Welcome the digital catwalk

Fashion editors are in high demand during show season and with back to back catwalk shows in four major cities around the world, it's physically impossible to see them all. While there is no shortage of internet sites dedicated to fashion

 and runway, think style.com, digital magazines, catwalking.com and the hundred of blogs who keep up with the latest looks, there is scope for a method to showcase the catwalk season to meet the criteria of editors and buyers.

Joining the ranks is KCD, a New York based public relations and show production company with an office in Paris. KCD typically produces shows for designer brands such as Marc Jacobs, Givenchy and Tibi, and it is introducing a new service wherein it will produce some shows in an entirely digital format. This will allow time-pressed editors and buyers to watch them online.

During any given fashion week, it has become a common complaint that there are too many shows, something like 300 scheduled within eight days alone in New York, and that a lot of designers get lost as a result, says the New York Times. Because editors will always prioritise the advertising brands and major conglomerates.

While live-streaming shows has become one popular way to expose fashion to a wider audience, watching shows on a computer doesn’t quite replicate the experience of being there and seeing the clothes in person. KCD’s Digital Fashion Shows, accessibly only by password, intend to go further, with runway footage, designer interviews about the collections and notes on the clothes. It will be interesting to see just how different that seems from what many large fashion houses, like Chanel and Burberry, already do by putting enormous amounts of behind-the-scenes information about their collections on their own Web sites and mobile apps, available to anyone.

Unlike YouTube and style.com where show images are accessible to everyone, the KCD password becomes a replacement for your seat number.

Image: Catwalk