When Louis Vuitton announced Virgil Abloh as the new Creative Director for its menswear collections back in March 2018, the maverick designer chose Instagram Stories as the platform to speak to his fans. Forgoing an exclusive with a fashion magazine or a broadsheet newspaper – Abloh took to the medium that he understands like no other.
‘Seven questions with Virgil Abloh’ set Instagram Stories alight with his succinct and engaging message. Stories has opened the door on a culture shift in luxury fashion, once the preserve of an exclusive, private set. “At LV, I’m looking forward to establishing a new vocabulary. Something that’s useful and modern, but also hinged on the past”, he said, outlining his vision for the future of the 1854-founded luxury house in his typically open and candid style.
This disruptive, inclusive approach to luxury is what defines the trajectory and ascent of the Chicago-born architect, turned DJ, turned designer. From the very beginning, Abloh has understood the power of ephemeral and direct communication with his community, whether he’s casting models for an Off White show or asking for feedback from his followers on an idea. Documenting his first day at Louis Vuitton, Abloh again took to Stories to give his community a behind the scenes look at the design process, sharing a meeting with his design team and taking us into the maison’s atelier to give a glimpse of sketches in progress for his very first collection.
EPHEMERAL CONTENT INSPIRES MORE SHARING OF EVERYDAY MOMENTS.
ONE BILLION STORIES ARE BEING SHARED AROUND THE WORLD, RIGHT NOW ACROSS FACEBOOK MESSENGER, INSTAGRAM AND WHATSAPP SHORT FORM UNITS LEAD TO EASY TO CONSUME CONTENT WE NOW SEE THE WORLD THROUGH A VERTICAL LENS. OUR FIELD OF VISION HAS BECOME MORE INTIMATE AND THIS SHIFT IS A NATURAL ONE INCLUSIVE & PARTICIPATORY: INTERACTIVE FEATURES SUCH AS POLLING AND QUESTION STICKERS FULL SCREEN TO CREATE MORE IMMERSIVE CONTENT EPHEMERAL CONTENT INSPIRES MORE SHARING OF EVERYDAY MOMENTS.
ONE BILLION STORIES ARE BEING SHARED AROUND THE WORLD, RIGHT NOW ACROSS FACEBOOK MESSENGER, INSTAGRAM AND WHATSAPP
The new rules of engagement
It’s no coincidence that Abloh’s preferred platform is a cultural phenomenon changing the rules of engagement for luxury fashion and design in real time.
With 1 billion Stories being shared around the world on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp – the shift towards a vertical view is a natural one.
This ephemeral space, naturally fitting for the mobile environment, brings us closer to the brands and creatives who are changing culture and is redefining what luxury means in the modern era. Now brands with a focus on craft have turned to Stories as a new canvas for communication.
Luxury is now collaborative, a two-way 24/7 conversation between brand and customer. Through Stories this becomes not only interactive, but also tactile and immersive. For brands it is an increasingly powerful driver of both loyalty and sales, and an essential tool in driving their narrative. To demonstrate how this new medium is reshaping the worlds of fashion and design, we take a closer look below at some of the brand’s creating powerful and compelling Stories right now.
Our world since stories…
Delving into the worlds of fashion and design, we take a closer look below at some of the brand’s creating powerful and compelling Stories right now.
Hermès
Famously known for not having a marketing department, Hermès enjoys an incomparable status in the luxury sector, with exquisite craftsmanship and rich heritage at the centre of its brand narrative. It might seem unexpected then, that the maison is also one of the most innovative Story creators on social right now.
Unveiling its AW19 accessories collection via ‘Hermès on Stage’ – a ‘whodunit’ investigation into a stolen artwork – the brand regularly shares imaginative and interactive Stories that draw the audience into their world. Presenting five protagonists in the campaign – the lady, the detective, the adventurer, the hippie, the artist – the audience is asked to solve the mystery, with the accessories themselves becoming clues. Once they have voted, they are prompted to click through to uncover the real villain, while also discovering the full collection and links to purchase it.
For the brand’s SS2020 men’s show, it shared a part-scripted, part-real life group chat between the Hermès team as they made their preparations for the show – from casting, to the final set design.
Hermes’ use of stories clearly showcase the format’s ability to not only drive brand engagement, but also act as a storefront for driving sales.
Molteni&C
Italian furniture company Molteni&C have been
designing luxurious and iconic pieces for over 80 years, collaborating with some of the most well-known names in the design industry, from Jean Nouvel to Foster + Partners.
The heritage brand uses Stories as a tool for collaboration and to showcase new collections. #HouseofMolteni is a takeover series featuring talent from outside the design industry, including composer, DJ and sound artist, Mimi Xu, musician Anna Calvi and art advisor Lawrence Van Hagen, exploring their creativity within Molteni designed spaces. The beautifully produced visuals strike a balance between the history of the brand and the language of now.
Molteni proves that even heritage design brands can utilize new design mediums to reinvent their craft in exciting formats – some even on mobile.
BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group
Bjarke Ingels Group, known as BIG, is a design firm based between Copenhagen and New York City, operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. Projects by the studio include Manhattan skyscraper VIA 57 West, and Nom restaurant in Copenhagen.
Long considered a disruptor and innovator as an architect, founder Bjarke Ingels’s philosophy of ‘Yes is More’ shapes a populist approach to design – ‘It’s not like we design buildings for architects. We design buildings for people’.
While BIG’s buildings are breathtaking in their construction, their approach to Stories is intimate, candid and light-hearted. Through their regularly published BIG Life strand on Stories, we get to meet and spend time up close with the team behind the iconic buildings, not just when they are at work, but also when they are having fun together on away days and gatherings outside of the office.
BIG’s approach to social media is refreshingly modern. Using Stories to open up both the process and the people behind the design of the world’s most iconic buildings makes the world of architecture accessible to the next generation.
Collusion Studios
Describing itself as a ‘new brand for the coming age’, Collusion Studios is a sustainable fashion company offering bold, experimental and inclusive clothing powered by an open source approach pioneered on Stories.
A recent photoshoot captures Collusion’s approach. Through Stories, the audience votes on every decision in the creative process – from colour choices, to which backdrop is used on set, to which pieces to pair together. The label aligns itself closely with creative talent who have made Instagram their key medium, a recent collaboration for example, follows visual artist Rene Matic as she launches her new exhibition and shares her creative process.
Collusion’s transparent and interactive take on Stories shows how the format can not only open up a brand, it can shape everything it does by bringing the customer in to the creative process.
Wallpaper*
Reflecting on the evolution of Wallpaper*, when we first launched as a print magazine in 1996, we offered a whole new way of seeing the world, pre-Instagram feed, with a careful curation of global design aesthetics that quickly established us as the leading authority on design. Our trajectory into digital came early by way of wallpaper.com with its 360* coverage across design, lifestyle, travel, fashion, jewellery, art and technology.
Stories have enabled us to have an even stronger connection with our audience, allowing us to reflect the full breadth of our global coverage and to speak to our readers across the world, effortlessly.
Curated and edited as a distinct channel, our Stories offer a mix of polished, timely news updates from the design world, ephemeral reporting from global events, and immersive content experiences.
From creating interactive moments when we report from Venice Nomad, Art Basel Miami or London Fashion Week, to a live Instagram Stories Q&A with our guest editor, Hussein Chalayan; Stories are a space for up-to-the-minute coverage and interactive play.
For all publications right now, Stories are the platform for delivering new, immersive feature formats and opening up conversation with the audience, empowering editors to be more creative, live and in the moment.