What is Fashion Week?
Fashion Week is a vibrant global phenomenon featuring the newest innovations in fashion, exclusive parties, and celebrity sightings. The biannual event is held in fashion capitals around the world, and although the runway shows may be the backbone, it’s always about way more than the clothes. These buzzy events are where clothing designers serve up the styles that will influence the creative world for seasons to come. For content creators, video makers, and industry insiders, it’s also one of the biggest networking and business opportunities of the year.
Fashion Week is all about establishing and forecasting trends for the season ahead. Video creators, runway photographers, and fashion editors play a big role in how those stories are shared, and what (or who) becomes the next big thing.
Is Fashion Week really a week?
If you look at the CFDA’s (Council of Fashion Designers) calendar of dates, you will notice that important fashion-related events are happening all over the globe throughout the year.
The global, roving nature of Fashion Week is why folks in the industry refer to the big four consecutive Fashion Weeks as Fashion Month. If you are lucky enough to be able to fly out for an upcoming Fashion Week, here’s some dates to keep on your radar:
- London Fashion Week — June 12 – 15
- Milan Fashion Week — June 20 – 24
- Paris Menswear Fashion Week — June 24 – 29
- New York Fashion Week — Sept. 11 – 16
What is Fashion Week’s sound?
Fashion runway music is carefully selected to complement the looks as supermodels strut down the catwalk. Designers use music as a storytelling tool, helping set the mood and complement the pieces being showcased.
“The soundtrack for the show is everything,” Donatella Versace explains in a BTS video from the Fall-Winter 2025 Fashion Week. “It evokes the mood, inspires the models, and the audience.”
As a video creator, you should give the music used in your fashion videos the same level of attention. Fashion Week sounds like a combination of loud music, excited chatter, clinking glasses, and the rhythmic clicking of models walking down the runway in extremely high heels. Music at a runway fashion show elevates the experience and helps communicate the story of the collection. It should do the same in your Fashion Week videos.
Building a curated playlist
The tracks on Artlist’s curated Fashion Week playlist transport you to the feeling of being at a fashion show. These royalty-free songs are bold, high-energy, and confident — music that will move with the models and engage your viewers.
Inside the collection, you will find tracks with chic rhythms, uplifting beats, and chill lofi vibes.
Benefits of royalty-free music
Fashion designers often use well-known tracks in their shows, which includes a lengthy process of negotiating a licensing fee. Most creators probably can’t afford those same fees, and there is always a risk that the copyright holder can choose to deny you usage.
Using royalty-free music for your video projects offers a lot of benefits. Here are some of the biggest perks.
Simplifies the process: There’s no need to negotiate with record labels or artists for a usage fee.
Cost effective: Pricing for a royalty-free track is included in your Artlist subscription. No hidden fees, or need to pay royalties to the artist down the line.
Built-in legal protections: Using royalty-free music from one of Artlist’s curated playlists helps protect you legally. It also prevents video projects from being flagged by YouTube for copyright infringement.
Although there are many benefits to using royalty-free music, digging through royalty-free music sites can be cumbersome. Artlist’s curated Fashion Week playlist is a great place to get your search started.
Have a well-known song in mind? Artlist’s music discovery tool can help you see what sounds are trending around the globe and match big hits to royalty-free tracks within the catalog.
How to use music in your fashion videos
Picking music to complement the style of the video will strengthen your visual storytelling. Fashion Week videos can take many forms. Fashion Week catwalk videos are a given, but in recent years, other niche video styles have become popular too. Designers are often looking for lookbook videos, “get ready with me” promo videos, or content that captures the energy backstage.
We love how this pulsing electronica track complements this lookbook video showcasing the Sofia Steinberg 2024 collection.
‘City Lights’ from the Artlist Fashion Week playlist has stylistic similarities — the quick pacing of this track is well-suited for a fashion runway video.
This “get ready with me” video featuring Doja Cat getting ready for her first Met Gala has a more subdued, mellow track.
The track ‘Shaken, Not Stirred’ offers a similar low-key vibe, making it a great choice for a behind-the-scenes style video that also features dialogue.
Music is obviously a great tool for setting the pace of a video. If you are editing together a short social reel, that involves a lot of quick cuts and packing together a ton of footage from the day, opt for something that is fast-paced and upbeat. This will keep your viewer engaged.
The instrumental version of ‘My World’ has a positive groove and prominent beat drops that you can match your video cuts to.
A fashion video highlighting street style outside of the shows might be better suited with a lofi track, which gives the viewer more time to take in the scene away from the runway.
‘Forgotten Dreams’ has a sexy and cool vibe that would be well-suited for a street-style Fashion Week video that showcases the unique style of the Fashion Week host city.
Once you’ve found the perfect track to pair with your edit, experiment with cinematic transitions, bold color grading effects, or retiming bits of the footage for a more dramatic effect. Fashion-focused videos lend themselves particularly well to these creative choices. Artlist’s catalog has great templates and LUTs to get you started.
Closing look
Stay ahead of the next big trends with help from Artlist’s Fashion Week music collection. This curated playlist gives you access to high-quality royalty-free tracks without the headache of finding them, so you can focus on creating fashion-forward content.
Explore the Fashion Week collection now and get inspired for your next fashion video.
Did you find this article useful?
