A Spectacular Season of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia
By: Hope Wilkos, Writer
It was exotic, enticing and filled with enough stunning fashions and activities to take your breath away as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia raised the roof this season even higher than last season. It was a designer’s dream of creativity and imagination as over 80 collections were presented from October 13, 2016 through October 17, 2016. Additionally, the Fashion Futurum Startup Show was on the agenda for a second big season.
This attention-grabbing fashion week was held at the one place that was able to welcome an overwhelming and enthusiastic crowd, the ‘Manege’ Central Exhibition Hall in Moscow. Over 80 designers took this opportunity to showcase their unique collections filled with everything from the ordinary to the extraordinary, highlighting fashions for women, men and children. Taking center stage, 12 young and emerging designers with the vehemence to become the next big name in fashion gave quite an impressive show. This included the Russian Fashion Council’s grant awardees.
With a certain international flavor of intrigue, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia received immense coverage by 50 foreign journalists and photographers representing Vogue US, Vogue India, Fashionista, WGSN, Eclectic, BoF and so many more. Records were meant to be broken and that they were over the course of this season. Over 50 thousand guests visited the event; more than 40 thousand new photos with an official MBFW Russia hash-tag were uploaded to Instagram in five days. All the shows were broadcasted live on 150 web-sites and on dozens of pages in VK and Facebook. The overall stats have not been summarized yet, but it is known already that via only one of the channels – the Fashion TV Facebook page with 4 million subscribers – live feeds from the ‘Manege’ runways were watched by 2 million people all over the world.
‘We invite foreign reporters to attend the shows in Moscow not as tourists,’ exclaimed Alexander Shumsky, President of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia. ‘They come here to work, and it is the shows where they spend most of their time. For some of them it’s already their fifth of sixth season in Moscow. And every season we see hundreds of publications on our participating designers in the international media, and this indicates the high level of the collections showcased on the ‘Manege’ runways, because the Western journalists assess the clothing and not the designers’ visitors who wear it. Thus, the high society connections of a fashion house have zero effect on its international coverage in this case. That’s why it comes as no surprise that over several recent years some Russian designers after having had their shows in Moscow during MBFW Russia, received offers to dress such world A-list celebrities as Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Rihanna and others.’
It should be noted that the Fashion Futurum Startup Show was a follow up on the Fashion Futurum International Conference, which was successfully launched last season. From the 70 applications, which had been submitted, the selected 12 were presented. Young teams, who had come up with innovative and original solutions for fashion industry, were given a unique opportunity to present their ideas at the main national fashion platform. Seminars with the leading Russian and international fashion technology experts formed an important part of the Fashion Futurum Startup Show. The presentations of the start-up projects were judged by a respectable jury consisting of business acceleration, venture capital investments and fashion industry experts. Selection of participants for the first fashion start-up show was carried out in collaboration with GenerationS business accelerator. The best teams chosen by the experts were awarded a once in a lifetime opportunity to take a course at Fashion Technology Accelerator (Milan), as well as participate in Splush Helsinki and the March edition of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia.
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part of this season’s activities at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia was the very important experimentation of Virtual Reality which presented a futuristic way to enjoy the concept of fashion for everyone from journalists to bloggers to fashion illustrators. By using HTC Vive virtual reality set and Tilt Brush interactive visualization software, attendees could operate a 3D-brush to create a 3D picture applying dozens of various tools, choosing colors from a very wide palette, and thus, employing animation. Accompanying this type of reality was what was known as Augmented Reality. This was the best way to demonstrate on a 2D screen what the virtual environment looks like. Augmented reality relies on social network resources to enter that world. Witnessing other people’s positive virtual reality experience through social networks, users get interested in trying it for themselves and gearing up for the future of the way the industry may be viewed by others.
Besides all the glamour and splendid of the fashions and the dedication of the designers and models, the The Festival of Folk Artistic Crafts – ‘Russian Art Heritage’, took place too and was organized by the Russian Fashion Council and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. This event made an excellent partnership to the runway shows. For three days, a dedicated area of the ‘Manege’ Central Exhibition Hall was turned into a stylized art space of the Russian artists’ grand workshop to show the world what they have idealized and brought to life in the form of art. Over two hundred apparel and accessory designers visited the even in three days, including the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia participants. Not only numerous master-classes gave the visitors an opportunity to learn something new, but they also created a rear chance to see the craft artists’ work in progress.
The platform of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia was used for the ‘St. Petersburg, the Center of Fashion and Textile Industry’ project presentation. The concept had been developed by the St. Petersburg City Administration Committee on Business and Consumer Market Development, and was presented in Moscow by Elgiz Kachaev, Chairman of the Committee.
Famous international fashion illustrators Jae Suk Kim, Sasha Spring, and Veronica Kemsky visited Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia shows to capture the event’s brightest moments. The Fashion Week’s backstage was decorated with their works from the previous seasons. Creation of illustrations with the augmented reality tools was a new experience for the guests.
A tremendous amount of work and effort went into this season’s five-day style experience. Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia is the epitome of cultural fashion cuisine and seems to just be getting finer with every season that arrives.
