'Fashion has moved beyond the ramp'

Mumbai:On a busy weekend at the Great India Place mall in Delhi suburb Noida, time stood still as 100 people dressed in Allen Solly’s new range of casual clothing froze for seven whole minutes as passers-by gawked, poked and prodded the models to see if they were, in fact, real.

Show stoppers: Apparel brand Allen Solly got 100 live models to stand still at Noida’s Great India Place mall, taking shoppers by surprise.

The human mannequins were hired by the apparel brand to showcase its new collection in a disruptive way that would dovetail with the brand’s “I Hate Ugly” ad campaign on mass media.

“It was (a) great idea for visual merchandising. All these smartly dressed models just froze in the middle of whatever they were doing at the mall. Whether it was drinking coffee, applying make-up, talking on the phone or walking. So shoppers were a little startled at first, but figured things out when they saw the Allen Solly tags,” said Vinod Vijaykumar, general manager (south and west) of Tequila, part of TBWA Group.

The flash mob strategy allowed the brand to showcase 100 different garment pieces at the same time, he added. “Something you can’t even do at a fashion show.”