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With Hollywood and K-pop stars flocking to Paris Fashion Week, the city’s prefecture has asked brands to declare in advance the names of the major celebrities attending their shows in order to be better prepared for the crowds of fans.
Celebrities are at the heart of many fashion and beauty brands’ strategies — so much so that the Pinault family’s holding Artémis inked a deal earlier this month to buy renowned Hollywood agency CAA for a reported $7 billion. Although CAA will be managed separately from Kering, under the Artémis umbrella, the deal came at a time when the lines between fashion and entertainment are blurring — think June’s blockbuster show from Pharrell Williams for Louis Vuitton (owned by Kering rival LVMH). Competition between fashion brands to sign exclusive contracts with talents that will achieve international brand awareness and reach has intensified.
Celebrities represented 57 per cent of the total visibility (or earned media value) generated by the top 12 fashion brands in the first nine months of 2023, up from 41 per cent in the same period last year, according to influencer analytics platform Lefty. The front row has always been about curation, but today there is more pressure than ever to get the right mix of celebrities for the brand image and social media firepower. Celebrity marketing is a “science mixed with instinct and creativity”, says Youssef Marquis, who earlier this year with the support of LVMH, launched his communications and talent agency Marquis.
For stars, it’s a different way to express themselves, especially as social media has favoured an abundance of creative brand content far beyond glossy ad campaigns. “Many artists now consider brand collaborations as part of a well-rounded career. Two decades ago there was more reticence,” says Annabelle Tillette, co-founder of talent agency Personae Consilium. She notes the number of events during Paris Fashion Week attended by talents has increased since pre-Covid and that athletes are particularly in demand in the lead-up to the Paris Olympics. (Tillette and Amanda Bross founded Personae Consilium — which represents the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Stanley Tucci, Matthias Schoenaerts and Emily in Paris’s Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu — in 2017.)
New KPIs
Lancôme will host a lavish dinner on 26 September to celebrate its partnership with the Louvre museum with a flurry of its ambassadors in attendance including Amanda Seyfried and Penélope Cruz. “Authenticity and relatability are key when it comes to choosing our ambassadors. They represent the diversity of beauty and our entire customer base,” says Mylène Kerjean, vice president of global communications and image at Lancôme. Lancôme’s portfolio of ambassadors includes Isabella Rossellini, Julia Roberts, Zendaya, South Korean actress Jung Ho-yeon, French pop singer Aya Nakamura and YouTube star Emma Chamberlain.
“Today, brands are expected by consumers to do more than just sell products. They have become entertainment platforms, so it’s about co-creation, what we create with our ambassadors, meaning that the KPIs have changed,” says Kerjean, citing watch time as an example. The brand created a 24-minute web series starring Emma Chamberlain, which has racked up more than 74,000 hours of watch time, according to Kerjean. Lancôme has since filmed a performance of Nakamura at Lancôme’s rose field Domaine de la Rose in Grasse. A 13-minute clip will be released in October.
It makes sense to focus on mega influencers to scale, says Lefty co-founder and CEO Thomas Repelski. “Influence is a pyramid-shaped world: 86 per cent of the visibility is generated by mega influencers with over one million followers, [but they] represent only 19 per cent of the total population of influencers,” Repelski says. “Zendaya is the Holy Grail,” he adds. (The actress, who is a Louis Vuitton and Lancôme ambassador, counts 185 million Instagram followers.)
Bright young things
Smaller brands can do well by adopting a different approach. “For us at Mugler, the number of followers is not the only criterion when it comes to partnering with a celebrity,” says Adrian Corsin, managing director of Mugler fashion. “Instead, it’s often about expressing cultural or social relevance. For example, Ziwe [a comedian known for her satirical tone] walked our last show. Ziwe clearly challenges the dialogue and moves the needle. For us, it’s less about mass and volume and more about difference, inclusivity, and relevancy.” The same is true of Mugler’s choice of trans actress Hunter Schafer, who was at its recent shows and is the face of its Angel Elixir fragrance.
Another strategy is the “early bird” one: to sign talents before their big break. Brands have their eyes on Netflix and other platforms, and pounce on actresses the minute they are signed for a new series or film. Among the ones to watch are Meg Bellamy, who will play Kate Middleton in season six of The Crown (she currently has less than 10,000 Instagram followers); Marisa Abela, who will play Amy Winehouse in a new biopic Back to Black; Greta Lee, The Morning Show actress; and Cailee Spaeny, who was cast as Priscilla Presley in the new biopic by Sofia Coppola. Lee stars in the new Loewe campaign, while Spaeny wore a Miu Miu gown on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival.
Dexterity is key. Luxury brands signed members of K-pop group Newjeans at lightning speed: they debuted in July 2022, and, in less than a year, their members became ambassadors of the likes of Gucci, Burberry, Chanel and Dior.
Will the Hollywood strikes reshape the front row?
There had been concern that fashion brands’ embrace of all things celebrity during fashion month may be marred this season by the ongoing Hollywood strikes. SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher was criticised for attending Dolce Gabbana’s Alta Moda show in Italy in July, at what some said was a crucial moment for the union negotiations. (She responded to the criticism at a press conference, saying that it was work and that she met with union negotiators over Zoom after the event.)
However, at the Venice Film Festival, actors faced little or no backlash for attending events hosted by fashion and beauty brands — albeit some were working on independent films not impacted by the strikes. And the signs have been positive at Milan Fashion Week, which pulled in a roster of A-list actors, including Naomi Watts, Demi Moore, Scarlett Johansson and Julia Roberts.
“Given that their schedule has cleared, we can expect [Hollywood actors] to sit front row at the big brand shows in Paris,” says Marquis.
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