How To Produce a Runway Show With Etienne Russo

Known as one of the most important runway show and fashion event producers today, ETIENNE RUSSO started his career at a high-end restaurant after attending a Belgian École hôtelière. A few years later, which included stints as a model and art director for a club in Brussels, Russo met the Antwerp Six, which propelled his career as a runway producer.

Etienne Russo portrait. Photography Brock Elbank

After initially modeling for Dries Van Noten, he then went on to produce his shows and has since assembled a portfolio of clients including Chanel, Givenchy, Hermes, Moncler, Hugo Boss, and other under the umbrella of his production company Villa Eugénie. Claire Koron Elat sat down with Russo to discuss why you shouldn’t be inspired by others, fashion-tainment, and doing shows pre social media.

CLAIRE KORON ELAT: I feel like you get a lot of questions about what it is you do exactly. Can you walk me through the production of a runway show from start to finish?

ETIENNE RUSSO: The starting point is always a brief about the collection. Where is the collection coming from? What message does it want to send to us? What’s the primary subject it’s talking about? Without all this information, it could go anywhere. Then you start to do research, visual research, moodboards, etc. The research can go from architecture to art to lighting to interior design to materials. It has no limits. At the same time, you have to start researching a venue. Sometimes, we have a concept before we have the venue, so we look for a venue that would receive the concept, and then implement everything. But other times, the venues also function as a source of inspiration.

And you need to visualize everything. It’s not enough to only have your references. People want to see exactly what they’re going to have. And we have all the tools to do that. Then you do all your plans for pre-production. You put together a budget, talk with all the providers, do technical meetings, logistical meetings, security meetings, CSR meetings. You need to comply with every different aspect of the show. Then you need to think about press and PR.

Everyone needs to be aware of the concept, the designer as much as the press and marketing teams. What’s the amount of first rows? What about the space for the photographers, and how is the show going to be filmed? Where are the cameras going to be put? There are then several meetings where everybody gets around a table, and we try to find a message that goes in the same direction. Then you get to the point where you can start rehearsals and test lighting to see how it works with the scenography. When we do rehearsals, we have the models for an hour maximum. Which means we have to be sure that what we tell them is extremely precise, and that we have tested it beforehand. After the show, there is the load out, and there’s the post-production phase.

CKE: How important is the post-show phase?

ER: There are several aspects that are part of post-production. For example, CSR is very important. You have all the decor that you used for the set, for example. What do you do with it afterwards? Before you choose a material, you have to know what you’re going to do with it afterwards. Maybe you can give it to art or fashion schools. But there are also places in Paris and Milan, for example, to whom you can give the set, and they resell it to other people at a very low price. In this way, we try to make the circular economy work.

When it comes to Instagram and the digital world, it starts with a teaser that comes pre-show. Some people have budgets to do streaming, and then they release the video after the show as soon as possible. And you have to release pictures and short films on all these platforms, which also includes TikTok. You also have backstage content or what is called the first look, which is of the girls and boys before they go on stage. As a result, you have content until the next show.

CKE: It’s interesting how you’re describing the production of a show as this content machine, where the things you post pre- and post-show are almost as important as the show itself. And this of course raises major questions about how a brand market itself within a context where fashion has been continuously flirting with entertainment and is almost becoming an entertainment industry itself.

ER: There’s a name for that, it’s fashion-tainment.

CKE: What do you think about this development? There are many people who criticize it.

ER: There are things that have to be whispered, and there are things that have to be shouted out loud. It depends on the message you want to deliver. People criticize that, and that’s fine. We will never please everybody. The significant change is that, before Instagram, you had maybe 200 to 2000 people in one room who would see the show. That includes editors, stylists, journalists, celebrities, a few selected customers, and buyers. And then you had a few stylists that would style the collection, and it would be published in a magazine months after the show, and this is then how other people could discover the collection. I mean, maybe you would have a small thing in a newspaper the day after or there would be some kind of fashion week report in a weekly edition.

Then Instagram arrived, and then TikTok. Before, you could maybe reach like 100,000 people altogether with a good show. Today, we’re talking about tens of millions, sometimes even hundreds [of millions] if you have a very big event.

There are two companies I work for, Hugo Boss and Moncler, who analyze all their interactions on social media. If you take, for example, Moncler, with whom we did mega events on 30,000 square meters, with 10 designers, and 10,000 guests—which is something that works for this brand—you end up with a reach of half a billion. And that’s fantastic, I think. If you take the whole chain of values from the moment the garment is designed and created until it comes into the marketing sphere, you need to ask who is most important in all of that. The customer. If he doesn’t buy, nobody works along the line. So today, there is respect for the final customer who gets information in real time. Today, customers want to know where things come from, the way it’s done, they’re much more into it.

And to go back to whispering versus shouting—when you have a brand like Dries Van Noten, you have a specific audience. Dries Van Noten would never do such a mega event. With Moncler, on the contrary, we are talking about down jackets. I think it’s amazing that a company that does down jackets found ways to, first of all, include artists who do their own interpretation of their ideal down jacket. They have created something that is cult. And, second of all, they have managed to transmit a message to their audience that is in line with what they do. I think both extremes are legitimate

Dior Men AW25 Parish Fashion Week Runway Show. Produced by Etienne Russo

CKE: Do you feel like if there is so much focus on marketing and the entertainment aspect that the craft gets lost in the process?

ER: I think that if you do fashion, let’s say in the luxury sphere, you need to be able to talk with heart and to talk to many different people who recognize fashion as something they love to express themselves with. Whether it’s Rick Owens or Loro Piana, there are so many different ways; and that’s why fashion touches so many people.

A brand has to be careful that the entertainment doesn’t take over the collection. If you look at Louis Vuitton and Pharell—I mean, he is an extraordinary entertainer to start with, so he is trying to balance his collection within his world and does so in the most intelligent way.

CKE: I mean, I’m not actually criticizing this development—it’s an interesting phenomenon to observe. A brand I was specifically thinking about is Balenciaga, since it very much feels like they were pivotal in bringing forward the entertainment aspect in collections and campaigns. However, it feels like the garments themselves have turned into PR stunts, almost memes.

ER: If we talk about this, we have to go deep into the fast system that the fashion industry has become. How is it possible that you make entire collections in the short time frame that is given today and renew yourself every three months when you do men’s and women’s? Hermes is a great example because they still take their time while having a very large audience. But they managed to find a way of communicating that is in line with their product. When I look at Balenciaga, I still love the cutting and everything. And if you look at what he managed to do with couture, he is still doing an impressive job. It’s the market that is pushing brands to act that way. Marketing has played a huge role in the fashion industry in the last five years. And with social media, some people simply know to use it better than others.

CKE: Since you were now drawing attention to the system in whole, it made me think of the question young brands have to ask themselves: do you do runway or not? It’s such a huge investment. And then if you start to do it one season, you’re more or less forced to do it every season from then on to be taken seriously.

ER: I think that when you have a studio, whether it’s a big one or not, the ultimate point is to see the collection on a catwalk—because that’s what the collection is made for. You can ask every designer. This is the moment you’re working towards, to see six months of work crystallized.

In 2008, you had the huge financial crisis, and many small brands could not do a show anymore. Instead, they started to do films, presentations, or just showrooms. The question then was whether this was the end of fashion shows. But as soon as they had enough money for shows again, they all did it. So, you need to ask: What does a show bring that a fashion movie or an installation doesn’t? It’s desirability. And the social moment.

There was another moment where we thought the fashion show was dead, which was during COVID. People thought we can do the buying and showing of the collection via Zoom. But this approach forgets that the human being is an animal that wants to meet other animals. There is excitement around seeing each other, and people also want to be seen. And that’s why the first row has become what it is. Before, you had a few celebrities and some press, but now you also have all the influencers. There was this specific moment when the bloggers started to compete with the journalists although bloggers are not journalists, they have a different point of view and audience. And today, an influencer is someone who managed to raise a lot of followers and give an opinion, sometimes just by wearing a product without even describing it. Is this quality? Not always, but it’s working. Because the audience also wants these types of fast news and fast consumption.

When Azzedine Alaïa was still alive, he decided to stop because he couldn’t bear the system anymore. He didn’t want to do two collections a year. When he has a collection ready, he will show it. There were many systems that we tried over the years. But none of them ended up being a winner. When you have big companies, they want a return on their investment as fast as possible. There is a whole business system that is behind that, and everybody’s contributing. Maybe it would be nice to sort of freeze for a moment. I think that there are some designers that really are amazing creatives but who are struggling to follow the speed that the market wants.

BOSS SS 24 "Techtopia" runway show. Produced by Etienne Russo

CKE: Who are the ones that are struggling?

ER: The smaller houses because they also have smaller tools to communicate. And then you have the fast fashion system. A company like Zara manages to produce something that was just on the catwalk 30 times cheaper and have it in the store within ten days. And there is an audience that buys that. So, when we’re asking all these questions about the fashion system, we’re talking about subjects that are way beyond fashion. We’re talking about the economy and globalization. There are people who simply don’t have the money to buy designer [items], so they go to Zara or H&M since they also want to dress up. It’s basically a question of how the world is functioning today. You’re not only questioning how fashion is functioning. And I have always said, quality over quantity. That has always been my motto. Today, everybody is pushed to consume and fabricate faster, faster, faster. And we cannot live up to this, it has turned into a disaster.

And this is also a question of time. Before we had cellphones, we used to have a pager, which was a small machine that would show the number from which someone called you. If I was driving to a client and saw that someone called me, I had to stop at a gas station, put coins into a machine, and call. And then you had a Sony, Motorola, and then the iPhone. It’s almost like it went from zero to 100, and now you can do all these things with your phone. The world operates at an extremely fast pace. And now we have AI. You know, I discuss AI with everybody because I’m very pro-AI. I think it’s going to be an even bigger revolution than the internet. People often look at it in a very negative way, but there are also negative sides to the internet, if you think about the darknet, for example. A radiologist told me recently that there won’t be any radiologists in ten years—everything will be done by a machine and done much faster. So, if you are a student now, don’t specialize in radiology. It’s like with everything: there’s an amazing part, and there’s a downside, which is why we have to try to find a balance. But this is something that’s going to make the world even faster. I mean everyone uses ChatGPT nowadays. Don’t you?

CKE: I do for some things that require a more analytical approach. But for writing, I don’t think it’s that great. You can very much sense when a text is written with Chat GPT.

ER: Apparently there is a program where you don’t feel that anymore. People say that there are going be less jobs because of AI but I don’t think so. There are going to be a lot of other jobs. Some jobs you have now are not fun to do, but the people have to do it because they have to eat. At some point, these jobs can be done by a machine, and hopefully those people can spend time to educate themselves and get into better positions. I’m kind of an optimist. I try to see the bright side everywhere I can.

We did a show for Hugo Boss around two years ago, and the theme of the show was back to the office. During that time, you had Covid, and many people had to work from home. There were many questions around what it would be like to be back at the office. For us, the question was: How can we treat that in the scenography of the show? But then, I was like, why don’t we project ourselves to 2039. What would the office of the future look like? So, in this office, we had boxes in which people were brainstorming. Instead of being around a table, they were all lying down, and they had helmets through which they could communicate with each other but without talking to each other. And this would then create waves through which everybody could think about the same thing and without being afraid of sharing their thoughts. Sometimes people are afraid to talk because they are afraid of saying something stupid. But sometimes it’s exactly that that then leads to an idea that comes from nowhere.

CKE: Do you think that entire design teams are going to be replaced by AI?

ER: I don’t think so. We have a design team that consists of many different people, also architects and researchers.

Back when there was no internet and we finished a Fashion Week, I would take my creative assistant, I had one at a time, and we would go into bookstores for three, four days—all the big stores that we like. And we would come back with 50, 60, 70 books about everything. Then for a week, we would take time and put a Post-it in every page that we liked, despite not knowing what to do with it. We had different colors for different themes, such as food or architecture. The internet replaced all this, of course.

CKE: As we were talking about whether or not young brands need to do runway, I was also thinking about the different marketing strategies brands have developed in the digital age. There are very different approaches. Jacquemus, for example, is kind of the master of Instagram. But The Row’s visual strategy is not specifically catered to Instagram. Do you think there is a best approach for young brands?

ER: First of all, I think the sisters are from a different generation and are part of a different system. Jacquemus is doing what he does brilliantly, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it. And his campaigns fit the market he is talking to. That’s why he has so many likes. I think that doesn’t speak to the same audience as The Row. The last time I was shopping, I saw that a cashmere pullover by The Row costs around 8000 Euro. If you compare this to Jacquemus prices, this can’t be appealing to the same customer.

Sometimes I spend an hour reading the comments because I’m interested, and then I go see who the person is behind the comment, and it’s someone with 22 followers and no profile photo. I still do that even though I don’t have a personal Instagram—not because I’m from a different generation but just because it’s my personality. I’m a private person. In the beginning, I didn’t even want to have an Instagram for my company. It was even cool to not have it until the moment that you were forced to have it—this is adaptation to the market. You cannot miss certain trains.

Now I’m in a phase in my life where I’m interested in transmissions. For the past five years, I’ve been teaching a master class at the IFM. I also taught at the Venice University, where they asked me to do a master class on fashion. I looked at the courses and asked, “What else do you have?” They had architecture and a PR department. So, I took one architect, one fashion designer, and one future PR person and had them function like mini-companies—because that’s what’s going to happen. The designer has to design a collection, the architect has to design the venue where it’s going be shown, and the PR person has to market it. They could choose a client from my portfolio and completely reinterpret a show they had done.

For what I’m doing now, there was no real school. You just had to gain experience and learn from your mistakes. So, I think I can be beneficial today for people your age who want to be in this field. And I’m actually dreaming of opening an academy. At the same time, I still want to continue working with all my different clients.

Moncler Genius Shangai. Produced by Etienne Russo

CKE: And with all the different shows you’ve worked on, is there one show that stands out as your favorite?

ER: That’s like asking if a mother has a favorite child. What would you say? I have a specific attachment to all of them. For example, the Dior men’s AW25 show by Kim Jones, where we did the creative development, but all the ideas came from Kim. In the end, it was just white stairs in a dark environment, but it was so graphic, so simple, yet so powerful and in tune with the collection. I had goosebumps. I said to myself, “Oh my God, this reminds me why I have been doing this job for 35 years and why I love it so much.” It’s about moments like this.

CKE: In another interview, you said that you try not to look at other things that are going on. Are you ever inspired by other shows?

ER: No, never. I want my team and myself to set a benchmark. So, before it comes out, we have to ask if something like this has been done before. And if it was done before, then we ask: Is it relevant? Are we copying in some way? That’s why I don’t look at much. But of course, that’s impossible nowadays. I can’t deny that certain shows inspire me, but I’m more excited when I see extraordinary things because that makes me realize that there’s so much more that we can do. There’s so much work that we have to do to elevate ourselves.