How To Plan A Fashion Show

Fashion shows are notoriously difficult events to arrange and organize. A well-organized fashion show looks amazing while a disorganized fashion show looks terrible. Here are a few tips on how to make your fashion show a complete success.

The first challenge is for the main organizer to decide on the theme of the fashion show. Whether it's going to be bridal, up and coming designers, sporty, high street fashion brands, you decide what it's going to be. The biggest mistake that most fashion shows make is that there's no clear and concise theme which leads to all of the clothes looking fragmentary.

Next, get together your team of people. You will need yourself, the main organizer who is also going to be administrator and sales manager of the tickets, a backstage producer who is then going to run things behind the scenes, a show producer who's going to put together the staging, the lights and the music and be front of house on the day of the event, and then a model coordinator. Keep a team relatively small with the four key people there in place at the top and don't let your job roles distract from one another's.

Once you have your team, set the date of your fashion show. Organizing a fashion show is not a quick and easy job. Give a good 6 months to ensure the show is a success.

Once you've got your team and your date set, then you need to start looking for a venue. When you're looking for a venue, think about the size, the capacity, the backstage room, parking facilities and indeed whether the venue has got good lighting and sound potential to give your show a big impact. Then, it's time to start sourcing the clothes that you want for your fashion show.

Having your date, venue and team in place, would give you a lot more professionalism for approaching either designers or shops. They hate lending their clothes to people that would come across as disorganized. So, by having all these facts and dates in place, you will become a much more appealing prospect to them.

Put together a little package for them explaining what the mission of the fashion show is and what the goals are. So whether it's charity or to raise awareness for something, just make sure they really understand what they're buying into. By putting together this package, you're giving designers or shops time to plan what they want to show people.

What often happens at fashion shows that go wrong is that one brand or shop or designer chose several outfits and then the next one shows just a couple. So, let them know a number that they're going to be able to show and that it's non-negotiable. Once you've got your clothes, start to find volunteers and models to help on the day of the event.

Give at least 1 to 2 months notice as very few models and hair and makeup artists are available at the drop of a hat. A piece of valuable advice to have at hand is that normally, it takes about 2 people for dressing and undressing a model in a fashion show. Make it short, sweet and snappy, and leave that lasting impact.

Make sure that your team sees all of the clothes so that you know what's happening and it tells a story. This will also help you to decide which music is going to be appropriate. Create a buzz about your fashion show in the weeks leading up to it in order to sell tickets.

Invite local press so that they can feature it in their up and coming news articles and also remember to invite some important VIP people as well because they will really help to create that atmosphere on the evening of the event. Finally, on the day of the event, the most important thing you can do is have a full dress rehearsal. The worst fashion shows go wrong because they don't give themselves enough time to rehearse.

And this will give you the best fashion show ever.