Life After Project Runway -- on the Web

Each season, 15 designers compete for the chance to showcase their designs at New York's Fashion Week and to win $100,000 to fund their businesses. The competition takes place on the Emmy-winning Project Runway, a reality show all about discovering the next great American fashion designer.

For its contestants, the show means exposure, if not always the prize money or thrill of being on TV. “Exposure is really one of the most critical elements in getting a company off the ground,” explains Victorya Hong, a Season Four designer who managed to launch her label, na.be, at New York Fashion Week, the same week her elimination episode aired. For Season Two finalist, Daniel Vosovic, the reality of having made a name on the show opened up opportunities that just aren’t available to his more qualified, but less famous friends, many of whom have had trouble landing jobs. For example, he recently launched a line of uniforms and handbags for NYLO Hotel, all before ever designing a collection under his own name.

While the show’s popularity proves the designers’ potential, it can only go so far in turning unknowns into household names. Whether that name recognition translates into sales and a viable business is anybody’s guess, but determined alums like Zulema Griffin, Kendra Francis, Kit Pistol, Vosovic and Hong are not leaving their careers to chance. In fact, they have found creative uses of Web 2.0 technologies to build on their hard-earned fame.

"My mother taught us to fight through adversity, to never give up," says Griffin. The Season Two designer's mom suddenly passed away in late December, just as Griffin was preparing for her February runway show. She knew she had to find a way to show her collection despite her loss.

With just two-and-a-half weeks and hardly any money left after her mother's funeral, Griffin turned to the Web. Using her wife's film industry connections and her sister's tech know-how, she took her fashion show online.

The show, a polished and politically charged video entitled, Revelations, was created as low-budget as one can go. "It should have cost $5,000 to make -- in fact, that was the budget -- but we managed to do it for $200," she says. She saved by sourcing experienced African-American models through Craigslist and ModelMayhem. Fortunately, the models were willing to work just for the exposure. She was also able to call in favors for the post-production work on the video.

As a marketing strategy, Griffin cross-promoted the clip on social media sites, like YouTube and MySpace as well as her personal website. The show was also posted to relevant fashion and Runway fan blogs, receiving kudos for finding a new method for bringing a runway show to the masses.

Griffin's innovative idea also caught the attention of merchandisers, who like to see collections up close. She's now putting together a viewing for those merchandisers to turn interest into sales. "It's about breaking through the clutter. As long as the online fashion show complements a more traditional showing, and the video quality reflects the target retailer's values, doing so could only help emerging designers," Says Alice Demirjian, the director of fashion marketing at Parsons The New School for Design.

Since ditching MySpace for Facebook, Francis, a designer from the premiere season of Project Runway Canada, hasn’t looked back. Between selling out her spring samples in 15 minutes and meeting both her photographer and makeup artist for her Spring 2008 collection online, she has found the social networking site indispensable for her business. “It’s so easy to use. I’ve created a group and everyone from fans, friends, and models has been reaching out to me," she says. The designer also discovered the promotional benefits of Facebook, “Whenever I have an event, I just post it on my page and everyone connected to my group receives an e-mail about it. I can reach so many people so quickly,” Francis adds.

She even sold out her samples from last year on the networking site. "I wanted to get rid of my spring 2007 samples last year so I put them on Facebook's Marketplace. They were gone in 15 minutes," she recalls.