For many brands, the front row has ballooned in size, importance, or both, with return on invite closely monitored. It’s reductive, all things considered, but you can tally up a ballpark price for a front row seat at the biggest shows. If you look at what a brand pays to host a celebrity, it can range from nothing at all to hundreds of thousands of dollars—or be part of a wider contract. If you math out an average based on the cost of the show, each spot can be figured to be worth tens of thousands of dollars. If you look at what a client had to spend for an invite, you might be back in the six digits. But that’s a little inside baseball. The point is, creating the right front row is a big consideration for brands of any size.
“Today the front row is mostly a stage of its own. It’s where the brand places its ambassadors, celebrities, and talent plus the biggest content creators,” says Simone Bellotti, creative director of Jil Sander. “So the show becomes a second event happening on the opposite side of the runway.”
“It creates a dialogue between the runway and the room,” says Veronica Leoni, creative director of Calvin Klein.
Another way to think about it is akin to the fantastical sets that defined eras past—Karl Lagerfeld’s fall 2014 Chanel supermarket, for example. “Brands used to compete with each other to make the highest-impact show that would bring them press and attention, collaterally to the runway,” says Youssef Marquis, public relations expert and celebrity matchmaker, who formerly led communications at Givenchy and Louis Vuitton. “That’s what the front row is now: How do I make something no one has ever done?”
It’s on the front row that brands display their cultural heft and acuity.
