The archive · Brand & Identity · Marketing decision · 2023–2024
Xiaohongshu's Fashion Week for Everyone puts delivery poets and shoppers on the runway
15,000 users applied to walk a lane-side fashion week; the 'mom dragged into a runway' post hit Weibo, and REDlabel brands sold.
Xiaohongshu (小红书)
What it had to solve
Xiaohongshu was building e-commerce from its strongest vertical, fashion, after a 2022 'Anfu Road Online' experiment with REDlabel designer brands. Deep interviews showed a 'fashion fear': high fashion felt cold, judgemental and far from everyday life — so the platform needed to prove that style on Xiaohongshu was both relatable and buyable.
How it works
Fashion's gatekeepers — shows, buyers' stores, celebrity stylists — made ordinary shoppers feel that style was not for them. Xiaohongshu's interviews found 'fashion fear' everywhere: people hesitated to enter designer stores, feared being judged, and felt clothes were 'wearing them'.
The platform's answer was a fashion week with no fashion establishment: a runway built in a lived-in lane of Shanghai, models recruited from the community, and outfits chosen from REDlabel independent design brands sold on Xiaohongshu. The first edition, in Xinhua Road 345 in March 2023, kept the everyday details — rubbish bins were relabelled 'fashion waste', an unwanted door became 'fashion forbidden zone' — turning constraints into content.
Participation did the marketing. Red long-underwear invitations were photographed and remixed by users; 15,000 people applied to walk; and the day's accidental star was a shopping grandmother who became a runway model, inspiring the viral post 'My mum was dragged into a runway while buying groceries'. Users wrote 2,308 notes and the project reached roughly 280 million exposures.
By the third edition, in March 2024 at Shanghai's Yanqingli lane, the event had evolved into what the team called a three-year IP: no longer just 'fashion can be everyday' but 'fashion here can be bought', with a live watch-chat-buy stream linking the show directly to REDlabel commerce.
Why it lands
- Fashion content was already Xiaohongshu's strength, so a physical event could dramatise the platform's own community insight instead of importing a foreign format.
- Holding the show in a non-commercial, lived-in space broke the codes of exclusivity that made high fashion intimidating.
- Casting delivery poets, tailors, shoppers and one grandmother made 'everyone can be stylish' literally true rather than a slogan.
- Participants became seed communicators whose genuine posts outperformed paid influencer distribution, cutting media cost while raising trust.
- Adding commerce gradually — buyers as models in year two, live shopping in year three — let the IP earn permission to sell.
What it did
The first edition drew 2,308 user posts and about 280 million exposures, with project awareness of 31.3% — far above the previous Anfu Road campaign's 9.6%. Posts such as 'My mum was dragged into a runway while buying groceries' hit Weibo hot search, 13 media outlets covered the event, and one participating brand grew revenue tenfold during it. The work won a 2023 Digitaling Award gold in interactive scenes and silver in event marketing.
What you can take
To break a category's gatekeeping, change who holds the microphone: when the runway belongs to the buyers, their own posts distribute the show — and trust turns into commerce without discounts.
Since then
Xiaohongshu treated the event as a long-term, at least three-year IP tied to the spring and autumn fashion seasons. By its third edition the format had shifted from pure expression to live commerce, and the brand used each edition's lessons — from 'it spread' to 'it must also sell' — to evolve the platform's fashion e-commerce story.
Sources
- 小红书办了场「大家时装周」，一点都不正经 (Xiaohongshu held a not-so-serious Fashion Week for Everyone)
- 小红书再启「大家时装周」(Xiaohongshu relaunches Fashion Week for Everyone)
- 专访小红书×小TEAM，揭秘大家时装周的IP流量密码 (Interview: Xiaohongshu and Little Team on the IP's traffic code)
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