TikTok’s head of Luxury and Fashion, Charles Levecque

TikTok is active with a variety of fashion and beauty projects, including immersive fashion shows, online purchasing, and collaborations with luxury companies. During the recent Paris Fashion Week, TikTok’s Head of Luxury and Fashion, Charles Levecque, guided us through the Chinese giant’s tactics and future vision.

TikTok took advantage of Paris Fashion Week to host a number of special events with brands such as Off-White. Could you elaborate on these operations?

Charles Levecque – In terms of Off-White, it was a great project for us because it allowed us to show off new experiential tools for the community and how we can provide the TikTok audience a more immersive fashion show experience. Several cameras were strategically placed on the runway, giving the feeling of absolute immersion. We’d already done a lot of gigs in the past, and we’d worked with a lot of labels in 2020. We feel like we’re pushing things to the next level here. Other fashion displays, of course, take place on the platform.

We’ve already had the Dior and Balenciaga shows, which the community was able to register for ahead of time so that they could watch them on the platform on the big day.

What kinds of content do users prefer in the luxury and fashion industries?

Levecque, Charles – During the January Men’s exhibitions, one trend in particular caught my attention. It’s all the backstage and pre-show vlogging. There’s a lot of material coming out on that. We have a lot of intra-show content in the previous few years.

Foto de cottonbro: https://www.pexels.com/es-es/foto/mujer-en-camisa-negra-tenencia-blanco-botella-de-plastico-4612155/

And today, we can witness content on TikTok prepared before the shows, on the celebrities attending, as well as all the hype surrounding the event, for example with AMI Paris or Dior. This content is often viewed.

Which TikTok fashion and luxury deals have been the most successful? What is TikTok’s most popular fashion label?

‘Charles Levecque’: That is a difficult question to answer. A couple of performances impressed me for a variety of reasons and were really successful on the site. During Milan Fashion Week, Gucci held a pre-show to prepare users for the shows ahead of time, which featured exclusive content from a creative named Francis Bourgeois. It’s completely unique material that incorporates all of the platform’s codes and, in particular, all of the creator’s codes.He’s a train enthusiast who previously collaborated with North Face and had a resounding success with several million views on the platform. So, a few days before the concert, they transport him to Milan. He arrives at the station, which we observe. He is shown receiving the invitation card. He goes to change before the presentation, all in Gucci, in a boutique where he has a private shopping session, and so on. Then, when he comes to the show, he gets to see the set. Viewers can observe him briefly describe that aspect. Everyone, including the TikTokers, was asking, “Where is Francis?” during the fashion display. We noticed a buzz of anticipation around him.

Another example is Balmain, which is known for its music. It happened in September of last year. They were performing at the Balmain Festival in Sydney. For the occasion, they performed a live TikTok concert with Doja Cat. Following the fashion presentation, users could watch a short concert. This type of information is really popular within the community. It’s apparent that fashion shows pique people’s curiosity.

Content producers are rewarded by marketers, as we saw with TikTok star content creator Khaby Lame, who became the face of Hugo Boss. Can they have an impact on tomorrow’s fashion?

‘Charles Levecque’ – The Hugo Boss enterprise as a whole astounded me. It denotes a shift in the brand’s image, which is vastly different from that of two or three years earlier. They are quite contemporary. Because the Khaby Lame community represents millions of people, what they did was quite powerful, yet they weren’t there for the fashion. They came for the amusement. They arrive in search of an audience, which is likewise unusual in this setting. That’s what interests me: seeing if these cultures can mingle and create companies that are more global and inclusive as a result. Will they have an impact on tomorrow’s fashion? They’re largely amplifiers, I believe.

On TikTok, fashion and luxury companies are becoming more prominent. What do you believe draws people to this site above other social media platforms?

‘Charles Levecque’- There are numerous explanations for this. For me, the first is that we are the simplest means of reaching a new generation of users, consumers, codes, and ways of expression. TikTok is the portal via which they can access and comprehend them. We already know that Millennials and Generation Z will be major luxury shoppers in the near future. In a few years, I believe they will account for more than 70% of luxury buyers. TikTok can be a good way to “meet” people and, more importantly, to participate in conversation with them.

We’re also on our way to creating a platform that provides a fairly ideal showcase for creativity because it’s a full-screen platform. There isn’t any additional material in the vicinity. It’s the platform’s creators who produce a lot of content and are ultra-dynamic, ultra-original, and ultra-creative. Brands, in my opinion, have a lot of stories to tell. They frequently feature wonderful messages as well as a lot of well-done content. It’s a fantastic area for children to express their creativity, in my opinion.

The majority of TikTok users are young, a demographic that isn’t always able to afford high-end goods. So, how interested are these brands in having a TikTok presence?

‘Charles Levecque’- The platform is exploding in popularity. Our user base has rapidly expanded. Today, we can state that 67 percent of our readership is beyond the age of 25, which is a significant amount. I want to be clear about that because it’s part of a larger picture we’re attempting to change. The platform didn’t appear the same two years ago as it does now.

It’s common knowledge that one thing that works well on TikTok is a sense of naturalness, which isn’t often the case with the highly coded pictures of fashion and luxury brands. In this sense, how far are they willing to go?

Should brands adapt to TikTok now that they have these really potent codes?

 I believe that is a topic that will be discussed in the future. Our application is still in its infancy. Since the beginning, almost two years ago, when content was mostly copied and pasted from other platforms or experiments, we’ve seen significant progress. It’s now obvious that there’s a higher level.

This year’s hot trend is shopping over social media. How does TikTok intend to enter this new market?

Shopping is the inevitable next step in the plot, according to Charles Levecque. Users today receive material on a platform that is mostly focused on entertainment.

The next obvious step is to figure out how we might assist them in generating actions, discovering products (on a website or elsewhere), and possibly purchasing luxury goods.

We’ve worked with a variety of businesses, including Make Up For Ever and the LVMH group with Dior. The founders of TikTok gave beauty “moments” the opportunity to promote the collection that was on display for purchase. This may not always imply “purchase now.” “Watch some TikTok content, watch this video, and look at the products we’ve focused on and are now concretely offering for you,” it’s more like. To establish simpler paths, we still need to consider how we might offer more integrated experiences on the platform. This is because removing the user from the platform and creating too many options can be confusing for them.

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