Can you believe it’s been a year since we launched youtube.com/fashion?
Like anyone celebrating anything nowadays, I couldn’t have imagined our one-year anniversary would be happening virtually. A year ago, New York Fashion Week was in full swing, and we were celebrating with the biggest names in the industry. (Gigi! Bella! Kendall! Serena! And more!) Today, I’m safely working from home, like the rest of the fashion team, whom I affectionately call my GGG’s. (Why? They’re the glitter, gold and the glue, obviously. They hold it all together and make it shine!) But our goal this year is the same as last year: Assert YouTube as your front-row seat to Fashion Week. Especially since most of the shows are rolling out digitally this year.
Designed to be the ultimate destination for style content, /Fashion is a place where creators, fashion professionals, brands and publishers share, connect and inspire. In the past 12 months, /Fashion has put YouTube’s stake in the fashion ground, and brought some of the industry’s biggest names to YouTube. Naomi Campbell turned into a talk show host with her series, “No Filter with Naomi,” which kept us entertained during stay-at-home orders, and engaged in racial justice through conversations with the likes of Black model activist Bethann Hardison, photographer Tyler Mitchell and poet Cleo Wade. Also, a true trendsetter, who can forget Naomi’s iconic travel sanitizing routine?
Vogue Paris has taken us inside fashion’s favorite kitchens and Interview Magazine has given us new ways to connect with our favorite celebrities, including Jennifer Aniston, Selena Gomez, and all the guys at the Sway House. We all got to go to the Met Gala this year when Anna Wintour hosted a “Moment for the Met” exclusively on Vogue’s YouTube channel. And YouTube creators like Juanpa Zurita, Emma Chamberlain, Liza Koshy and Bretman Rock brought us along as they experienced Fashion Week for the first time.
We’ve welcomed fashion professionals like makeup artists Hung Vanngo and Gucci Westman, hairstylist Chris Appleton, and designer Alexander Wang to the world of YouTube. They’ve given expert makeup and hair styling advice, while entertaining us with some of their friends and helping us stay chic before and during quarantine. One my favorite moments was watching Wang give comedian Pete Davidson advice on how to be a runway model for his catwalk debut:
Of course, this year was like nothing any of us expected. But if there’s one thing I know about fashion, it’s this: We’re resilient. I was thrilled to watch the industry pivot and give back to its community, whether that was transitioning fragrance companies into hand sanitizer plants, New York designers asking their ateliers to make masks, or designer Aurora James (who’s on the cover of this month’s September Vogue) introducing The 15% Pledge.
On my own channel, I was thrilled to host YouTube’s first ever fashion show “from home,” which raised funds for amfAR’s Covid-19 relief initiative:
So here we are, one year in: a home for fashion on YouTube. As the world turned to digital platforms, brands also turned to YouTube to engage with fans and continue the fashion week traditions. During the Haute Couture and Men’s Fashion Week in Paris this July, 93 brands showed their collections on YouTube, with 58 of them coming to the platform for the first time. From creators, who remain at the heart of YouTube, we’ve seen similarly strong growth. From 2016 to 2019, the number of Fashion & Beauty creators on YouTube grew by >400%. It’d be impossible to pick a favorite, but a show that I thought struck the right tone was Dior Homme’s video, which was a diary from designer Kim Jones’s collaboration with African artist Amoako Boafo.
To help us celebrate, join me in rewatching some of my favorite fashion moments of the year, which I’ve sprinkled throughout this post. Perhaps most importantly, we want to thank you for coming to our style destination and supporting all the amazing content we’ve been lucky enough to host. Lastly, be sure to check out youtube.com/fashion, starting Monday, for incredible Fashion Month content from New York, London, Milan and Paris. (Not all of these tips I taught Emma Chamberlain for fashion week still apply, but some still do!)
September is the January of fashion, so happy new year!
Derek