The Fashion Show Goes Live: Exclusive and Mediatized Performance, Rebecca Halliday

The Fashion Show Goes Live is a compelling exploration of how fashion shows have transformed into performative spectacles in the digital era. Beginning with Alexander McQueen’s groundbreaking 2009 live‑stream of Plato’s Atlantis on SHOWStudio, Rebecca Halliday traces the rise of mediatization—how runway events evolved into immersive broadcasts and social media phenomena. Through case studies spanning Chanel, Givenchy, Yeezy, Burberry’s “see‑now‑buy‑now” strategy, celebrity livestreams at Topshop, and immersive moments like Chanel’s supermarket show, the book reveals how televised and digital presentations have reshaped the power, prestige and politics of fashion performance.

Halliday interrogates the paradox of mass access and maintained exclusivity—how the illusion of immediacy feeds desire while preserving the aura of couture sanctity. She unpacks live‑stream preshows, front‑row smartphone filming at New York Fashion Week, and Versace’s postmodern media spectacles. Smartly blending media and cultural theory, the book argues that although technology democratises viewership, the fashion spectacle remains a staged theatre of aspiration, labour, and affect.

About the Author
Rebecca Halliday is Assistant Teaching Professor and Professional Communication Adviser in the English Department at the University of Victoria (Canada), formerly teaching in Toronto’s School of Fashion and Professional Communication. Her work bridges media studies and fashion scholarship, offering lucid insights into how digital platforms remap the social geography of desirability, identity, and spectacle.

Publication date: 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 256
ISBN:  9781350226357