Brief:
- Louis Vuitton, Puma and Alice + Olivia are among the fashion brands appearing in livestreams for TikTok Fashion Month, the social video app's series that runs Sept. 2 through Oct. 8, according to an announcement. The series extends beyond New York Fashion Week, whose glitzy runway shows will be livestreamed separately on Sept. 13-17.
- TikTok's remaining mix of programming includes a livestream titled "Get the Look" hosted by creator Ariam on Sept. 18 and a "collection reveal" by designer JW Anderson on Sept. 28. Puma and Alice + Olivia are sponsoring the TikTok Runway Odyssey, a livestream hosted by creator Nick Tangorra on Oct. 8.
- Along with the livestreams, TikTok is working to make its app a fashion hub for young consumers. The social video app is urging users to share their best looks through homemade videos tagged with #TikTokFashionMonth and to follow the #GetTheLook for tips on finding the "perfect look." The #Fashion101 tag is for instructional videos on the basics of assembling a cohesive look, per the announcement.
Insight:
TikTok's series of livestreams aims to highlight the social video app as a hub for showing off fashions, which has been the domain of rival app Instagram for the past decade. By offering exclusive programming with brands like Louis Vuitton and Puma, TikTok can build its audience of fashion buffs while demonstrating how brands can reach a younger audience whose growing spending power will shape the industry for years. As TikTok users share their looks in fashion-oriented videos, brands can participate in those social conversations and engage high-propensity audiences.
The app's new fashion programming also acknowledges current social issues that are important to its Generation Z audience. Puma partnered with Black creators and designers including Ajani, Taylor Cassidy, Winnie Harlow, Jufu, Kyle Kuzma, Makayla and Dominic Toliver for its exclusive collection and pledged up to $10,000 toward the Equal Justice Initiative. Alice + Olivia collaborated with TikTok on designing an exclusive capsule collection that will be modeled by creators Melanie and Miranda Wilking, Janette Ok and Bria Jones. The brand will donate a portion of sales to the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) in another example of purpose-driven partnerships.
TikTok's fashion livestreams follow a variety of efforts to expand the app's programming and provide more opportunities for advertisers to reach valuable audiences. Last month, the social video app hosted its first shoppable livestream in a collaboration with Ntwrk, a home shopping network for Gen Z. It also recently introduced a program to showcase approved providers of advertising services such as campaign management, creative development, branded effects and measurement, in a move to lure more marketers to the app. In July, TikTok rolled out a self-serve advertising platform to help small businesses create video campaigns.
TikTok Fashion Month comes as the app faces uncertainty about its availability in the U.S. The Trump administration last month issued two executive orders that ban transactions with TikTok starting Sept. 20 and force ByteDance to divest the app's U.S. business by Nov. 12. ByteDance recently started talks with the U.S. government about a way to allow the app to avoid a full sale of its U.S. operations, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Those discussions arose after the Chinese government took steps to block the export of the technology that's at the heart of TikTok's platform, possibly upending a deal to sell its U.S. operations to Microsoft and Walmart, the newspaper reported.
