KCD And CAA Partner On A “Joint Venture” Called CAAxKCD

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — Fashion communications and events firm KCD and talent agency CAA are partnering for what they call a “joint venture” called CAAxKCD, in which the two will work together to create opportunities for their respective clients in the other’s universe. CAAxKCD will be led by KCD’s Rachna Shah, Jarrad Serafine-Clark and Laura Birbrower along with CAA’s Christian Carino, Josh Otten and Alex Varga.

Both firms have had experience in each other’s business, laying the foundation for the partnership.

As part of its entertainment business, KCD has worked on events like the Tony Awards, while CAA fashion division, launched only in 2019, has worked with designers like Prabal Gurung, Kerby Jean-Raymond, Tommy Hilfiger, and Tom Ford. Carino told BoF that while the two firms worked independently on the same projects in the past, they now have the opportunity to collaborate and broaden their reach by pooling resources and agreeing on which projects to pursue together.

“When we got into this business, we looked at KCD sort of as the vascular system of the fashion business, with a lot of their clients at the heart of the fashion business,” Carino said. “We just viewed it as a way to take our clients and plug them in… in a way that we could mutually build businesses for our respective and combined clients.”

For example, Shah said that many of KCD’s fashion clients (Alexander McQueen and Givenchy, among others) look for content opportunities — television shows, movies, podcasts — while the CAA team has a roster of writers, producers, and other content developers with whom it regularly works.

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Source: BoF