First luxury e-commerce site Farfetch partnered with Apple Music, and now designers themselves are teaming up with the platform to share brand playlists.
Following Alexander Wang’s debut with Apple Music in June, Marc Jacobs is the latest designer to step up to the digital DJ booth as a featured contributor this month. Apple describes him as “the most rock n’ roll fashion designer of his generation” on their featured page, which includes Jacobs’s personal music “muses” and select playlists for New York, London and Milan Fashion Week. Users can access the playlists through an Apple Music subscription only.
“People want to connect more deeply with the brands they care about, regardless of [what platform] they are spending their time,” said Thomas Rankin, CEO of Dash Hudson. “For companies, it’s all about distribution and extension of brand. By partnering with Apple Music, Marc Jacobs gets the benefit of massive reach and the ability touch millions of potential customers and fans. Apple gets the cachet of working with Marc Jacobs, and gets the benefit of the awareness the partnership will create.”
Beyond Apple Music, this New York Fashion Week designers like Anna Sui used platforms like Spotify to share runway soundtracks as a way to tease the show and give followers an aesthetic sense of spring designs. Sui’s 70s-era song selection served as harbingers of her hippie-inspired show.
Preview #AnnaSuiSpring17’s soundtrack on @Spotify! Check back for more after tonight’s show! https://t.co/VBZA1BSARQ pic.twitter.com/Z3FFvu4pe1
— Anna Sui (@annasui) September 14, 2016
“Brands are striving to connect with consumers on all levels, to diversify their communications beyond traditional media campaigns and editorial efforts,” said Roberto Villazon, founder and CEO of Hi-gloss. “Luxury fashion brands are waking up to the harsh reality that the consumer’s prerequisite for purchase is to connect with the brand at a personal and emotional level.”
As part of this diversification, designers are increasingly looking to fuse video and music content through high profile music videos that visually show off designs. Earlier this summer, Kanye West partnered with Balmain to debut the designer’s latest collection inn his “Wolves” music video. Likewise, John Varvatos launched a music video collaboration with Hozier in August.
“For luxury brands, creating awareness is very much driven by image – not just visual, but auditory image as well,” Chris Paradysz, CEO of marketing agency PM Digital, told Glossy in May. “Music has this ability to stop the momentum and the inertia. And nothing has the ability to change your emotion quite like music does.”
