How To Plan The Perfect Fashion Runway Show

Is your business involved in fashion or accessories?

Then at some point you'll want to plan a gorgeous runway show to show fashion buyers your wares.

To properly showcase your products, you'll need to create an event which is thoughtfully decorated from the entrance to the catwalk with lighting, furniture, and music.

Drinks and refreshments

 If you schedule your runway show for night-time you'll want to serve your guests cocktails and/or wine so you'll want to set up a refreshments area. 

This could include a bar with waiter, a bar cart trolley (is your theme and company brand industrial or glamorous, for example) or perhaps a serve-yourself refreshments station from a rustic cart, depending what sort of experience you want to evoke.

Daytime runway shows may call just for Champagne Mimosas served to guests in their seats or by roving waiters if people are going back to the office afterwards.

Food could be as simple as a white acrylic dessert tower filled with macarons or cupcakes and branded with a script decal of your company name or an interactive experience, such as a vintage fairy floss cart.

Event lighting
Lighting is the quickest and most singularly impactful way to make an impression on your guests.

You could hire fairy lighting curtains as a backdrop to the catwalk, or book your venue's trussed ceiling to be covered in a breathtaking display of twinkling fairy lights.

Or you might prefer to light the runway with masses of tiered LED pillar candles. They create a beautiful glow with none of the risk to the models with open candle flames.

Event seating and furniture hire
Interestingly, My Event Decor's very first furniture hire booking was from Max Mara hiring its Victoria Ghost chairs for catwalk shows in its Doncaster and Collins Street Melbourne stores.

Three years later, Ghost chairs remain the upscale chair of choice for your most important runway guests.

Other seating options include black, white or walnut-coloured bentwood chairs (especially for smart casual wear), wooden pallet benches (ideal for brands which sell clothing and accessories made from natural fibres, ethically sourced and/or locally made as well as rugged outdoor gear), and clear, white or gold Tiffany chairswhich are perfect for Insta-worthy bridal runway shows.

Thank you gifts for guests
No doubt you'll want your guests to take a little branded something to take home with them as a thank you gift. If your fashion brand has any French connection to it at all, gift-boxed macarons printed with your fashion brand logo, or cleverly iced gingerbread biscuits could be perfect?

Wow-factor decor
Creating a massive and memorable experience requires cool decorative details that your guests won't have seen a million times before.

Why not trip them out covering your catwalk in a 3D grass- and daisy-printed carpet runner? Serve tropical cocktails for your beachwear parade with paper bamboo-print straws? Or drinks for your clubbing range from mirrored disco ball containers?

Looking for a cool venue for your models to walk your latest range? Here's 5 fashion-related venues in Melbourne that could "fit" your client brief.