Whitney Port asks fans to fund her fashion show

TV personality-turned-fashion designer Whitney Port, best known as one of the stars of MTV’s reality shows The Hills and The City, has made an appeal to her fans so that she can stage her Whitney Eve catwalk show during New York Fashion Week.

In a video appeal, entitled ‘Road to Runway’, Port appeals for 50,000 Dollars to help her produce the “first fan-supported runway show” by asking for her fans to pay for the venue, make-up artists, models, production and publicity costs in order to stage her show at Manhattan's Lincoln Center.

Port, who is thought to be worth 3.5 million Dollars, launched her mid-price label in 2008 and held her debut catwalk show at New York Fashion Week last season says in the video:  "I'm doing something that's never been done before - the first-ever fan-supported fashion show at fashion week in New York. That means I'm asking you, the friends and fans who've made everything I do possible, to join the crowd-funding campaign."

To entice fans to donate, Port has listed a number of “perks” for contributing, for example five Dollars will get you a personalised thank you tweet, fifty Dollars will let you be one of the first to “rock” a piece from the Whitney Eve spring 2013 line, and the first five donors to give 250 Dollars will get a visit to the New York headquarters in the run up to the show for a behind-the-scenes tour. With other incentives including gift cards, bracelets, makeovers and Port even hints that one lucky donor will win a front row seat at the show.

It isn’t unheard of for small fashion labels to need a cash injection ahead of fashion week, most however look to corporate sponsorship deals, opting for “crowd-funding” is an unconventional approach but in Port’s mission statement she adds that this process allows her to share her art in a way that “educates and involves her fans” and allows them “to be an integral part of the process”.

With 35 days left of the ‘fix-funded’ campaign on Indiegogo it seems Port’s fans aren’t too concerned with her fashion label as she has only raised 3,103 Dollars. The current Britain’s Next Top Model judge will only receive her needed campaign funds if she hits her 50,000 Dollar goal by September 10.