How much does a fashion show cost?

How much does a fashion show cost?

After the interest aroused by the posts in which we remembered the best fashion shows of all time and that one in which we talked about the evolution of fashion shows throughout history since its origin, it has occurred to us that perhaps You might also want to know how much a fashion show costs.

The issue is complex because there are as many budgets as there have been parades throughout history. So perhaps, the most operative thing would be to contemplate the different games that must be considered when organizing a parade.

The first thing I have to confess to you is that I have never organized a fashion show, although I have actively participated in the organization of several of those great parties that high-end magazines usually offer each year to their advertisers, and to those who also they invite models, designers, communication and advertising agencies, and various celebrities.

So extrapolating the games a bit, and with the invaluable help of several of the most important actors who participate in the organization of fashion shows, we hope to clarify if not all, at least many of the doubts or curiosities that you may have in the related to this type of events.

Define the concept

When you want to organize an event, the first and main thing is to define the concept of what you want to do. Once it is clear if it is a parade, a party or a presentation, find out about the budget available. When it comes to parties offered by magazines that are a benchmark in the sector, it is usually sponsored by certain brands related to the header. The normal thing is that these tend to be brands related to the world of beauty (who are the ones who handle the biggest budgets), with the world of fashion, with that of haute horlogerie or jewelry, and even with the world of drinks such as champagne . Any brand that may be interested in being related to the world of fashion.

When it comes to a great brand in the world of luxury and fashion, it is normal that they do not want to appear in the photocall associated with any other brand, so they have to face the expenses incurred by the organization of the parade or the party of presenting a product alone, with the budget that your marketing department authorizes them to handle.

While the department of communication and advertising and, in the case of magazines, the writing itself is preparing a list of people or institutions likely to be invited to the event (which will then be reviewed and corrected, to delete or add who is deemed appropriate); People who work in the marketing department have to go looking for several locations where they can hold the event.

Locations

For this, the capacity of the premises and its infrastructures must be taken into account, ensuring that they can always adapt to the needs of the event we want to celebrate, informing us if we are allowed to change the decoration or if it is not a protected building. touch the walls to drill, paint or whatever is necessary. For this same reason, when we talked about the evolution of fashion shows we told you that the Haute Couture fashion shows in Paris went from being held at the Carrousel du Louvre to the Rodin Museum, the Grand Palais or any other location where it could be taken a staging that the Louvre facilities did not allow due to lack of space and because it is a protected building.

While searching for and visiting locations, it is important to meet with an agency specialized in the realization of events so that it is preparing a project and preparing a budget in which they specify each of the items that they will be responsible for so that those responsible for them They have commissioned the project to get an idea of what the event in question will cost them.

In an increasingly competitive and specialized market, companies are constantly forced to look for impact and difference through events whose technical and spatial needs cannot cover traditional channels or alternative spaces. You need multifunctional spaces, technically equipped and with a wide range of benefits, that offer a personalized service, and with the capacity to adapt to the needs of each of the clients.

The ideal is to find multipurpose, multifunctional, trendy spaces, with polished cement floors and blank walls and ceilings with plastic and washable paint designed for unlimited execution of any type of event, easily customized, in central locations in cultural and social reference areas and easily accessible.

Items to consider

A brand can organize an inhouse parade through its marketing, communication and public relations departments or it can work, side by side, with a communication agency specialized in the realization of events.

Among the most important vendor items are usually considered:

Design of the physical invitation and the Save the Date digital
Information attached in the invitation about the party sponsor
Situation plans for the development of the party
Printing
Decor
Floral decoration
Furniture rental
Technical facilities
Photocall design
Audiovisual
Sitting and distribution of tables
Household rental
Models
Hostesses
Catering and camereros
Recording of the event in DVcam system with sound and post-production delivered to the system requested
PA system
Valet parking

The parades, in addition, require the development of a presskit that includes a press release with the description of the new collection, plus a CD or a pendrive with the detail of each look, so that they are easily recognizable by both buyers and by Fashion editors

The usual thing is to instruct the agency or the communication department to handle the call to the media, the sitting for the VIPs and the press.

The agency specializing in events must be in charge of finding the ideal location for the parade, the conception and production of the staging (decoration, audiovisual production and lights), of the music, of hiring an agency of models that Take care of the casting, the makeup and hair stylists, and the stylists that will help create the composition and order of the models. Finally, and not least, there must be a team of photographers and cameras that record both the parade and the backstage, and a series of public relations that attend to the guests.

Association of Fashion Creators of Spain

The organization of a parade is very similar in many ways. But in order to be part of the Madrid Fashion Week (MBFWM) calendar, you have to belong to the Association of Fashion Creators of Spain (ACME), an organization founded in 1998 by Modesto Lomba, which is currently run by Pepa Bueno , and has associated 54 brands.

The requirements to be able to associate is to have a brand and have presented at least 4 collections, or work for a brand that is already in the market as creative director. It is highly appreciated that the brand works with a communication agency or has a public relations, and also the presence of the brand in fairs, and international markets, and the number of stores they have in Spain and abroad. Not all of its associates parade, but many of them do. To be able to associate, you must also make an initial payment of 3,000 euros, and then pay monthly installments of about 300 euros.

Requirements to be able to parade

In order to participate, you must formally request it when the bases of the edition are published, and send the project - together with the designer's profile and career - to Cuca Solana, director of the Madrid Fashion Week. It will be a committee who decides. The selection is made following a series of objective criteria such as seniority in ACME and the impact of the brand on the media. The parading designers are chosen by the team of the contest organization with the collaboration of fashion experts from some publications with the intention of incorporating new designers.

Once the application is accepted, you have to pay another 3,000 euros that entitle you to use the facilities, official model casting, hairdressing and makeup of the sponsors of the event. It is a symbolic price, since the cost of a parade of these characteristics would cost much more. Included in the price, the MBFWM also offers press service and repercussion in national and international press. In order to parade alone, designers must have paraded before in shared parades. For solo parades you have to pay instead of 3,000 euros, 6,000 euros.

The normal thing is that the brands hire a special set, music and the occasional live performance, in addition to some top model that attracts the media. The Fashion Creators Association manages the aid with the ICEX which, together with the aid they receive from the Ministry of Culture to promote Spanish fashion inside and outside Spain, are usually one of their main sources of financing (between the two they usually finance 50 percent of these parades).

For the distribution of day and time in the official MBFWM calendar, Cuca Solana organizes a raffle. However, designers can exchange among themselves, if they wish, the days that have touched them in luck.

Solo parade

The brands that do not parade in IFEMA have to bear all the expenses accrued by the organization of their own parades. In the end, apparently and as I have been informed by brands that chose to parade on their own, the same thing is more or less. When choosing, for example a hotel (even if it is a luxury), the capacity is usually limited; You can't play loud music because the rest of the hotel's clientele is disturbed. You don't have to pay for a special decoration, but you have to pay the audio-visual technicians, the hairdressers, the makeup artists, look for the models, etc. To this we must add two photographs and a camera that records the parade on video. Anyway, it is best to hire an agency specialized in the organization of events, so the expenses soar.

A parade in a hotel can cost about 13,000 euros. This includes the rental of the salons, the fee of the modeling agency that is usually about 2,000 euros for 10 models (if a known model agency is used, the fee for the models is 300 euros per girl). The budget for makeup artists and hairdressers is 600 euros for every 4 models. For this reason, it is interesting to reach a collaboration agreement with some cosmetic brand that sponsors the parade. In addition, we must add the price of renting chairs that can range from 6 to 10 euros per unit, which must be multiplied by the number of guests invited to the parade. Some hotels allow sponsorship of wine or champagne cellars and only charge waiters.

Normally spring-summer parades are held in winter and winter parades in summer. So when you are not covered by the Madrid Fashion Week organization, it is very difficult to go out in the press. For this reason, more and more brands are assessing the possibility of organizing the parades coinciding with the seasons (even if it is a year before).

Parades are usually attended by sponsors, celebrities invited by the brand, and some buyers from all over the world. These usually sit in the front-row and in the first rows of benches, so that the cameras can focus when the models pass by them. The rest of the attendees sit where they find a hole or stand when it comes to very media parades. Each and every one of the ambassadors of the big brands manage their contracts through their representatives and lawyers.

Smaller parades do not usually have sitting since there is always a mismatch between confirmations and the call. 100 people are invited, 60 confirmed and, in the end, only about 40 attend. These are usually the percentages that are considered in this type of event.

Get out of the circuit

Paris has always stood out for its creative and theatrical staging in exclusive places or historical monuments, especially in relation to the great brands of the world of luxury (Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga, Valentino, etc.). New York is a much more pragmatic and minimalist catwalk, but very well organized. Less exclusive and select than Parisian, it usually welcomes young talents. In London, fashion is usually alternative and groundbreaking. Milan, on the other hand, stands out for its men's fashion shows. A classic and luxurious fashion with a flash point.

Chanel has been using the facilities of the Grand Palais de Paris for many years to recreate its spectacular staging that, every season, surprise us with its creativity and its deployment of media. These types of agencies have been specializing over more than two decades in the artistic conception, production and organization of fashion shows specialized in fashion and luxury, always within a spirit of research, innovation and creativity capable of arousing emotions. .

To be successful, these agencies must comply with the expectations and wishes of their clients, respect their identity and their history, and found each and every collaboration they reach in values as important as trust.

These agencies are responsible for each event or parade from its artistic concept to the casting through the technical set-up, delivery, turnkey, all tailored to the wishes of their customers.

Agencies specialized in events

Paul-Emmanuel Reiffers of the agency La Mode en Images organized in early October the parade for the spring-summer 2016 collection of Louis Vuitton at the foot of the Louis Vuitton Foundation. There, the heroine protagonists of Nicolas Ghesquière marched through a sci-fi set consisting of XXL screens, manga images, and virtual reality video games.

A few months earlier, in March, they officially closed the Paris Fashion Week with a spectacular production consisting of 7 ephemeral geodetic structures that gave life to a spectacular and futuristic decoration installed next to the Louis Vuitton Foundation. These structures echoed both Nicolas Ghesquière's collection for autumn-winter 2015 and Frank Gehry's architecture.

One of the assemblies of this agency that I liked the most was the one they made for the Louis Vuitton 2013 spring-summer parade presented on October 3 in Paris, or that one that coincided with the opening of their biggest Chinese flagship. On that occasion, they recreated a parade around a locomotive. In the middle of a cloud of steam, the models were descending, one by one of that train.

This agency has also taken care of the organization of the Centennial party of the Tour Eiffel, of the 60th Anniversary of Christian Dior on the avenue Montaigne in Paris

To all this we must also add the excellent work done by photographers such as Stéphane Aït Ouarab, who is one of Louis Vuitton's trusted photographers, and who is responsible for photographing everything related to their fashion shows.

Stéphane also works for Valentino, Loewe, Céline, Givenchy, etc. and his fee is not cheap, but it is that all his works are spectacular.

Celebrity Fee

But this is not all. When it comes to parties organized by high-end magazines, a fee for celebrities is usually not contemplated since they usually go to the invitation claim with the hope that the publication will support them each time they release a new movie, a new album , or organize a fashion editorial. However, when the party is held in a city other than the capital, you have to pay them for travel and the hotel. Guests usually receive gifts (goodie bags) from a series of brands that collaborate in the event, giving up x units (as many as guests exist at the event) to be delivered when they arrive at their rooms.

When it comes to parades, celebrities invited to the front row are not only paid for travel and hotel, but also give them a gift of high value (it can be a bag, a suit, etc.), which they are left in their rooms so they can wear it when they go to the parade to which they have been invited. Special mention deserves the fee that ambassadors of a brand receive because in between they usually mediate a contract that forces them to pose for spring-summer and autumn-winter campaigns and also attend, at least, two parties that organize the brand That has hired them. Celebrity fees vary depending on their notoriety, and their involvement in front of the photocall (pose only in front of the photocall dressed in clothing assigned by the brand, or attend the press, grant interviews and mention the brand).

Recall, for example, the case of Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lawrence or Rihanna for Dior or that of Kristen Stewart for Chanel. These contracts usually last approximately two years, after which, the brands usually opt for new ambassadors. You know, renew or die!

The other day I commented in another post that Tom Ford had decided to present his spring-summer 2016 collection through a fashionfilm in which parading down a bright Lady Gaga catwalk and a small but select group of models of the size of Mica Arganaraz presented the latest creations of the Texan designer. In the designer's opinion, this video clip had managed to capture the spirit of his collection in a way that they could not have achieved through a traditional parade.

Which proves that shooting with the king's saves is not the same as having to pay all the expenses accrued by the organization of a parade from your own pocket. Especially since after this "experiment", Tom Ford announced that he would again hold exclusive and very private events in his New York flagship in which he only invited a handful of fashion editors and clients to "be able to transmit first hand your message and point of view in relation to your new proposals. "

Which leads me to make the following reflection: if designers of recognized prestige and as media as Tom Ford do not know very well which letter to stay, and they are trying different formulas to get the best possible return to how to invest their money to give to know their new collections and, above all, sell; how hard it has to be for designers who start having to invest at least 9,600 euros (3,000 euros initial registration fee, 3,600 euros of monthly payments to ACME, and 3,000 euros to participate in a joint parade in the MBFWM) Not to mention the extra effort you have to make to be able to pay your autonomous fee.

I wonder if, in addition to positioning them and making them known internationally, the MBFWM is also capable of attracting international buyers from all over the world who buy them, so that they can recover everything invested. Because, otherwise, how hard it must be to strive to devote oneself to this world!

I found on the Internet a video where they give all the figures that are handled at the time and organize a parade during the New York Fashion Week. It is not exactly the same, but for guidance I think it is a powerful informative tool.