DKNY Spring 2016 Offers Streamlined Collection

Public School designers Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne presented their DKNY Spring 2016 collection last week at New York Fashion Week.

Designers Maxwell Osborne & Dao-Yi  Chow showed their first collection for DKNY last week at New York Fashion Week  The runway show happened at One World Trade Center–an interesting choice to be sure during the anniversary week for Sept. 11. The collection was paired down, almost spartan. There was very little color, except for a bit of blue. There were no ordinary New Yorkers on the runway and no taxi-cab yellow. What there was was lots of black and white, oversized menswear type coats, pinstripes and digitally printed images on fabric.  It was an interesting collection, but certainly a departure from the playfulness and mass-market appeal that Donna Karan had imprinted on her apparel.  There were no spring colors or brightly colored sneakers. In my opinion, it will take time for consumers and buyers to get used to this Maxwell & Dao-Yi t version of DKNY now that Donna Karan has sold her company.  Social Media was an important part of the show, as it always is for DKNY.  But the social was also very different from its previous incarnation.

During the DKNY Spring 2016 show, fans were invited to share their favorite looks with the brand and use Instagram’s new Direct Feature to get exclusive content.

This year’s DKNY fashion week social media also lacked its distinctive cheeky touch and playfulness.  That’s because the voice of DKNY on social media, DKNY PR Girl  Aliza Licht,  is also gone.   During the show,  DKNY ran a social media Instagram campaign inviting their fans to use Instagram’s new direct feature along with hashtag #DKNYSS16 to ask the brand direct, one-on-one questions about the runway looks.   This was an interesting idea, but one that lacked reach social collaboration since the direct questions and answers weren’t shared.  What was shared was rather lackluster Instagram picture  descriptions of the runway looks such as ” #39, a key look of the creative directors.#DKNYSS16″ and #40, a key look of the creative directors.#DKNYSS16  ”   It’s sad to see a brand like DKNY with such lackluster content on Instagram, a medium where compelling descriptions can bring eyeballs to your feed.  Hopefully in time, whoever their social media manager is gets the hang of things.