Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Madrid (MBFWM) is experiencing a lot of changes recently, thanks partly to Charo Izquierdo, the new director whom I had the pleasure of interviewing, and to the digitalization of the industry on a global level. Not only are we seeing more and more designers taking part in social media to reach consumers around the world, but MBFWM has also been moved from February to January, right after Paris Couture Week. If you’re familiar with the industry, you’ll know that the reason for this is very clear. MBFWM has always coincided with London Fashion Week in the past, limiting the number of international buyers and editors who could come to Madrid. Now with the change of date, hopefully Madrid will receive more international attention and the press will shine a brighter light on the talent in this country.
Young designers such as Palomo Spain and Pepa Salazar left the IFEMA runway to show in more central locations, choosing scenery that fits with their inspiration and causing a lot of noise on social channels.
Beyoncé in a Palomo Spain dress.
Other Fashion Week veterans put on captivating shows at IFEMA, ranging from a trip to Hawaii (Juan Vidal) to a political journey in the States (Ana Locking). The talent in Madrid is present, and to push the fashion scene here to internationalization isn’t just a question of digitalization, but a need to believe in ourselves and in the different, high-quality products we offer – as Charo Izquierdo insists.
Juan Vidal show. Photos via GPS Radar.
Ana Locking in front of her Donald Trump sculpture. Photo via Zimbio.
In reality, internationalization of Madrid Fashion has already started to happen, which is evident when looking at the data. Launchmetrics just published their first annual Fashion Weeks report, called Data on the Runway SS//2018 in which they take a close and very analytical look at the top 5 runways, including Madrid. The findings are fascinating as they were able to rank designers and influencers by their power to generate engagement on social. There’s also a list of which countries were most interested in each Fashion Week – The United States, for instance, represents 8.8% of the media impact generated during MBFWM. Another interesting fact you’ll learn from the report is that Fashion Week is being increasingly democratized thanks to digitalization, which is evident when you see that the online media that generated the most media impact value are editorials that aren’t particularly known for their fashion coverage, such as AOL.
If you haven’t already seen it, I highly recommend taking a look at Data on the Runway SS//2018. It’s is a free report that you can download in Spanish via this link:
VOCABULARY:
shine a brighter light – cuando decimos «shine a light on something», puede significar ‘arrojar una luz sobre algo’ en el sentido de que lo prestas más atención. También puede significar sacar algo a la luz, un secreto o algo que era desconocido.
scenery – no lo confundas con ‘escenario’ que sería «stage». «Scenery» puede significar ‘el fondo’ cuando hablamos de un plano visual, pero también puede significar ‘paisaje’ (e.j. I love looking at the scenery while I’m on the train.).
fits – recuerda que «to fit» es ‘quedar bien’ cuando hablamos de talla. Si quieres decir ‘quedar bien’ en el sentido de que te favorece, dirías «to suit». Sin embargo, en este contexto quiere decir ‘encajar’.
put on captivating shows – el verbo compuesto «to put on» significa, en este contexto, ‘montar’, en el sentido de ‘montar un espectáculo. La palabra «captivating» significa ‘cautivador’.
media impact value (MIV) – Launchmetrics ha desarrollado un algoritmo propio basado exclusivamente en datos procedentes de fuentes del sector de la moda, el lujo y la belleza con el objetivo de ofrecer un valor mediático estimado para la industria. El MIV es calculado a través del análisis de los datos de audiencia estimada por canal junto al engagement, ubicación geográfica de las publicaciones y atributos generales de impacto de la marca.
coverage – cobertura o reportajes en los medios.
FASHION ENGLISH 