THE SLOW DOWN: Eva Chen was in London this week promoting the powers of Instagram, where she is now head of fashion partnerships.
Chen, who resigned as editor in chief of Lucky earlier this year, took part in a discussion with Instagram cofounder and chief executive officer Kevin Systrom that was hosted by Dazed magazine cofounder Jefferson Hack.
Chen, who has a following of 455,000, talked about the upside of slow-mo videos and Instagram as a tool for designers to reach increasingly larger audiences.
She pointed to Misha Nonoo whose spring 2016 show consisted of a series of images — including one of Chen herself — on Instagram, wearing bits of the collection. The Insta-show replaced the label’s runway outing.
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“Designers are using their shows as an opportunity to have a live broadcast to an audience of 400 million,” said Chen, who also pointed to the Tommy Hilfiger spring show that starred Gigi Hadid.
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“She was wading through a pool in a very small crochet bikini. Obviously everyone’s phones were instantly whipped out, and I said: ‘I need a glorious slow-motion video of the most beautiful woman ever wading through a pool.’”
Chen called Instagram “the water cooler for the fashion community” and that the ability to share had made the fashion world “a lot more democratic.”
In terms of new fashion projects on the horizon, Chen is working with designers on exclusive content for Instagram. “This fashion month designers are staging InstaShoots, shoots before or after the show that are created exclusively for Instagram,” said Chen. “It’s been amazing to see how each designer has played with the InstaShoot format to create something that reflects their unique perspective like Calvin Klein’s clean and modern take, Moschino’s cheeky irreverence, or Prabal Gurung’s ode to Nepal. Some designers, like J.W. Anderson, have even invited Instagram-famous photographers or illustrators to capture the InstaShoots and bring a fresh point of view to their collections.”