International debut of ABOUT YOU Fashion Week in Milan

Under the motto ‘Welcome to the unexpected’, the first international ABOUT YOU Fashion Week in Milan offered Fashiontainment at its best. This year’s AYFW attracted around 8,000 international VIPs, content creators, industry insiders, and fashion fans with a total of 17 individually designed fashion shows in the custom-built AYFW Village. Among the exclusive guests were Heidi and daughter Leni Klum, Toni Garrn with husband Alex Pettyfer, Alessandra Ambrosio, Eva Padberg, Michelle Hunziker, Karolína Kurková, Khaby Lame, Skepta, Luka Sabbat, Anna Dello Russo, Lena Gercke, Lena Meyer-Landrut, Lorena Rae, Dennis Schröder, Achraf (6PM), Guido Maria Kretschmer, RAF Camora, Loredana, Paloma Elsesser, Alton Mason, Bausa, Tina Kunakey, Sevda Alizadeh, Emili Sindlev, Rianne Meijer, Mariano Di Vaio, Veronica Ferraro, Riccardo Simonetti, Victoria Swarovski, the Elevator Boys, and many more.

Julian Jansen, Director Content of ABOUT YOU: “We are overwhelmed by our successful debut of the AYFW 2022 on this international stage. We were on the same level as the established large-scale fashion shows of Milan Fashion Week! Together with the world-renowned creative agency Villa Eugénie, we made the next logical step this year and created a world-class Fashion Week experience for our international audience of renowned VIPs, content creators, industry insiders, and fashion fans. With a reach of around 2.1 billion media contacts in print, digital, TV and social media, this year’s AYFW is our biggest event success and proves that we have made it to the set-up of international Fashion Weeks.”

The ABOUT YOU Fashion Show kicked off the five-day event. With a combination of fashion, music, dance, and entertainment, it thrilled more than 600 guests by creating many unexpected moments – true to this year’s AYFW motto ‘Welcome to the unexpected’. The show set-up was a gigantic scaffolding three-level structure consisting of a rectangular ‘Tableau Vivant’ surrounded by a runway. With this imposing stage, the ABOUT YOU Fashion Show underlined that fashion means freedom, individuality, self-expression, and self-determination. The diverse model cast of all ages, ethnic backgrounds, body shapes, and genders presented a variety of exciting, unconventional, and expressive looks. A special highlight: the ABOUT YOU Fashion Show was opened by newcomer model Leni Klum while supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio and the internationally renowned models Paloma Elsesser and Alton Mason surprised the guests with sensational looks on the runway.

Over the following four days, the 16 other brand shows also reflected this year’s AYFW motto with impressive dance performances, entertaining music acts, special light installations, and visual elements on the runway. The adidas by Stella McCartney show fascinated with dancers as model cast, who showed a unique and electrifying ‘modern dance’ choreography. Moreover, there were performances on the runways of HUGO, LASCANA, and Puma. HUGO created a club feeling with a live performance by rapper and newcomer talent Big Matthew, at LASCANA the well-known Berlin DJ duo Giannina Haupt and Alyssa Cordes set the mood, and Puma staged a ‘Block Party’ together with singer Ana Kohler. Lena Meyer-Landrut ensured a special surprise moment with the live performance of her current single ‘Looking for Love’ during the a lot less by Lena Meyer-Landrut show. Internationally renowned fashion designer Marina Hoermanseder also let loose at her HOERMANSEDER x ABOUT YOU show and staged her collection with a lot of bling-bling from the 90s hip-hop era on the runway. A softer atmosphere was created by newcomer model Leni Klum, whose show LENI KLUM x ABOUT YOU offered space for authenticity and realness in a timeless set-up and was followed live by her mother Heidi Klum in the front row. The brand shows by Levi’s and #RethinkFashion by Perwoll were dedicated to the important topic of sustainability as their show staging called for conscious and sustainable consumer behaviour. As another highlight, the G-Star RAW show closed with its model cast standing in formation on the runway, causing a certain tension in the audience. Atmospheric set-ups were also seen at the Guido Maria Kretschmer Collection brand show with an urban Amsterdam soundscape and at the show by DENIM TOM TAILOR in the form of a foggy autumn night at the North Sea. The brands 6PM, WhyNot, and RÆRE by Lorena Rae made their successful debut at this year’s AYFW, creating a special hype among the guests. The perfect closure of the five-day AYFW 2022 was the LeGer by Lena Gercke show, which is an integral part of the AYFW and convinced with trendy looks and a clean set-up accompanied by visual sound effects again this year.

The 15,000 sqm site of Milan’s Zona Farini was the setting for the AYFW 2022. On the previously empty space, the fashion online shop created the AYFW Village with a sophisticated container landscape. This offered on-site guests a TikTok corner, product presentations with individualised pieces, food and beverage bars, lounge corners, and DJ sets. In the centre of the AYFW Village, a 20-metre-high scaffolding tower with large screens displayed the latest movie clips of the fashion shows. The AYFW Village aimed to immerse the guests with every element in the world of the AYFW and to make fashion a tangible experience.

To make this unique experience accessible to other fashion fans, in addition to the invited guests, it was possible to register for exclusive day passes. Furthermore, alongside the fashion shows, exclusive live shopping shows were hosted by various brands and idols, where customers could directly buy the looks from the runway in the ABOUT YOU online shop. An elementary component of this year’s AYFW was also a broad social media extension that delivered content across all channels. For the ABOUT YOU Fashion Show, TikTok stars Nick Champa and Pierre Boo took over the ABOUT YOU Instagram channel. Additionally, the fashion online shop relied on authentic and wide-reaching international content creators such as Polly & Pamy, Marc Forné, Millane Friesen, Nic Kaufmann, Nils Küsel, Zack Lugo, Emma Brooks, Laura Giurcanu, Anh Poenix, Luciano Spinelli, Pierre Amaury Crespeau, Kayla Shyx, Jessica Kirschner, Léna Mahfouf, Claire Rose, and many more.