Le Club Couture is the theme of Pierpaolo Piccioli’s latest collection for Valentino presented yesterday at Paris Haute Couture Week. Every major fashion house is bringing in celebrities for their presentations and for Valentino, this show marked the debut of their newest DI.VAs ambassador: Suga of BTS.
Suga is the third member of BTS, after j-hope and Jimin, to have a presence in Paris over the last two weeks. And like his bandmates, his arrival was the most highly-anticipated when you factor in the crowds and the social media buzz surrounding his attendance. Which is exactly what a brand wants from an ambassador. That’s the whole point of celebrity engagement – celebrities are forces of marketing, and over the last few years, the marketing force of BTS is undeniable.
Take, for example, BTS’s partnership with McDonald’s in 2021. The company’s global sales surged by 40% in Q2 of 2021 with the release of the BTS meal. That’s a massive increase so it goes without saying, the deal McDonald’s made with BTS was well worth it. The value impact was immediate.
But note the range of the BTS marketing power. They can go from fast food to luxury fashion, no problem. In a new report in Vogue Business, brand analytics firm Lefty declared Jimin’s Dior ambassadorship an instant success as Jimin’s social media posts about Dior and his attendance at the Dior show last week “have generated $16.7 million in earned media value”.
This is exactly what I meant last week when I argued that j-hope and Jimin were the most influential celebrities at Paris Men’s Fashion Week with an immediately measurable impact. No disrespect to Robert Pattinson, who has been a Dior ambassador for years, but he’s not delivering the same marketing to monetisation results in the same amount of time.
To go back to Suga then – let’s give him the hype he deserves, showing up in a fit in one of my all-time favourite colour combinations: pink and brown. But blush. Blush pink, blush brown, I want to live my whole life in these shades right now. Or at least my next manicure but for some reason, it’s SO hard to find a sandy-brown in this tone. I’m also going to need Valentino to make a woman’s version of the shoes he’s wearing. If they could also apply the same colour in a boot, I would appreciate it.
Other big names in attendance at Valentino: Anne Hathaway, a true Valentino girl, paying tribute to herself as Catwoman.
And then an actual catwoman in the form of Doja Cat whose look could work for the Catwoman character too. I love her hair like this over the long caped coat.
