Brands score with K-Pop stars and the Bella effect

Spring/Summer 2023 was a season of extremes: spectacular productions, debuts and gigantic collaborations met a national mourning period in England to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II, who died before the start of London Fashion Week. Despite the postponement of several catwalk presentations, including Riccardo Tisci’s last show as creative director for Burberry and Raf Simons’ return to London, the general mood seemed positive – perhaps also because almost all shows have reverted to a traditional catwalk format. Many brands rely on wow moments with an international star cast, which act less as exciting performances for buyers and journalists who have traveled to the event, but primarily aim at high engagement in social media.

Success is known to be relative and can be measured in many different ways. The PR and image agency Karla Otto has now published a report on the collections for the spring/summer 2023 season and their impact on social media. FashionUnited has summarized for you to what extent success on social media is relevant in the fashion world and which brands attracted everyone’s attention during the Fashion Weeks.

Star Power, K-Pop Dominance, and the “Bella Effect”

How does a young French brand manage to outperform its established, traditional competition? In the case of Coperni, there are two explanations: Kylie Jenner in the front row and Bella Hadid having a dress spray-painted on the catwalk during a fifteen-minute staging. If you look at the earned media value of 27.7 million US dollars (27.80 million euros) calculated in the report, it is noticeable that at 13.47 million US dollars (13.52 million euros) almost half of it is noticeable respective postings on Jenner’s and Hadid’s accounts. They offer a first insight into the radiance of the stars. According to the British online fashion search engine Lyst, Gucci is currently the “hottest brand” in the world, but with an EMV of 13.6 million US dollars (13.69 million euros), it does not even make it into the top 10 most successful brands in the social networks. Only Dior, Saint Laurent and Fendi were able to top the brand of designers Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant in terms of EMC this year.

While at Fendi the mega-collaboration with designers Marc Jacobs and Tiffany and Co. is particularly noteworthy, the two Parisian fashion houses focus on one thing above all: the K-Pop phenomenon. Jisoo, a member of Korean girl group Blackpink, which tops the list of the season’s top influencers with $22.4 million in EMV, was a guest at Dior’s. Bandmate and Saint Laurent brand ambassador Rosé follows in third place with $21.7 million (€21.78 million) EMV. The two are split by Kylie Jenner, who has posted $22 million EMV.

Coperni star Bella Hadid not only cemented her supermodel status this season, but also proved extremely conducive to the earned media value of the 19 brands she walked the catwalks for. The model gave the various designers a total of 15.3 million US dollars (15.35 million euros) in earned media value with 13 posts. According to the Karla Otto Group report, Hadid’s presence increases a brand’s earned media value by an average of 29 percent. For Jil Sander, the model proved particularly lucrative. A post on Hadid’s Instagram accounts for 90 percent of Jil Sander’s total EMV and helped the brand increase its earned media value by 1170 percent compared to the previous season.

New York shines, London mourns and Milan stagnates

On average, the SS23 season achieved 10 percent more earned media value than the previous one, but there were clear winners and losers, as only New York was able to achieve a significant increase over autumn/winter with 82 percent more EMV.

The main reason for this is the guest brand Fendi, which celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the iconic baguette bag in the US metropolis under the creative direction of Kim Jones. Paris and London both stagnated at 5 percent, but Paris retained its place at the top of the four cities. Meanwhile, London, already the smallest of the fashion weeks, brought up the rear. Despite Moncler’s and Diesel’s superlative fashion shows, with 17,000 and 3,000 visitors respectively, Milan recorded the most significant minus with 11 percent less EMC.

The bigger the better

It is not known how many influencers are present as guests at the various fashion weeks. However, most of them are micro-influencers. These are people with a social media following of between 10,000 and 100,000. Overall, micro-influencers are responsible for about 2.3 percent of the EMV of fashion weeks, while a full 86.5 percent of the earned media value can be attributed to so-called mega influencers with a follower count of 1 million or more. The remaining 11.2 percent are distributed among the macro and top influencers. If you take a look at the geographical distribution of the EMV, it is again noticeable how essential the Asia-Pacific region is, because it is the second most important factor of the earned media value after America.