High fashion has taken to the high skies.
Designer Zac Posen unveiled his new line of plum-hued Delta uniforms on Facebook Live Tuesday from a fashion show hosted by the airline. Delta employees walked the runway in front of an audience of fellow employees in Atlanta, where the company is headquartered. The video, which was teased ahead of time using the hashtag #DeltaRunwayReveal, currently has more than 200,000 views, 6,000 likes and just under 5,000 comments.
The fashion industry has increasingly experimented with Facebook Live in recent months, testing new uses for the platform. Brands like Burberry used Facebook Live to stream its London Fashion Week show in September, while publishers like Vogue leveraged it to share backstage interviews with models, designers and celebrities during New York Fashion Week.
The Delta uniforms will roll out to 60,000 employees beginning in 2018. Posen shared several behind-the-scenes photos from the Atlanta launch with captions like “Chic Delta ladies.”
In his opening speech at the Atlanta fashion show, Posen said that the design process took a total of 18 months, and was developed with a focus on diversity in both the styles of clothing and the employees that would be wearing them. Posen has been an outspoken advocate for diversity in fashion — during last month’s New York Fashion Week, he was lauded for casting a majority of models of color for his runway show.
“We wanted to represent America globally,” Posen said of the Delta line during the launch event. “This was really important. [I worked] with technology, with the years of luxury training that I have, in a collection that really celebrated all the beauty of the diversity that makes up Delta.
Fashion designers have a long history of designing airline uniforms, including Vivienne Westwood for Virgin Atlantic, Balenciaga for Oman Air and Pierre Balmain for Singapore Airlines in recent years. According to the video, the theme of Posen’s Delta line is “Fly Me To The Moon” with an inspiration around “how to blend modernity and innovation with the timeless elegance of aviation.”
“This was kind of life changing. I never expected to learn so much about an organization and a community culture,” Posen said. “There were lots of moments in the process to kind of reflect and take in. We wanted to create something that was fresh and new. That was sharp, that was comfortable.”
