The InstaPit – Fashion week’s new creation that is helping you take the perfect Instagram shot
We live in a world that is slowly becoming more and more consumed by the omnipresence of social media. Most of our generation cannot go minutes without checking one of the many platforms that crowd our phones, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or any of the growing amount of social media apps.
This phenomenon has infiltrated the fashion world in a big way—now social media presence is almost a necessity for your resume if you have any desire to work as an editor, model or even writer in the industry. But there’s a new component to the Instagram-crazed industry and it just made an appearance at Fashion Week: Introducing the InstaPit.
The InstaPit it the creation of designer Tommy Hilfiger, whose fashion show was this past Monday, February 15th at the Park Avenue Armory. Hilfiger wanted to create a unique and exclusive space for Instagrammers to capture his 2016 fall looks. Hilfiger, along with a growing number of fashion brands, is largely dependent on how his clothes are portrayed and distributed through social media. Those given access to the “pit” are bloggers and young starlets who have mass followings on Instagram and, consequently, a lot of influence.
Hilfiger’s reliance on social media even extends to the models who walk his runway, most notably, Gigi Hadid. Hadid, along model best friend Kendall Jenner, has dominated the newsfeeds of many with her 13.3 million followers. Fashion houses are looking to these numbers more and more to cast girls because, in the end, 13.3 million followers will get the brand a lot more attention than any fashion show.
Gigi Hadid and Tommy Hilfiger by Getty images
Despite it’s marketing sensibility, The InstaPit is essentially a step in the direction of completely digitized and impersonal fashion weeks in the future. Long gone are the days where onlookers sit runway-side and whisper about the long-legged models and the clothes that they wear. Instead, not only will professional photographers be distanced from the beauty of the show but so will regular show attendees who find themselves in this pit, viewing the show behind the screen of their phones.
Could the technological revolution we are in influence the extinction of the fashion show? It’s already reshaping one of the biggest biannual events in the history of fashion. Although it is unlikely these shows will be extinct anytime soon, the Instapit is setting a precedent for future shows for all designers—you have to capitalize on the influence of social media if you want to be successful.