JUST LIKE US

For a few years now, some new brands like Vetements, Hood by Air and Vfiles have shaken up the typical casting system and started casting models for their shows from the streets, or even using their friends as models. This has brought more diversity to the usual catwalk shows with only certain type of skinny and tall models, and has definitely gotten people talking. Brands like Vetements and Y/Project have also used these normal people in their campaigns, and shown the fashion world that it's not all about professional models anymore.

This real life casting has inspired some more campaigns to take it even further, and actually share stories about these real life people and tell the world a bit more about them. Helmut Lang played around with the idea of old-school dating sites and personal ads and had mostly non-models share some of their interests in an Instagram campaign. The campaign wasn't all about clothes, but was a fun way to get the brand heard and get viral. Later, they used the same idea of introducing real life people in another one of their fashion campaigns, actually telling who these people were in the fashion video and in the caption of the Instagram photos.

Big traditional brands like Burberry are also taking notes. Even though they are not actually doing campaigns with real people, for their pre-fall 2018 campaign they followed the model Adwoa Aboah to her father's home country of Ghana. The campaign shows her home town and tells a story of where she came from, giving a more personal touch to the campaign.

                           

This trend of real life people in fashion shows and campaigns will most likely become more popular in the future, since consumers are demanding to see people like themselves represented in the fashion world too. And these real life stories and giving more depth to the people who are actually modelling in the campaigns, is a great way for people to also relate to the campaigns and models used in them more, and even create an emotional connection to a fashion campaign.