Fashion Runway

Would you rather walk the catwalk or walk the runway? They are the same walk. A fashion runway — also called a catwalk or ramp — is a narrow, usually flat platform that runs into an auditorium or between sections of an outdoor seating area, used by models to demonstrate clothing, footwear and accessories during a fashion show.

The Platform and the Show

A runway can be as basic as a narrow space between rows of chairs or extremely elaborate, and some runway fashion shows are set up with multiple catwalks. The majority of runway shows take place inside, sheltered against the possibility of poor weather — although some fashion designers are adventurous and risk the wrath of Mother Nature outdoors.

In a typical fashion show, models walk the catwalk dressed in the clothing created by the designer. The clothing is illuminated on the runway using various forms of lighting and special effects, and the order in which each model walks out wearing a specific outfit is usually planned according to the statement the designer wants to make about the collection — the running order is an argument, not a queue.

Runway Shows in the Fashion Calendar

A fashion show — in French, défilé de mode — is an event put on by a fashion designer to showcase an upcoming line of clothing and accessories, and a fashion week is the industry event, lasting approximately one week, in which designers, brands and houses display their latest collections in runway shows to buyers and the media. Runway designers, the selection of models for runway shows, and runway fashion news each have their own coverage linked from this page.

Some designers have attempted to modernise the style and presentation of fashion shows by integrating technological advances in experimental ways — screens, film, livestreams and digital sets layered onto the walk itself. The neighbouring summaries on fashion models, fashion stylists and fashion photographers cover the other professions a runway show assembles, and the fashion show summary treats the event as a whole.

Runway Formats Old and New

The runway's variations follow the audience. A trade show catwalk performs for buyers at close range, with garments explained as they pass; a couture presentation performs for cameras, with distance, lighting and music doing the persuading; a shopping-centre runway performs for the public, trading exclusivity for immediacy. Seating is a language of its own — the front row announces who matters to a house, which is why runway photographs are read for their audiences as carefully as for their clothes. The technology experiments now layering onto shows — livestreams that put the front row on every phone, digital models, see-now-buy-now formats that sell the collection the same evening — all attack the same historical constraint: a runway was once a room that held a few hundred people, for twenty minutes, twice a year. The platform has survived every change so far by being simple: a line to walk, clothes to walk in, and eyes arranged along it.