NAT GEO PRESENTS: ‘FIT FOR A QUEEN (NYFW Activation)

EXPERIENTIAL DESIGN | FABRICATION | HOLOGRAPHIC DESIGN | A/V MANAGEMENT | EVENT PRODUCTION

The Challenge

Nat Geo tapped Pop’N to bolster awareness and anticipation surrounding their upcoming series QUEENS, a series highlighting the matriarchs and female leaders around the world and their stories of sacrifice, resilience, friendship and love. The goal?  Disrupt the natural history genre and reach diverse audiences.

To do so, we curated a legendary experience that disrupted their brand perception and led them into the wild side with an NYFW takeover. This NYFW takeover allowed the series to shine at the epicenter of an industry filled with the perfect blend of their target audience, along with the shared narrative of men being praised for the work that women create. 

The Approach

In the essence of disrupting industries, Pop’N created an immersive fashion show that emphasized the parallels of the QUEENS matriarchs and women disrupting male-led spaces, i.e fashion. To bring this to life, we infused holographic technology to transfer “real” animal matriarchs, contemporary dance performances, environmental soundscapes and dynamic visuals into our fashion presentation.

We cultivated this event to highlight QUEENS as Nat Geo’s contribution to the movement of unstoppable women and position ‘Fit for a Queen as Nat Geo’s shake-up event to disrupt old brand notions and celebrate women everywhere.

We intentionally selected show references to design lifesize holographic animals that replicated the texture and movement portrayed in the series. Professional dancers, including Alicia Graf Mack (Dean & Director, Dance Division of Juliard), were weaved into the casting to infuse animalistic movements into the runway experience. With Raymond Pinto as our movement artist and choreographer, the choreography helped to translate the animal journey from birth to becoming queens of their Queendom.

Rising fashion star Sakinah Bashir styled a wardrobe selection intentionally curated to represent the series’ animals and their respective environments. Bold patterns, sculptural silhouettes and illuminating textures adorned our models and dancers.

We worked closely with prominent female designers including JÊBLANC, Sergio Hudson, Theophilio, Bohn Jsell and more. 

Within the venue, we created an experience of immersion into the show’s environments through looping series clips on an LED wall and columns.  Panning shots that swept through lush greenery, deep blue oceans and intricate geographical patterns served as backdrops for each act.

The celebration continued off the runway as guests enjoyed passed apps and cocktails powered by Kahawa 1893 Coffee and The Mcbride Sisters Wine Co. Guests mixed, mingled and posed in nature-inspired photo environments as DJ Dede Lovelace kept the tunes going!

Pop’N created a robust invite list that included 261 influentials in fashion, culture and film, along with the series’ filmmakers. With 30+ press hits resulting in over 628,000 views and over 71.4K social accounts reached, we generated buzz pre- and post-show to drive anticipation towards the Queens premiere!

This activation also was selected for the highly-coveted Cannes Lions Shortlist in 2024. Only 10% of the 27,000 Cannes Lions entries were shortlisted, and we were ecstatic to be one of the few!