Burberry to reveal clothes on Snapchat before runway

British luxury designer Burberry will show off its latest fashion collection on Snapchat before it hits the runway at London Fashion Week, the company said on Friday.

The Spring/Summer 2016 collection will premiere in the messaging app at 7PM BST (2PM ET) on Sunday 20th September and will disappear after 24 hours. The preview will reveal the collection looks "as finishing touches are being made, captured live from the Burberry design studio in London", the firm said.

Burberry's London Fashion Week show kicks off on Monday at 1PM. On the day of the show, Snapchat is curating a montage of crowd-sourced images and video from fans, models, and designers "giving and access all areas vantage point" to areas like the red carpet and backstage. This will start at 12PM on Monday and will be live on the Snapchat homepage for 24 hours.



"With Snapchat, (co-founder and chief executive) Evan Spiegel has created a phenomenal platform that captures the spirit of a moment. We are excited to be working with him to launch the Burberry Snapchat Show allowing a unique, real time view of the creation of our show which will include an unprecedented collection premier hours before it hits the runway," Burberry chief Christopher Bailey said in a press release.
Over the past few years, Burberry has been bolstering its digital offerings in a bid to tap into a digital-savvy young demographic, particularly in emerging markets like China. In the year to 31 March, retail sales were up 14 percent overall, with online and mobile doubling its share of revenue in that period.

Snapchat now has 100 million daily active users which it claims consumer more than 4 billion videos every day. Burberry will be hoping it can reach a portion of these to convert into sales.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Burberry launched a channel on Apple Music as it looks to continue its digital push. The company said that British singer Alison Moyet will be performing live at its London Fashion Week show and the performance will be available on Apple Music.

Last year at London Fashion Week in September, Burberry partnered with Twitter to allow users to buy certain items via the social media service as soon as the model appeared wearing the piece of clothing or makeup.