Runway360 Is The CFDA’s Answer To A Mostly Digital New York Fashion Week This September

With few, if any, in-person shows or presentations likely to take place during New York Fashion Week when it happens in mid-September – the city has entered phase 4 of reopening, but indoor gatherings of substantial size are still prohibited – the CFDA is building a new digital platform, Runway360, to connect American designers and brands with the media, retailers, and consumers. “Think about when we centralised Fashion Week with the tents 25 years ago, said Steven Kolb, the CFDA’s president and CEO, during a Zoom presentation of the new concept. “This is similar to that, we’re just creating this centralised hub.”

Like ye tents of old, the online platform is a one-stop-shop, housing brand pages where users can find designer profiles, livestreams and other digital activations, collection content, and press notes. It’ll operate according to the NYFW calendar, with time slots and appointment viewing, only it won’t go dark when New York’s shortened Fashion Week is over. “It’s really open access and democratic,” Kolb explained. “Whether you’re doing a video or a photo shoot or VR – or whatever it is your budget or your ability creatively to produce is – our platform is meant to be plug-in.”

What it isn’t is an editorial site, which is one way Runway360 diverges from some of the other platforms built for the digital fashion weeks in London, Milan, and Paris. “We’re not going to have content that is an interview between Marc Jacobs and a muse about his new house upstate. It’s not a panel discussion with three models talking about trends,” Kolb said. It’s really more of a business tool. Virtual showrooms will allow buyers to place orders, and while e-commerce is not part of the offering, emerging designers could take pre-orders that would help them cover their costs of production, and they could also gain useful data about what’s being watched and liked.

“Just like you have at New York Fashion Week there’s a collective energy and vibe. It’s the same approach here, bringing it all together in one place,” Kolb continued. With brands posting their content on their own websites and social channels, and increased interest on the part of the Instagrams and YouTubes of the world in featuring digital fashion shows, it will take time to draw a critical mass to Runway360, let alone create a vibe, but the service is free, and, as Kolb points out, it will create critical infrastructure for brands that need it. NuOrder, the virtual showroom is providing free services to BIPOC designers. The key word is community.