From 5-star stays to first-class flights, American Express card members are used to being rewarded when they travel. With borders reopening, and travel restrictions starting to ease, we saw the perfect opportunity to reignite their wanderlust and welcome American Express card members back to the skies as part of AMEX’s first ever Membership Week, a celebration of card members across its social channels. 

We set about creating an exclusive, high-end travel wear collection that was comfy enough for the layover, but smart enough for the lounge in partnership with Quincy Moore, the cofounder and creative director of small business New York or Nowhere. And, we did it all in 2 weeks.

Inspired by the golden age of travel, Quincy combined classic AMEX iconography with a little New York history to create the IDLEWILD collection, a reference to the original name for JFK.

We turned over the keys to AMEX's Instagram account to Quincy, where he announced an exclusive opportunity for followers, inviting their members into the decision making and design process in the spirit of collaboration. Every piece of the collection would feature an element of co-creation, and thousands weighed in on social media. 

With a deadline of only 2 weeks, Quincy and his team of local craftspeople worked to turn the thousands of replies into a complete collection. Along the way, we created a series of stories with Quincy showing how card members were shaping the collection through their engagement.

With the IDLEWILD collection completed, we took to the streets of SoHo to debut the final results live on Instagram. Card members had just 48 hours, and they didn’t need to be told twice, selling out the entire collection in a fraction of the time. 

AMEX’s first ever, live social event was a resounding success, with a 23% increase in positive sentiment for the brand and a 142% increase in sales for New York or Nowhere. IDLEWILD took 300 hours to create, and sold out in less than 48, bringing a whole new meaning to "fast fashion" and showing that life is better #withamex. The first Membership Week showed what American Express, small businesses and card members can achieve when they work together, and all done at the speed of social.