Ideas We Love: Moncler’s Genius Runway Show
Issue Number 49: The fashion show as a form of media and entertainment
Hello there. How are you?
The clocks are going back this weekend. Spring is nearly here. A long, very grey and very wet winter across the UK is hopefully coming to an end. A change of season brings with it a change of wardrobe.
And with that tenious link comes this week’s newsletter.
As the thing that we’ve most enjoyed from the last couple of weeks was how Italian outerwear brand Moncler, went back to their French roots when debuting the Autumn Winter 25/26 collection for their Grenoble line.
The Idea. Moncler’s Genius Runway Runway Show 🛫
Yep, that’s not a typo…..
Moncler hosted their runway show on Courcheval’s private airport runway which at 2,008 metres above sea-level, isn’t just Europe’s highest runway but is also where the 0.1 percent club swap their private jets for skis and snowboards and step straight onto the piste (into one of Europe’s largest ski areas literally yards from the airport).
The idea of Aviation is central to the collection that the brand unveiled and the theme was brought through other elements of the marketing plan for the show itself: with boarding pass style adverts used to tease the event on social, attendees being given boarding passes as invites, and digital departure boards appearing across the ski resort too.
Moncler stretched the idea beyond the runway too, to further engage both those fortunate enough to get a ticket to the show, as well as those just shredding the pow across the neighbouring ski resort.
To get the gist of what they got up to check-out the promotional trailer below.
Why we love this idea 💕
Fashion shows are really quite short.
The actual act of showing clothing typically only lasting somewhere between 15 and 25 minutes. Across a typical London/Paris/Milan/NewYork Fashion Week there are literally dozens of shows each week that A-Listers, Models & Journos rush around to see. This event lasted a whole weekend and was carefully choreographed and involved guests being flown in to the resort to enjoy the snow and the surroundings before the show itself at the Altiport.
To prime guests, elsewhere across the resort Moncler have taken out a full domination of the chair-lifts, gondolas and lift-stations across the resort, leaving no one in any doubt as to the brand and the occassion.
They even, with a lovely little touch, extended their branding from the gondolas above the piste to the turning gates on-piste. Beautiful.
But why go to these lengths?
Well the world of ‘catwalk shows’ has evolved significantly. Runway shows seem to be getting bigger and bigger all the time, representing an arms race of sorts as attention-hungry clothing labels compete for attention in a highly commercial and competitive category.
No longer just the preserve of the heavy-weights like Anna Wintour; a connected, digitally powered media landscape now means that fashion brands can ammortise the ever growing costs of these events against a much broader range of people.
What we’d love to have done with it 💕
When you’ve gone to the lengths Moncler have done to stage this show there’s not much more they probably could or should have done, however there is probably one thing that they could have done to add the glazing to the cherry on top of the delicious cake they served.
#1. Moncler Airlines 🧑✈️
The collection is avitation themed. They went to the lengths of having the boarding passes, the landing strip and the surrounding ski-resort branded-up to the nines. It feels like an open-goal may have been missed not just going all-in and dressing a plane from the Mad-Men era, with the stewards, stewardesses and captains head-to-toe in Moncler as well.
Their motif would look really nice on the side of a Douglas DC-3. The insurance premium may have been raised exponentially, but would have got the chef’s kiss from Matt.
#2. Extend out into global travel 🧳
The idea that the show is built around is so fertile very simply it could have been extended beyond the physical location of the Alps into other airports at the same time - think about the departure board motif, brought to life in Digital OOH in airport terminals in Europe for example.
#3. Bring the mountain to the masses 🛒
Similarly, going one step further out - you could imagine how light weight versions of the mountain set up can be pulled through into luxury retail environments in places like Harrods of Selfridges’ Corner Shop. Whilst the collection on display in Courcheval isn’t going to hit the shops for some time - you can see how the motif of the mountain provides connective tissue for everything from big brand moments all the way down to point of sale.
If you like this, you’ll love 💕
Anyone who has ever seen us in person will know we’re not fashion experts. If you’re interested in the business side of this world, we’d recommend reading Beth Bentley or Ana Andjelic or James Denman who all have very good newsletters covering this sort of thing in lots of detail.
However, the thing we’re primarily interested in is how different brands or creatives have used the ‘creative canvas’ in interesting ways to gain attention in culture, just as Moncler has in the example above…
Chanel Haute Couture Spring 2018
Any number of Chanel’s shows at the Grand Palais in Paris could have been referenced here, but in 2018 Chanel opened their doors to Netflix show Seven Days Out giving viewers a behind the scenes look at the hours and hours of hard work which goes into the process of staging a marquee fashion event. Some real jeopardy as well as a window into the creative process of bone fide genius. Really compelling telly - and the sort of branded content which lives really well on Netflix (see Drive to Survive!)
Made.com & Salone del Mobile
If anyone has been fortunate enough to hear Adam Morgan speak about A Beautiful Constraint then you may know this case study. Back when Made.com was in the ascendency, they wanted to exhibit the festival for Design, Milan’s Salone del Mobile. However, as a start up brand, they couldn’t afford the cost to exhibit in the festival proper so instead they hired a series of apartments on Airbnb and then kitted each one out with their products. In doing so they created their own brand experiences and turned a constraint into an advantage - breaking themselves out of the clutter of the main show in the process and gaining a higher ‘share of voice’.
Burberry Streets by Burberry, London September 2023
Burberry Streets was an activation aligned to Creative Director Daniel Lee’s sophomore collection being exhibited at London Fashion Week and saw the brand takeover a number of famous london landmarks: north London Cafe Norman’s and Bond Street Undergound Station. These are good examples of the ‘show around the show’ which feels like an increasingly important part of the media mix during these events, allowing the brand in question to create noise beyond the catwalk and generate some all important buzz….
Lacoste x Roland Garros
Burberry found locations of cultural significance around the main fashion week venue - here Lacoste choose to use a venue with significant cultural and brand significance as the home for their show….
Alexander McQueen #13 (Spring Summer 1999)
If you think about artistry in exhibition, the person that springs most readily to mind in Fashion is Alexander McQueen. Growing up in London in the late 90s and early noughties, we remember seeing clips from his shows on the news - properly ‘breaking’ out of the category of high fashion into the wider cultural conversation. The finale of his #13 show is perhaps the example which we remember most vividly. This is a great example of fashion as a performance….
Until Next Time 💕
As always, thank you for stopping by.
Until next time. Cheerio.
Tom & Matt x