In the digital age, the convenient Internet can bring the global fashion show to the public in the first place. When watching the show is no longer a “closed-door gathering” for people in the industry, luxury brands that have always focused on uniqueness and experience first began to explore new possibilities for release forms.
From April 12 to 14, Italian luxury brand Valentino Valentino joined hands for the fourth time with Punchdrunk and SMG Live Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group to produce the immersion drama pinnacle “Sleepless Night”, Asia’s only Shanghai Edition (Sleep No More, Shanghai), as its fashion partner to present a new special performance “SIREN Siren”.
The Shanghai edition of “Sleepless Night” is inspired by the Valentino Spring/Summer 2024 series, and the series is performed by dancers. The two are a bold blend of fashion and drama, dress and body, staged for the first time in the new Shanghai.
Since its cooperation with the Shanghai edition of “Sleepless Night” in 2021, Valentino has created a “customized” story scene for fashion display with the help of drama art as a cultural carrier, making abstract fashion concepts concrete and perceptible as the plot progresses. The immersive repertoire allows the audience to interact with the actors at close range, which is also a subversive innovation to the traditional viewing experience.
Taking Dramatic Art as the Carrier to Innovate the Presentation Context of Haute Couture
In the historic area of Xinhua Road, known as “Shanghai’s First Garden Road”, the newly renovated Shangsheng New Institute has become one of the fashionable landmarks in Shanghai. On the basis of retaining the characteristics of the old buildings, this place integrates multiple community retail new formats, giving new vitality to the space field.
Stepping into the Navy Club with Western style in Shangsheng New Institute, the interlaced curtains create a scene like a dark dream under the light. The audience can freely shuttle between the theater, enjoy the story world woven by the warrior, the queen and Siren, and experience a wonderful journey across reality and myth.
Dancers dressed in Valentino 2024 spring and summer series, showing the unique charm of the blend of fashion and drama. The series celebrates the beauty of the body and advocates the liberation of the female body from its frame and freedom of expression. In terms of design presentation, under the sculptural silhouette, mesh weaving, embroidery and Altorilievo hollowing process make the skin bare as if it were not there, while the bright color printing conveys a strong visual style.
The red dress worn by Siren is the best portrayal of the coexistence of simple styling and tension colors this season. The interactive relationship between fashion and women has been redefined. The stretching and dancing of dancers make clothes and body connect naturally. The emotional release in the theater is like the dynamic dialogue between cloth and skin, which has great vitality and appeal.
“How to turn an immersive theatrical performance into a fashion event? How much sensory experience can the audience get from the work? How can the most concise performance language be used to show the richest content?”-These are the three questions that director Carl Harrison repeatedly asked himself when creating.
Different from the past, costumes are more used as “props” to serve the plot. Harrison draw inspiration from the Valentino spring and summer 2024 series, and hope that the deeper “female power” implied in the series can be expressed. “There are many choices of characters in Greek mythology, including many powerful women,” he said in explaining why he chose Siren. The story revolves around this legendary siren who uses songs to bewitch sailors. It not only shows female beauty and power, but also has a mysterious atmosphere.
Scene creation was crucial, and Valentino’s collaboration with Sleepless Night was the first to step out of the McKinnon Hotel, where the regular was performed. According to the unique terrain, style and spatial layout of the new Harrison, the immersive experience is embedded in the cultural scene. The prologue of the performance starts from the fountain outside the building, and then the dancers guide the audience to the pool. When the singing of Siren lingers on the water, the atmosphere of the whole audience is sublimated.
It can be said that the special performance “Siren Siren” presented Valentino is a creative breakthrough in the new series preview (Press Day) mode of the fashion industry. When interpreting the concept of fashion, the Valentino no longer uses the traditional model static display or catwalk, but integrates the clothing into the artistic performance, and makes the fashion aesthetic and spiritual core expressed by the series become three-dimensional from the multi-dimensional sensory experience such as vision and hearing.
At the same time, immersive drama also enables the participants to change their roles from “audience” to “participant”. In a pleasant atmosphere full of interaction, they can experience the exquisite tailoring and craft details of high fashion at close range.
Why did Valentino collaborate on Sleepless Nights several times?
It is worth noting that Valentino and the Shanghai version of “Sleepless Night” have launched cross-border cooperation for the fourth time. “Sleepless Night” (Sleep No More) is adapted from Shakespeare’s classic “Macbeth”. In December 2016, SMG Live introduced “Sleepless Night” into China and launched the Shanghai version of “Sleepless Night” under the joint production of SMG Live and Punchdrunk.
Immersive drama provides a more immersive way of watching the drama. The audience wearing masks can freely explore the venue and choose the story lines of different characters to interact with the actors. This feeling between reality and illusion breaks the traditional viewing experience. As of December last year, the project has performed more than 1800 performances in a row, with a total revenue of more than 0.47 billion yuan, and received more than 550000 audiences, with an average attendance rate of more than 90%.
It is precisely because of the combination of this IP from form innovation to content tonality and brand that Valentino will present the immersive show “dream like a new life” together with the Shanghai version of “sleepless night” for the first time in 2021 “. The 20 actors who participated in the performance wore the ACT series of autumn and winter 2021 in Valentino. The dancers were exposed to the changes of light and shadow, and conveyed the theme of “subversion” and “rebirth” with artistic performances.
In 2023, Valentino also joined hands with the Shanghai version of “Sleepless Night” twice as an exclusive fashion partner. In April last year, the Shanghai edition of Sleepless Nights created a script, stage design and choreography for the brand around the Valentino Spring/Summer 2023 series. Then in September, the two sides launched a special performance of “BLACK TIE Black Tie” inspired by the autumn and winter 2023 series. It is reported that the performance was sold out in only 4 minutes on the day when tickets were first opened to the public.
It is not difficult to find that the cooperation Valentino the Shanghai version of “Sleepless Night” is not a whim, but a continuous deepening based on the continuous exploration of the commonalities of both parties. Starting from providing costumes for performances, the brand gradually integrates static fashion with costumes, plots, music and other aspects of drama creation, creating a story show dominated by content, blurring the boundary between actors and models.
The good feedback from the first three cooperation is the confidence of Valentino bold breakthrough this year. The target audience of “Sleepless” is so enthusiastic about new experiences that for the first time, the venue for “Siren Siren” has chosen a new space that combines outdoor and indoor. At the same time, the public ticket sales of this special performance have increased to six, and the brand hopes to make more people feel the artistic charm of immersive performances.
The consistency of fashion and drama in aesthetics and appreciation is the cornerstone for Valentino to continue to co-create with the Shanghai version of “Sleepless Night”, and choose immersive repertoires with more contemporary entertainment experience to bring the two to domestic consumers. In front of the eyes, it opens a new window for the public to peep into fashion culture.
In the era of local marketing 2.0, the diversified perspective of brand narrative
With the continuous improvement of China’s position in the global luxury market, it has become the consensus of the industry to carry out localized marketing. In the early stage of local marketing, international fashion brands were relatively dominant, from product creation to emotional communication, and more emphasis on misappropriation and interpretation of Chinese culture.
Today, luxury brands led by Valentino are opening the 2.0 phase of localization. The integration of brand and local culture is closer, and the relationship between the two sides is also evolving in the direction of co-creation and mutual win-win. At this stage, luxury brands’ cognition of localization is no longer limited to learning from traditional history and culture, but also pays attention to mining diverse cultural and artistic forms from the lifestyle of the brand’s local target audience.
Taking drama as an example, according to the ”Consumption Analysis of 2024 Theater Audience” released by the Chinese Academy, young women born in the 90 s in my country are the main audience of drama, and their education is mostly undergraduate, mainly engaged in advertising, media, culture, sports, etc. Industry; among them, musicals have become the preferred performance category for young consumers. The Shanghai version of Sleepless Nights is undoubtedly the best portrayal of this trend.
In the post-epidemic era, people’s willingness to consume offline entertainment and interactive experiences is also increasing, and Valentino quickly captured the changes in market winds and became the first luxury brand to work with the Shanghai version of Sleepless Nights. The four iterations of the two content co-creation, to some extent, simultaneously promoted the localization of this drama IP to adapt to the preferences of local audiences.
On the other hand, even if we get creative inspiration from traditional culture or local customs, Valentino also try to break the perspective that traditional luxury goods are in a high position, and add the interpretation of modernity and life with a more equal co-creation attitude.
Not long ago, Valentino joined hands with “Shangcheng Shi” magazine to hold a family banquet in Quanzhou, Fujian. The iconic “Valentino Red” hung in the traditional village of Wulin. Its buildings include exquisite traditional houses in southern Fujian, Chinese and Western Fanzai buildings, Gothic and Romanesque buildings, etc. The emergence of Valentino elements has added to the diversity of local culture.
The whole family banquet started from a series of local cultural experiences, including the traditional dress of southern Fujian women, the “hairpin flower enclosure”, the intangible handicraft of golden pale embroidery and hand-painted dripping beasts, as well as the Wulin drama, etc., bringing many ancient folk customs back to the public’s attention. The family banquet continues the traditional southern Fujian practice from ingredients to cooking methods. The decoration plate also refers to the work “Ten Continents in the Market” by Quan lacquer artist Chen Lide.
Although in the name of the family banquet, it actually integrates the historical scenery of “Licheng” into each experience link. In addition, the Valentino also invited female guests such as Tong Liya, Li Qin and Zhang Mo to shoot large films in the spring/summer 2024 series, so as to creatively connect modern fashion with the red brick ancient house scene.
In fact, the “origin” between Valentino and Quanzhou can be traced back to this year’s Spring Festival. The brand did not follow the crowd from the “Zodiac Dragon” cut, but in the name of “red”, visited three cities in China, and Quanzhou is one of them. As the “hometown taste” in memory, “Red Tuan”, with its symbolic meaning of reunion, has become a traditional snack on the table of Quangang people during the festive reunion. From this point of view, the uptown family dinner in April is more like a further exploration of the local culture.
As Mr. Valentino Garavani, the founder of the brand, said, “Red has become a distinctive symbol across the time cycle for Valentino”. The brand constantly updates the era connotation of “Valentino red” by absorbing multi-culture for local interpretation.
The other two cities and their stories related to “red” are the “red” of Xiling ink mud in Hangzhou and the “red” lanterns in Xianju ancient town in Taizhou. Valentino use humanistic lens language to record the stories between these “things” with historical meaning and local craftsmanship.
Therefore, the Valentino’s emphasis on the Chinese market is based on the commercial layout and the continuous construction of the local cultural system. Whether it is to create a precedent in the luxury industry and cross-border immersive drama, or to enrich the brand connotation with diversified content forms, Valentino show the openness and tolerance of a century-old fashion house to cultural collision.
It is worth noting that Alessandro Michele officially became the creative director of the Valentino in April. This experienced and distinctive designer is good at wandering between different cultural creations. He is bound to inject new aesthetic vitality into the brand culture.
(Source: VOGUE Business)
