Brands are trading the runway for numbers that don't move the culture.
When looking at Victoria’s Secret’s Instagram account, one boasting 78,336,484 followers as of writing, we can see that most posts and reels around the fashion show sit in the hundreds of thousands of views (when not collaborating with other accounts). Count those posts and only two of them reached the 2 million likes range.
Want to guess who?
Correct. Adriana Lima’s 21st walk montage: 2 million likes, 12K comments.
Next up, Kylie Jenner, though for her it is the first time at such an occasion. Results? 2.1M likes. 25K comments.
But wait, what about GIGI? Sure - 500k likes.
But what about the item?
Now you might say, well look at the bra she wore, full of diamonds. Right, right, very shareable, beautiful nonetheless, a piece of art for sure. But if the internet is mad at those moments, with some justifying it by saying she got the wings already and others saying the models who worked hard deserve the opportunity more, who’s to blame? Collectively, this is how we have been consuming media over the past few years, and Victoria’s Secret is a business after all. So why are we surprised? If a business has an opportunity to earn such big impact on social media feeds for one night or for weeks, any reasonable, business-minded person trying to survive in today’s landscape will take that with both hands.
Besides that, that barrier was broken a while ago, since campaign casting has turned its methods toward what counts as talent and what drives the media power up a notch. In that sense there is no difference between a person of influence walking the runway and the same person being presented in a seasonal campaign for a luxury house. Already mad at this last sentence? Truth hurts homie, tough love.
This is the equivalent of a celeb creative director, just the runway version of it. So why is one “ok” and the later almost condemned? As much as we don’t believe in this term, earned media value now controls the feed and the industry when it comes to translating moments at this scale. Besides that, the internet loves to be mad at things and then forget about it the next day when it comes to fashion. Does anyone remember which couture season Kim walked for Balenciaga? When was the last time you brought it up in a conversation, past the week it happened?? We’ll leave that to you.
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