In 2022, with the global pandemic hampering retail and events, New Zealand’s largest media company, Stuff, innovated to bring fashion and events to our audience in an exciting new digital format.

When COVID-19 restrictions forced the cancellation of NZ Fashion Week in February 2022, Stuff’s Style team, alongside the founders of its premium fashion platform Ensemble, leapt into action to come to the aid of the struggling fashion and retail industries.

A digital Festival of Fashion was created to provide a much-needed boost during a challenging economic time.

The Festival of Fashion was hosted on the Stuff and Ensemble Web sites and featured shoppable content, live blogs, video panels, and more.

The festival launched with a collaboration between Stuff’s premium lifestyle brands. Ensemble guest-edited an issue of the Sunday Star-Times’ Sunday magazine; commercial packages were sold across Stuff and Ensemble, with Samsung joining as the naming rights sponsor.

Going live

The festival culminated in The Ensemble Edit, a live digital runway fashion show where the audience could click to shop in real-time.  The Ensemble Edit featured looks from New Zealand’s top emerging and established fashion designers: Harris Tapper, Juliette Hogan, Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester, Kowtow, Lost and Led Astray, Papa Clothing, Rachel Mills, Ruby, Thom Morrison, Twenty-Seven Names, and Zambesi, with accessories from Bronwyn, Deadly Ponies, Georgia Jay, and Mi Piaci.

With creative direction by myself and my Ensemble co-founder Rebecca Wadey, and styling and casting by Rob Tennent, The Ensemble Edit featured some of New Zealand’s coolest models walking amongst the latest exhibition at an Auckland art gallery. The concept subverted the exclusive concept of a fashion show, inviting the wider public to participate by watching and shopping from the comfort of home.

Digitally, it featured technology that allowed viewers to interact and click through to purchase garments as they appeared on the screen. This helped boost local brands at a time when retail had been impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns and many were facing an uncertain future.

Impressive results

The show took over the Stuff homepage at peak evening viewing time, reaching a broad audience that traditional fashion media does not. The investment highlighted Stuff’s support for lifestyle as an important category alongside its news focus.

The Festival of Fashion attracted more than 290,000 pageviews across the week and continues to be shared and engaged with more than a year later. The Ensemble Edit shoppable runway show achieved more than 50,000 views across Stuff and Ensemble. This makes it one of the most-watched fashion shows in New Zealand since the televised events that ran in the 1980s.

Most importantly, it drove traffic to the designers’ Web sites and converted to much-needed sales at a crucial time for local creative businesses.

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