showcase their latest designs and also for the buyers to view the latest trends. But due to the pandemic, organizers are either cancelling the shows or trying to find a new way to showcase their new collections.

Already designers across the world are leaning towards virtual fashion shows. Shanghai fashion week recently experimented the online fashion show and it seemed to have well received by the buyers and fashion designers world wide.

In partnership with Alibaba’s Tmall, the Shanghai Fashion Week launched a special edition of Tmall Cloud Fashion Week this year, from March 24 to 30.

It is said that over 2.5 million people had watched the opening ceremony, and more than six million tuned in to the shows and interacted with the hosts on the first day.

Shanghai fashion week was organized like a typical fashion week, with designers allotted hourly slots to showcase their collections.

Well, Although this is a great initiative to reach buyers all over the world, a few designers are not happy with virtual fashion week as they claim that the videos were of low-resolution to get a sense of the fabric. Also, fashion weeks are a great place to develop contact and meet fashion designers to discuss the fabric or even place orders.

Hence, it looks like the fashion world is not quite ready to replace real fashion shows with the virtual ones.