Fashion PR and Celebrity Endorsement

‘Fashion Brands’ by Mark Tungate contains a chapter about the relationship between fashion designers/brands and celebrities. He used a lot of examples to show how this relationship evolved from celebrities just simply wearing designer clothes, to celebrities being constantly given clothes by fashion designers with the hope that they would wear them, to the development of partnerships where celebrities design their own collection for the high street shops.

He makes a very clear assumption, that celebrities definitely sell the clothes and that partnerships with them is one of the most important Fashion PR strategies. This opinion is shared with many professionals in this field. Fashion PR and marketing expert Crosby Noricks on his blog writes that ‘PR professionals know that introducing celebrities to client products can be a crucial part of the overall strategy and, when it works, makes life a whole lot easier’. 

Tungate supported his assumption by using many examples from the fashion industry. For example, Victoria Beckham being photographed in a green Chloe dress by the Sunday Times Style section. It created a demand and after the publication the sales of this particular dress soared.

As a benefit of the designer - celebrity relationship, Tungate mentions gaining well-defined brand personality, bringing a rich fantasy world to which consumers aspire as well as using the attachment that the public have with celebrity.  

Tungate sees dangerous trends in celebrity placement which is making designers go from being elitist to popular. Fashion PR in his opinion is changing and becoming very celebrity orientated. He claims that since fashion became a part of celebrities’ lives it has become very kitsch. He expresses his worries and questions what will happen next after observing how fashion has lost its value and how models, singers and actresses are turning into designers, belittling the importance of traditional designers and the quality of their work.

As a conclusion Mark Tungate is questioning how long this relationship will last and expresses his opinion that the celebrity craze in a Fashion PR might be dying out. Will it? 

         
    




















Foto. Nicole Kidman in Emilio Pucci, 2003  
Source: http://www.vogue.com