FEATURE : STOP THE CIRCUS...
We’ve seen it many times online, when focusing on social visibility alone, the onslaught of fever, frenzy and hype can easily turn into a curse to artistic integrity. Such is the case with Fashion Week. Over the years, it’s become the norm for influencers and anyone really to flaunt around in the latest drip in hopes to get a street shot taken and then be like, ‘been there, done that’. It’s one thing to evolve with the times, another to lose sight of why fashion weeks were initiated in the first place. Not that this has stopped industry insiders attending and getting the job done, buying and reporting on the latest collections. Just that, admittedly: the whole thing started to look more like a circus act. Until 2020 that is. Then, well... all bets are off.
Like most things worldwide, the ongoing lockdowns have stopped the fun of this fair altogether. Normally held a few days into the new year, the London 2021 men’s fall fashion week was delayed and had to join the roster of women’s fashion designers to hold a single, mixed-gender and digital edition. If traveling abroad has long been the way of doing business, now we see that this can all be done with the tap of a screen. But is interacting digitally enough to make up for the lack of a place to gather and link up? Or is it more of a makeshift substitute that’ll likely wear off as people get vaccinated? Or perhaps more aptly, do we want to go back to the way things were?
Given the above, had we lost the essence of what fashion week was all about? The short answer is yes, and the long answer is a bit more nuanced: Many seasoned industry veterans who have attended these cyclical market-based periods for years have become jaded by what it has become, and can often be heard pining for the days when business and art were the focus.
“At the heart of it is a shared passion for finely crafted clothing, and it’s the tactility of it that’s missing from most online content.”
To photographer Adam Katz Sinding, there’s a fine line between being at one with one’s peculiar, self-assured style and losing touch with it. “This doesn’t apply to everyone, but the occurrence itself did start to lose its authenticity when brands recognised the significance and impact that street style has, and would go about sending gifts to people with a considerable following who they would then dress for the Gram,” he tells us. “The analogy I continually draw is that ‘influencers’ are being dressed or expected to wear the clothes they’ve been provided, and are then being fed to the dogs— that’s us, the photographers.” To counter that, he decided to turn his focus to the attendees’ mundane, every day interactions to capture an air of genuineness in his photos.
Asked whether the digital format makes up for the community gathering place that’s fashion week, Katz Sinding asserts it doesn’t. “At the heart of it is a shared passion for finely crafted clothing, and it’s the tactility of it that’s missing from most online content.”
IMAGES BY ADAM KATZ SINDING
It’s a limitation that has affected a number of photographers and other key posts, too. From a buying perspective, there are some obvious constraints to not seeing the runway shows nor meeting the brand representatives in person. As Browns’ menswear buyer Lee Goldup points out, “It’s not the same as actually being there. I’d liken it to watching Glastonbury on telly.” He’s aware that brands are having a difficult time, and that “they’re doing their utmost to keep business going.” Despite the fabric swatches sent his way and the Zoom walkthroughs, he persists that “the way the clothes hang and fit, the textures you see and the way in which they’re worn definitely feels different when seeing it IRL.”
That said, Goldup nonetheless sees some positives coming out of this period of ongoing digitalisation. “Some of the shows we’ve seen in the past year have given an amazing new perspective of what a fashion show is all about,” he says. “Runways have been replaced more frequently by presentations held by some of the biggest names in fashion, which have historically been the medium of the younger designers.”
If we look at the goings-on elsewhere, in Paris, Virgil Abloh celebrated black excellence and otherness with his Louis Vuitton’s Fall-Winter 2021 menswear collection, giving space to, among others, wordsmith Saul Williams to recite a spoken piece. “Take down the walls. Deconstruct the narrative,” Williams stated. Likewise in London, the half Scottish half Jamaican designer Nicholas Daley once more celebrated his heritage and made a short film ode to avid martial arts enthusiast and key member of Bob Marley’s The Wailers Peter Tosh. Priya Ahluwalia’s short captured “the spirit of migration, brotherhood and unity”, she wrote in the post’s caption.
With more and more people working from home, Samuel Ross, designer of A-Cold-Wall, presented elevated loungewear pieces next to his signature asymmetrical, rather utilitarian take on menswear staples. So much so that the London designer showcased the collection under Milan’s schedule while he himself stayed in the UK because, well, Coronavirus. In the same spirit, Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons made long johns (yes, that base layer we wear on freezing days) the central focus of their first co-creatively directed Prada menswear collection.
The runway’s always been a reflection of the times and seemingly still is. But what’s become increasingly apparent as we see things move online is that it’s no longer enough for fashion weeks to keep happening merely for the sake of fashion-with-a-capital-F. Now, if the industry were to shift its focus away from the look of runway shows and campaigns and towards the actions taken at the internal level, there must be structural change. But practically speaking, it’s got to be tackled bit by bit. “Rather than firefighting problems and eroding the value of material and craftsmanship, we must go to the root of the issue,” Christopher Raeburn tells us.
CHRISTOPHER RAEBURN (LEFT) / MVP PARKA / RÆBURN RÆFOUND
Raeburn made his fashion week debut addressing issues of overproduction and excess consumption head-on, going back a decade or so — way before upcycling was a thing. Many times in past seasons he’s brought parachutes to the runway, making clothes from army-surplus fabrics and other deadstock as a means to reduce his and our dependence on newness.
To move towards an even more circular business model, Raeburn presented at last summer’s London Fashion Week Digital a capsule of unissued, never worn military surplus apparel which he defines this way: “A new provocation and systemic solution to our waste problem.” From the camo parkas and vests to the emergency poncho, each garment has been tagged with the brand’s logo, and that’s about it. Nonetheless the quality remains; after all, the clothes were intended for soldiers. “What could be more radical than doing nothing at all?,” reflects the designer.
When asked about whether the fashion week is something essential for designers to thrive, Raeburn stressed the positives. “Catwalks certainly gave me a platform that I needed as an emerging designer, and I still believe it is valuable to that end today,” he says. That said, the designer was forced, like everyone else, to digitally render his collections for the last few seasons (his just released SS21 collection was fully recreated on Clo3D in video game-like outfits). Be it physical or digital, the fashion presentation ultimately is, he says, “about providing more value for the community through an emotional, meaningful connection.”
Rather than solely focusing on what may be trending, another brand that aims to build meaningful links between people and their clothes is Last Pick. Through the process of design and storytelling, brothers Tayler and Koen Prince-Fraser's most recent collection broadens the scope of who’s normally seen and portrayed enjoying the great outdoors.
THE GREAT OUTDOORS CAPSULE / LAST PICK
“Making clothes isn’t good for the environment full stop,” claims Tayler. “But what we can do is to create products with a long lifespan, with the aim of reducing the need for further consumption of goods. We tie our design practice in with our storytelling, which ultimately focuses on topics pertinent to our lives and those close to us.”
To some brands outside of the fashion spectrum, such a sense of belonging to a community is the essence of what they’re all about. Case in point is running label Satisfy. The brand bases its product development efforts as well as its release calendar on and around the lifestyle of a runner, even if they are stocked in high-end retailers such as SSENSE, END. and MR PORTER, among others. Which results in a monthly series of drops that address something meaningful to the running crowd.
Among the drops that have been released so far, some highlighted fine artists, musicians, the use of psychedelics in the sphere of running and other equally open-minded views of what a runner’s like. “Sportswear giants constantly feed us on the narrative of performance, of running a marathon as fast as possible,” remarks Satisfy’s Brice Partouche, before concluding: “But runners are not only that.”
WINTER PACK / SATISFY
To explore that thought, he’s let Oslo-based creative and fervent endurance runner Patrick Stangbye be the central focus of one of the label’s winter releases. Inspired by his noteworthy layering game, the designer has made a 20-piece collection that featured, inter alia, a thermal base layer, tie-dyed and graphic tees, a packable windbreaker, all of which were shot on the Norwegian as he ran through a snow covered forest. “For many, running serves as both an escape and an inquiry, whereas, to me, it confirms my core values,” says Stangbye. “So when it comes to choosing an outfit, it’s just as important to bring my own touch to the trail, as it is to bring some of the things I learnt in nature into the office as well.”
What’s also worth noting is how committed those niche, passionate consumers become to what they buy. “Normally what I purchase is very considered in regards to my needs, and so I tend to truly wear things out. That might be a bit gritty, but I actually like it when something shows wear and character as it happens naturally,” Stangbye adds.
And so, if drops were initiated and popularised by the cult streetwear brand Supreme and has long been associated with anything that has to do with hype, be that red oreos or Travis Scott’s Quarter Pound; now, for a brand to follow its own agenda, it can help to “better adapt to the community one’s part of,” says Partouche. Same goes for those brands who speak to cycling, hiking, or other sport enthusiasts, to the skateboarding scene etc— their purpose is based on a collective interest over anything that may be superfluous.
Take Descente Allterrain, for example. Known for its technical expertise in outerwear, the brand’s collections focus solely on making functionality accessible and appealing. And when the label happens to collaborate, while the other party gets to bring their own expertise to the table — as any good collab should be — one thing remains steady: Descente won’t skimp on that commitment to functionality.
The project launched last year with cycling label Pas Normal Studios thoroughly portrays that. “What’s not widely known is we were one of the firsts, if not the first, outdoor-gear manufacturers to make cycling bib shorts,” says Descente Allterrain’s product manager Koki Ota. “We were already thinking of doing cycling clothes again. But when we met the Pas Normal Studios team, not only were we deeply moved by their understated, uncompromising designs, but we agreed with them right away that we should do something.”
PAS NORMAL STUDIOS X DESCENTE
Now that’s not to say that brands should drop one collection or collaboration after the other, more often than they had before. Only that when they do so there should be an emphasis on what matters most: their own expertise. On that subject, circular sneaker brand Roscomar thinks product releases should be guided by design upgrades rather than on seasonal trends. “Tons of new products are created for the sake of newness alone and that cannot continue if we want to live sustainably,” Roscomar founder & CEO Johan Olsson told us in an interview.
There’s no way around it: too much of the clothing that’s being produced ends up piling up in our closets and then in the landfills. As the circular economy-focused Ellen MacArthur Foundation pointed out, somewhere in the world, a truckload full of clothes is being discharged every second. Clearly, the best way out of this mess is to stop producing, to stop consuming like we do. And when we do shop, there must be an effort to keep and wear our clothes for longer than one season.
Fashion weeks’ priorities need a reset. We have to build a solid foundation, and drawing inspiration from the trade show format could be a good starting point. Trade shows have always been a chance for like-minded peers to collectively meet up and do business in a casual, cordial manner. If we look back at Pitti Uomo a month or two before the first lockdown hit, the I GO OUT expo brought together buyers, brands, and press who have a keen interest in the outdoors, so that everyone could chit-chat and see what’s going on in the field.
True to the brand’s ethos, South2 West8 founder and designer Kaname Nagaoka showed up to his booth with a tenkara rod, as if ready to go fly-fishing. “It seemed to have had an impact. We received a lot of buyer requests and media inquiries from overseas who were really into our unique style that interweaves fishing and fashion,” Nagaoka tells us. It’s given him the chance to let people touch an actual sample, to let them try it on, and to share his lifelong passion for the great outdoors of his native Hokkaido, Japan. “There’s joy in seeing the clothes in person and for us, it’s always great to hear feedback from others and share this moment of excitement with them,” he reflects.
That, right there, is the missing part of the switch to digital; a comment, a like, a DM won’t ever replace a good chat. Yet amid the uncertainty of when we’ll be able to get back together (technically, from June 21 in the UK), the brands that have one foot in, and one foot out of the realm of fashion are making considerable headway. Whether it’s Raeburn’s responsable designs; Last Pick’s inclusive storytelling; Satisfy’s community engagement; Descente’s honest & organic collaborations; Roscomar’s commitment to innovation; or South2 West8’s passion for the rivers of Hokkaido— each of these brands have proven that dedication to niche interests and finding solutions pays off. And that, whether it's presented during or outside the regular fashion calendar, attracts a following of its own, both online and in real life.
Fashion week’s relevance continues in that ultimately, it supports the ecosystem of big fashion houses and emerging designers alike, and those around them. But as we see it, what’s done outside that period can be just as unifying and enduring. So perhaps this is when a brand’s collection should be released: when it’s ready to come out, not rushed out to meet a tight seasonal calendar. This is because in this new era, it’s clear that there should be more to a collection than just “fashion”.
As for all the happenings surrounding them, the physical ones, it’s very unlikely they won’t ever happen again. If there’s one thing that everyone seems to be able to agree upon, it’s that the whole digital thing will never replace the experience of seeing the actual clothes and meeting people in person, the old way. More often than not, it’s actually those kinds of moments where we can meet and inspire one another that brings about what we’re all after— clothing and business that have some significance.