How Singapore Fashion Week transforms the living room into a traditional consumer Extravaganza

  Well, technically it is the Audi Fashion Festival in Singapore. And this is part of the Asia Fashion Exchange, a week-long event, which is a traditional living room (Blueprint), Audi star creation (the response of the City Project Runway), and the peaks of the Asian fashion (includes targeting a conference co-term WGSN Asian retailers) . But yes, to be clear, there is a fashion week in Singapore, and so many regional fashion weeks around the world, the organizers try new formats and tactics to make against the Big Four. (You know: New York, London, Milan and Paris.)

Cities like Berlin, Tokyo and Sydney offer enough local talent to internationally recognized draw a small but influential pool of editors and buyers from the United States, Europe, and still-growing luxury markets, including Russia, South America and Asia of course. But if a city like Singapore Fashion Week throws a, there must be more to offer as an industry buzz. There is an angle of consumption.

Here is where ticket sales come in. That's right, just like a rock concert, a segment of the seats in five years, Audi Fashion Festival Singapore were sold to the public, meaning that anyone who makes the tail was early tickets from 40SGD (about $ 30) for 100SGD (about $ 80). For reasonable price paying customers have come to look at the latest collections by Hussein Chalayan, Carolina Herrera, Tsumori Chisato, and others. "Even if you went to London, New York, Paris or Milan Fashion Week, you will not get to attend the shows," the founder of the event, Tjin Lee, Fashionista said. "We provide and give consumers a chance."

The guests were also Belvedere and champagne flutes that have been adopted around the lobby treated for an hour before the show cocktails. For traders to cover the event, it was not ideal. This meant the show started an hour late, a true crime for those of us who have to submit the stories. But you know what? It was clear from the outset that the editors and buyers are not the most important people in the Audi Fashion Festival in Singapore. Instead excluded customers.

And in this market, and rightly so. Saturday evening show from Peter Pilotto, I saw at least 15 dresses brand, perhaps most, members of the audience. It was not the clothes Pilotto had borrowed publicists. They were clothes that women had actually bought, probably in luxury boutique 21 Club, one of the local accounts Pilotto. "Club 21 is an important partner for us here," Pilotto told me after the show. "They are really good with the brand, so we've always wanted to come here."

The shows also allow local designers, more to connect with their local customers. While international designers are "host" of the Singapore Tourism Board and the Audi Fashion Festival, local businesses, as Raoul and Zardoze-pay sites on the calendar benefit both regional commitment and the ability to be known for their names to lights next superstar fashion world .

So far, the strategy works. More than 20,000 people attended the Singapore Fashion Week in 2013, against 13,000 in 2012. Lee's next goal is to get the Asian-American designer on the list. "Over the past five years there has been much interest in Asian international designers. I think a lot of it has to do with the purchasing power of Asian customers," she said. "Alexander Wang, Phillip Lim, Jason Wu: We want these designers to have here."