Street Walk to Catwalk
Malone Souliers
Issue 46 | March 2018
Agency
Sketch Agency
Creative Team
Creative Creative Director Carl Le Blond Other Strategist Tim Hyde
Production Team
Production Production Company Loco Director Carl Le Blond Creative & Technical Director Danny Coster Producer Sasa McCartney
Other Credits
Client Malone Souliers Founder & Creative Director Mary-Alice Malon Founder & Managing Director Roy Luwolt
Date
October 2017
Background
Malone Souliers, a boutique luxury shoe brand, was looking for an idea to cut through the clutter of London Fashion Week.
They needed to underpin the brand's premium credentials but, at the same time, make it attainable as well as aspirational.
As well as creating a stylish experience for fashionistas and the press, the creative idea needed to have a broader appeal to a wider public.
Idea
Members of the public were given a personal experience of 'strutting their stuff' down a real catwalk as models for Malone Souliers, an experience which was packaged for them, so they could keep it and share it in social media.
During London Fashion Week, Malone Souliers took over Soho Square in Central London and built a full-size catwalk, behind which was a forty-foot green screen.
A few days earlier, a runway show had been filmed in a studio, with 30 models wearing the entire 2017 collection and the founders of Malone Souliers in the audience.
At the Soho Square event, passers-by were invited to slip on a pair of Malone Soulier shoes and walk the catwalk.
Each participant was filmed and the footage simultaneously live-mixed and edited with the pre-shot video.
As if by magic, they were dropped digitally into what, to all intents and purposes, appeared to be their own live London fashion show. The footage was immediately uploaded to their Instagram accounts and projected on giant video screens in the square while they were actually on the catwalk.
Results
Over 80 short films were made on the day, generating over two million impressions in social media and over 10,000 plays on Instagram.
The story was covered by Vogue and the Daily Mail as well as other luxury brand titles.
Our Thoughts
This is the rule of nine at work. For every person who went tip tapping down the catwalk, nine of her followers would have commented on her video and shared it with their followers, ninety of whom would have looked at it. Among these lurkers would have been a couple of influencers who were able to give the idea an extra push. And that's how a one-day event involving around a hundred young women ended up reaching two million. But to do so, there had to be an idea that people actually wanted to share. The success of this idea was in democratising London Fashion Week and making real women the stars of the show. What's not to like about that?