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Is The Red Carpet The New Catwalk?

By Nick Davies

Red carpet culture - typically award ceremonies and other celebrity driven events are more widespread and prolific than ever before. Despite having existed as a promotional tool for more than seventy years, such events are becoming increasingly popular, often attracting global audiences and with growing media fixation. The co - dependent relationship between celebrity and fashion house is now mutually beneficial - award ceremonies are a perfect opportunity to enhance celebrity kudos, promote product (fashion) awareness, and demonstrate corporate identity to a mass global audience through a multitude of media outlets; conceptualised most notoriously at events such as the Oscar Academy Film Awards or BAFTAS. Seemingly, the media attention bestowed upon celebrity grooming at red carpet scenarios now often overshadows the main purpose of the event itself. For example in 2005 more press column inches were dedicated to celebrity stylisation at these fore-mentioned award ceremonies than the films under scrutiny.

Red carpet culture in the new millennium has now been extended beyond the film industry as a widely popular p.r strategy. In a recent interview with The Guardian Newspaper, Kelly Cutrone, founder of fashion P.R company People's Revolution, illustrated the potential of fashion marketing through celebrity endorsement at red carpet events; 'If a picture of her (actress Natalie Portman) in your dress gets on the cover of magazines and it's cost you $200,000, then that isn't a lot of money considering a full page advertisement in Vogue is $60,000'' (The Guardian: p3: 26/2/05). Furthermore, red carpet events now often act as interim runway shows in the calendar of haute couture and are increasingly perceived as a fore - runner of forthcoming seasonal fashion trends. It is also now widely speculated that while stars have long accepted the loan of clothes from designers for the company, now agents, designers and representatives draw up exclusive contracts for stars in exchange for tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. Furthermore, the significance of celebrities within fashion endorsement can also been seen within the increasing use-age of actresses as fashion magazine 'cover-girls'. In March 2005, Harpers & Queens magazine dedicated the entire issue to fashion and film, celebrating the phenomena of red carpet culture.

The soft promotion of fashion through entertainment formats to mass audiences first began at the turn of the twentieth century. In her chapter titled "Powder Puff" Promotion The Fashion Show - in-the-Film (Costume & The Female Body: Herzog & J Gaines: 1990), Herzog explains how the facilitation of tie - ins between motion pictures and women's fashions arranged in order to sell both kinds of products first occurred as early as 1908 through promotional filmed fashion show newsreel broadcasts to cinema audiences. This early collaboration between the motion picture industry and fashion marketing evolved for mass public consumption for several decades until the advent of the Second World War. Initial newsreel formats or simply displays of evening gowns eventually progressed to storylines built around the clothing in these transmissions. Accompanying press information would also be reproduced within the pages of women's magazines and newspapers to further promote awareness of these brands appearing within these short cinematic bulletins.

This promotional technique is again in modern times being increasingly practised with the exposure of red carpet culture favoured by the huge growth of celebrity led magazines such as 'Heat' & 'Hello' over the past fifteen years. Red carpet reportage is made more widely accessible to audiences now through their suitability within modern paparazzi style magazine formats; and the replication of popular award ceremony 'looks' that suit the up to the minute fashion demands of their consumers, and the pace of fashion retailing on the British High Street. This is fast becoming a favoured editorial gimmick by celebrity led magazine publications. Even Vogue magazine has now adopted an 'As Seen' page to convey trend reportage through celebrity endorsement. Who can forget the Chloe dress worn by a host of celebrities at red carpet events last summer that sparked an intense E-Bay bidding war after limited high street copies were made available?

To conclude, how could red carpet phenomena potentially shape the way fashion is promoted and consumed long - term? For example, in a climate where international fashion weeks are increasingly a bureaucratic nightmare for many designers and celebrity culture is at fever pitch, perhaps award ceremonies now offer greater dividends all-round. Will award ceremonies eventually render the traditional runway format presentation of designer collections completely redundant, or permanently undermine their significance? Finally, is the popularity of the red carpet culture indicative of fashion in the new millennium being widely democratic for all now, or, alternatively is the over exposure of celebrity endorsement here indicative of high fashion dumbing-down?

Nick can be contacted at: nick7699@hotmail.com