Photo: Getty Images/Artwork: Vogue Business
Spring/summer 2025 was a bumper fashion season, with social-media buzz up across the board. But who won the race for clicks and likes?
Brands have pared back their sets and celebrity or supermodel runway moments this season, likely to save money amid a luxury slowdown. But rest assured, they kept the budget aside for A-list front rows and a higher saturation of K-pop stars and Thai actors. It paid off for some, leading to changes in the rankings this time around.
SS25 generated $839.6 million in earned media value (EMV) this season, up 59 per cent on AW24 and up 16 per cent on SS24, according to influencer marketing platform Lefty and brand agency Karla Otto. (Lefty analyses the impressions and engagement generated by Instagram posts referencing every on-schedule show from influencers with over 10,000 followers. EMV is calculated as $1 per like.) It’s in some ways surprising, as this season largely favoured a greater focus on clothes over heavy performance. But dig deeper, and you see that brands kept their budget for one thing: a star-studded front row.
“What’s the point in a grand location, anyway, if you don’t have someone to take a picture in it?” jokes PR guru Lucien Pagès, who represented brands across fashion’s big four this season. “It makes sense perhaps that the shows were a little more sober and focused on the clothes, considering the challenging times we are living in. But the bar is so high for shows because you have to use the show momentum for six months, it goes into the stores, into advertising – you need to drive visibility from somewhere.”
Paris Fashion Week drove the most buzz for SS25, accumulating $437 million in EMV, up 39 per cent on AW24 and up 10 per cent on SS24. As with previous seasons, Dior drove the highest EMV across New York, London, Milan and Paris, totalling $46 million EMV with its sports-inspired show at the Musée Rodin, featuring archery from Italian performance artist Sagg Napoli. However, for the first time since Vogue Business began reporting on social media post-shows, Blackpink’s Jisoo is not Dior’s top talent this season, coming in second. Instead, Thai actor Nattawin Wattanagitiphat was the most impactful star on the front row, driving $14.2 million in EMV and, in turn, 21 per cent of the brand’s overall Instagram engagement, underlining the growing importance of Thai pop culture in fashion’s frow curation. Wattanagitiphat’s average Instagram engagement sits at 23 per cent, much higher than the majority of talents across SS25 (meaning that on average 23 per cent of his followers engage with his content via likes, comments or shares).
Kylie Jenner was the most impactful influencer across the big four for SS25, driving $20.3 million EMV across her select three appearances at Schiaparelli, Atlein (following the brand’s collaboration with her label Khy) and her runway appearance, closing Coperni’s Disneyland show. The latter saw Coperni re-enter the top 10 in Paris for the first time since its spray-on dress showcased for SS23, hitting $14.4 million EMV, up 303 per cent on AW24.
“A celebrity appearance isn’t everything, but at Coperni, Kylie was the cherry on the cake. It’s multiplication and amplification,” says Pagès, whose agency represents all three of the aforementioned brands. “What we notice now is the more rare the appearance, the more impactful it is – the [buzz] is preserved. Kylie chose to just attend three shows, which made it more powerful.”
While Dior retained the top spot, there were some shifts in the top five this season. The jump in total EMV for SS25 is in part due to a much bigger New York Fashion Week. NYFW’s EMV grew 208 per cent this season compared with AW24, and is up 41 per cent on SS24.
This was largely thanks to one brand. Tommy Hilfiger ranked second across all four cities by EMV (up from ninth last season), driving over $57 million in EMV for his blockbuster boat show on a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry, featuring a performance from Staten Island natives Wu-Tang Clan. The show represents 43 per cent of the total EMV for New York Fashion Week. Tommy Hilfiger tapped Dior mainstay Jisoo to attend its show this season, driving over $8 million in EMV, 14 per cent of the brand’s total, making her the most powerful attendee in terms of Instagram impact.
“Tommy Hilfiger has such a rich heritage of blending fashion and music and surprising audiences with iconic moments. It’s the ‘Tommy Twist’,” says the brand’s chief marketing officer Virginia Ritchie.
Tommy Hilfiger’s engagement hit 6.64 per cent, four times the NYFW average. While the EMV spike is encouraging, “a single spike is irrelevant”, Ritchie flags. “It’s the consistency of being able to regularly build that connectivity and engagement with our global community that matters and strengthens business.” Tommy Hilfiger works with long-term ambassadors across sport, fashion and popular culture, to build authentic partnerships, she adds. “It’s the perfect illustration of how the runway and the front row are becoming today’s ad campaigns.”
Elsewhere in New York, Ralph Lauren’s show on a 19-acre horse farm in Bridgehampton generated $14 million in EMV, with Winter, member of K-pop girl group Aespa, driving the largest proportion of the buzz across four posts on her Instagram feed referencing the show. Coach’s EMV surged 94 per cent this season, positioning the brand in third place for the second season in a row. Indonesian actor Syifa Hadju drove the highest proportion of EMV.
The overall EMV growth this season is partly due to an increase in high-reach K-pop stars and Thai actors attending shows across all cities, rather than just Milan and Paris, as brands get wise to their reach. Among the top 10 influencers across New York, London, Milan and Paris, Jenner (first place) and Cardi B (sixth place) were the only Western stars who made the ranking. The other top talents in descending order were Blackpink’s Jisoo, actor Wattanagitiphat, Blackpink’s Rosé and Lisa, K-pop group Enhypen, South Korean actor Nam Joo-Hyuk, Karina Lee Song of Aespe, South Korean actor Cha Eun-Woo and BTS’s Jin, reinforcing their importance.
Milan Fashion Week’s EMV reached almost $250 million this season, up 68 per cent on AW24 and up 16 per cent on SS24. Prada was the top show in the city and the third biggest show of the season across the big four, with its algorithm-defying show scoring $47.9 million in EMV. South Korea’s Enhypen, long-term Prada ambassadors since June 2023, led the charge, generating 21 per cent of the total EMV for the brand ($10.5 million). This season, Enhypen posted 11 feed posts about the Prada show on Instagram, from the band’s arrival in Italy, to each of the seven members’ individual Prada looks.
Thai actors seemingly burst onto the fashion scene just a year ago for SS24, and brands have invited more than ever this season. In addition to Dior’s top influencer Wattanagitiphat, Tommy Hilfiger’s front row featured fellow Thai talents Nattawat Jirochtikul (@fourth.ig), who drove $5.4 million, Norawit Titicharoenrak (@gemini_nt), who drove $5 million, and Naravit Lertratkosum (@ppnaravit), who drove $3.7 million EMV for the show. Meanwhile, actor Pruk Panich drove $3.8 million EMV for Giorgio Armani, making him the ninth most influential talent at MFW. It keeps growing season to season, Pagès says, as Western audiences also become familiar with K-pop stars and Thai film and TV talents, joining the legions of fans screaming their names outside of shows.
“It’s not just the APAC media, but Western media are starting to interview these stars, because they hugely resonate with their audiences as well,” says Anna Ross, global head of trend and creative insight at Karla Otto, who worked on the data analysis with Lefty.
There’s also a ripple effect when it comes to APAC talent. “With [APAC talent], you’ve got fanzines and audience arrivals accounts. There’s even particular newspapers that capture airport arrivals and that generate a huge amount of attention,” says Ross.
Increasingly, brands are innovating and finding new ways to harness front-row talent at shows, with in-seat or in-car interviews, GRWM videos and high-production value arrival videos, to boost shareability.
Prada created a collaborative video post with Enhypen’s account post-show, revealing the group arriving at Fondazione Prada and greeting their so-called Engenes (fans) outside – it garnered 627,000 likes. Likewise, Prada posted a video with Karina (@katarinabluu), lead singer of Aespa, which showed the artist wandering the empty showspace pre-show; it was shared as a collab across her and Prada’s Instagram accounts, garnering 976,000 likes. Karina was Prada’s second most powerful talent, after Enhypen, with the video and four other feed posts from the Prada show and post-show dinner driving $8.4 million in EMV for the brand. On Prada’s TikTok, arrival videos of talents garnered millions of views, including Enhypen (12.8 million), Karina (10.5 million) and K-pop star Jaehyun of boy group NCT (9.5 million).
Prada also created a pre-show TikTok with Charli D’Amelio. Showing the TikTok star entering a Prada store and opening her invite, the video garnered 5.6 million views. Similarly, Dior harnessed a roster of talents – from actor Jennifer Garner to French pop star Aya Nakamura – creating tongue-in-cheek videos to drive engagement pre and post-show. The video featuring Garner “warming up” for the show juggling sai daggers like those from her movie Elektra garnered 13 million views.
“Brands seem to really get TikTok this season,” says Kristina Karassoulis, TikTok’s UK head of luxury brand partnerships. “Dior is a great example. This season, it teased its A-list invite list on TikTok to build anticipation for the show. So when the live stream happens, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s who we’re expecting to see.’”
London has always been the smallest fashion week in terms of social-media buzz, and this season’s event witnessed a 0.3 per cent decline to approximately $21 million EMV. Burberry, the city’s flagship brand, saw a 44 per cent decline in EMV compared with last season. Like for AW24, the bulk of Burberry’s EMV was driven by Thai actor Vachirawit Chivaaree.
Elsewhere in London, emerging star SS Daley entered the ranking at fifth place, following a surprise appearance from brand investor Harry Styles. While Styles didn’t post on his Instagram about the show, meaning he doesn’t show up as the top influencer for SS Daley, the brand hit $1.3 million in EMV, driven by posts about the music artist, as well as actor Sebastian Croft, who drove the highest percentage of EMV for the brand.
Alongside key names, some new, unexpected talents attended the shows and made it into the rankings this season, as brands harnessed popular creators and talents from fields outside of fashion to reach new audiences and flex their Gen-Z, internet culture knowledge. As Pagès puts it, brands know the power of celebrity to drive buzz; now, it’s about curating and refining their front rows to show they have their finger on the pulse.
He name checks Bottega Veneta, who invited “very demure, very mindful” creator Jools Lebron to its childlike show for SS25, where the influencer sat on an animal-themed bean bag alongside Olympian Imane Khelif, Hollywood icon Julianne Moore and A-list heartthrob Jacob Elordi. Bottega Veneta climbed three places in the overall EMV ranking this season, across all cities, to seventh place. EMV for the Italian house hit $26.9 million, up 308 per cent on AW24 and up 124 per cent on SS24.
On TikTok, creators aligning with a brand can increase brand sentiment even more than A-listers like Elordi, according to Karassoulis, as it generates more brand-focused comments such as, “I love Bottega”, as opposed to comments about the talent themselves. “To be able to then get the message from Bottega to be like, ‘Look, we’ve invited Jools Lebron,’ was iconic,” Karassoulis says. “It’s been such an evolution.”
At Boss (sixth in the MFW ranking), TikTok and Instagram creator @phenixsoul, aka Lyric Mariah Heard, led EMV this season. She generated $5.4 million in EMV across her two appearances at Boss and Alberta Ferretti. Heard is an up-and-coming model, creator and disability advocate, whose viral videos include turning London into her own personal runway, changing perceptions around modelling, or rating which shoes fit best with her prosthetic. And her viral catwalks have amassed over 80 million video views, according to TikTok.
On Instagram, Heard’s engagement rate is 22 per cent, way above the industry average of one to three per cent. Kylie Jenner, by comparison, may have driven the highest EMV of any influencer across fashion month, but her engagement is 0.44 per cent, showing the importance of balancing talent with high reach and high engagement, to create maximum impact online.
“Personalities [like Glucose Goddess or LeBron] might not drive loads of Instagram EMV, but they illustrate that the brand is on top of the cultural zeitgeist,” Ross says. “Aligning with culture in this way makes for a really super clever brand alignment. It doesn’t feel gimmicky in a way of just putting someone [on the front row] who’s going to drive you loads of EMV.”
This article was originally published on Vogue Business.
