Each year, fashion lovers from around the world descend on France’s capital city for a week of runway shows, celebrity sightings, and impeccably designed clothes. For consumers, it’s a time to preview the looks set to take over the rest of the year, but for retail brands, it’s a chance to build visibility and hype.
As Paris Fashion Week comes to a close, we’re using our consumer intelligence solution to analyze how some of the top brands connected with online audiences during the event. Here’s how one of the biggest weeks in fashion looked by the numbers.
This analysis is based on a Meltwater dashboard: Get free access to our Paris Fashion Week Insights Dashboard.
What Is Paris Fashion Week, And Why Does It Matter to Brands?
One of the Big Four fashion weeks — along with those in Milan, London, and New York — Paris Fashion Week (PFW) has been a must-attend industry event for the world’s top designers and fashion houses since 1973. Occurring twice a year, it consists of dozens of runway shows where brands debut their collections for the coming seasons. And off the runway, it’s an occasion for fashionistas, both famous and not, to go all out with their street style looks.
This year’s PFW ran from February 26 through March 5, and featured womenswear collections for the autumn/winter 2024-2025 season from top luxury brands, including Christian Dior, Off-White, Loewe, Yves Saint Laurent, Hermés, and Miu Miu. As usual, several high-profile attendees were showing off their cutting-edge looks in the front rows, like Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Portman, and Kim Kardashian.
Though PFW is most geared toward luxury brands, buyers, and retailers, it’s also where the rest of the world gets a first peek at new styles, trends, and ways of telling brand stories. Marketers looking to connect with fashion-forward consumers stand to learn a lot about growing brand awareness from this much-talked-about event.
So with that, let’s dig into the numbers.
The Influencer Engagement Effect
Our analysis found that from February 26 through March 5, there were more than 882,000 online posts about PFW. Those posts reached a potential audience of more than 3.2 billion people and generated more than 35.2 million engagement actions.
PFW posts on Instagram racked up 18.6 million engagement actions, compared to 13.5 million engagement actions with PFW posts on X.
Instagram was the top platform in terms of engagement actions, and it’s not hard to see why. The visuals of PFW are what draws audiences in, both by documenting the event and letting fashion enthusiasts at home take part via their favorite celebrities and influencers. When we break those posts and engagement actions down by day, the importance of fashion-adjacent influencers becomes especially apparent.
February 28 saw the highest number of engagement actions. March 3 saw the highest volume of posts.
Wednesday, February 28, and Thursday, February 29, were peak days for engagement, which was largely driven by content from off the runway. Filipino model and former Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach was the top author driving PFW content engagement — the second-most engaged post for all of PFW was her Instagram shots showing off a Balmain look.
This Instagram post by model and influencer Pia Wurtzbach generated more than 291,000 engagement actions, including 720 comments.
Though she didn’t walk in the runway shows, her posts were valuable assets for the designers featured as well as PFW in general. Her success in driving engagement and impressions (more than 14.8 million) shows just how important mega-influencers and brand ambassadors have become for luxury retail events and activations.
Through her content showing luxury fashion in action, she was able to tap into the aspirational appeal of PFW in a way that runway show photos can’t.
Influencer and K-Pop content dominates this collection of the most engaging pictures and videos from PFW.
That may be why, of the 32 most engaging pictures and videos from PFW, only four show images from the runways themselves. The rest feature influencers and celebrities, particularly K-Pop stars with huge fan followings.
Tip: Take a look at the top global fashion influencers, the top sustainable fashion influencers, and the top beauty influencers to inspire you.
Activating communities of super fans
As the chart above shows, March 3 saw the highest volume of posts. This was largely due to the mobilization of K-pop fans on X (formerly Twitter), as revealed by our emerging mentions and hashtags clouds.
Stray Kids, Alexander McQueen, and Louis Vuitton were the most mentioned social handles during PFW.
For all of PFW, @Stray_Kids, the official X handle for the K-Pop group by the same name was mentioned most, followed by the handles for fashion houses Alexander McQueen and Louis Vuitton. Meanwhile, handles and hashtags related to individual Stray Kids members I.N. and Felix were also among the most popular.
Hashtags mentioning Stray Kids member I.N. were among the most used during PFW.
Plus, when we look at engagement by platform for each day, March 3 was the first day Twitter engagement actions outnumbered those on Instagram.
Instagram was the top source of PFW engagement online until March 3, when X took the lead.
So what happened on X on Sunday, March 3? K-pop fans, that’s what. Accounts dedicated to the genre, and the group Stray Kids in particular, posted high volumes of content about I.N. and Felix’s attendance at PFW, as well as the designer looks they wore.
This X post featuring I.N. at the Alexander McQueen show garnered nearly 8,000 engagement actions, including more than 5,630 likes.
While K-pop fans may have flocked to X to see pictures of their favorite group members, they were exposed to luxury fashion content at the same time.
This X post and video about Felix’s arrival in Paris ahead of the Louis Vuitton show garnered more than 28,000 engagement actions, including more than 21,300 likes.
Like Pia Wurtzbach, neither I.N. nor Felix walked in PFW, but their attendance at the McQueen show and planned attendance at the Louis Vuitton show were integral to driving visibility for both brands. Their association with the pop stars could help drive brand loyalty among fans.
Battle of the Brands
Though influencers and celebrities off the runways are of huge importance to brands, they aren’t the end all be all of brand performance. Our analysis of posts about the brands themselves shows that Dior came out on top in terms of engagement and reach, even though Louis Vuitton generated the highest volume of content.
Content about Dior outshone all other brands in terms of engagement actions and estimated reach.
Meanwhile, Loewe potentially reached the widest audience of all on the last day of PFW, despite only having the sixth-highest volume of content. On March 5, model Emily Ratajkowski posted a "get ready with me" Instagram video about getting dressed to attend the Loewe show that happened on March 1.
Emily Ratajkowski's Instagram post showing viewers how she got ready for the Loewe runway show generated more than 106,000 engagement actions and 670 million impressions, and potentially reached more than 100 million people.
Loewe was also a big winner in terms of passive awareness.
Content featuring the Dior and Loewe logos had the highest number of engagement actions.
As our logo recognition analysis found, content featuring the Loewe logo had the second-highest number of engagement. It also scored higher than Dior and Louis Vuitton in terms of positive sentiment.
Tip: Learn more about image recognition and take a look at image recognition software.
Loewe content had more positive sentiment than Dior or Louis Vuitton.
All in all, though Loewe didn’t dominate the conversation to the extent that Dior and Louis Vuitton did, the attention it garner boosted its visibility in the right direction.
Takeaways for Marketers
Here are some lessons marketers in retail and other segments can take from PFW ‘24:
- Harness the power of influencers: They have the power to let audiences experience luxury events and products that audiences otherwise wouldn’t be able to access. Look to them to make your unique brand story and identity come to life.
- Examine fan communities: Brand ambassadors and influencers come with their own unique audiences. Analyze them to learn which partnerships and collaborations can boost your brand’s exposure.
- Get your logo out there: Sometimes, a well-placed logo can do more for brand awareness than a tag in an Instagram caption. Consider passive brand awareness and the many ways you can wield it to build goodwill for your brand.
There are many more insights to explore! Fill out the form below to see how you can get data-driven insights like these tailored to your particular business needs with a demo of our consumer intelligence solution:
