Let's Reminisce How Fashion Amazed Us In The Midst Of A Pandemic
One of the questions that has lingered in our minds over the past few months is where the future of fashion might be heading in the ebb and flow of global uncertainties. With travel restrictions in place, the idea of holding and attending physical shows halfway across the world has been put on hold for now. However, that has not stopped the industry’s valiant efforts to bring us on exciting fashion escapes, albeit in the digital realm.
Back in March, Shanghai gave the world a first glimpse at what a digital fashion week might entail and offer experientially. The special Tmall Cloud Fashion Week drew over 150 brands and buyers to an online fashion-cum-e-commerce fest showcasing the Fall/Winter 2020 collections, accompanied by the livestreaming of “See Now, Buy Now” sales, makeover sessions and panel discussions to Tmall’s 800 million active users.
The first of its kind, Shanghai Fashion Week took on multiple digital formats, from a consumer-centric approach in partnership with Tmall to exclusive events organised by fashion incubator Labelhood, promoting rising designers with “cloud afterparties” thrown into the mix. Additionally, the off-schedule initiative by BOH Project on art and fashion presentation platform XCOMMONS curated a virtual runway that utilised AR and CG technology to create an immersive and 360° experience.
Then it was on to London Fashion Week’s menswear shows (LWFM) in June — demonstrating that while the fashion wheel may slow down, it never stops. In the city that has spawned some of the world’s most accomplished designers, thanks to elite establishment Central Saint Martins and other top design colleges, would we have expected any less than a stunning display of creativity? In the end, it was a multi-dimensional discourse that was simultaneously experimental and intimate.
With LFWM held at the height of the protests surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, it became a platform for political and cross-cultural statements, interwoven with fashion narratives, as seen at Charles Jeffrey Loverboy and Daniel W. Fletcher. Jeffrey’s digital show congregated diverse creatives, from dancer-choreographers to spoken poets to fashion designers, whose performances brought awareness to racial and gender issues.
Fellow London-based designer Bianca Saunders’ zine collaboration, which involved art, poetry and fashion, highlighted the blurred lines between the masculine-feminine sartorial aesthetic.
Meanwhile, Priya Ahluwalia’s presentation took the form of a digital 3D exhibition alongside her new photography book, Jalebi, offering an exploration of her mixed heritage and Punjabi roots, while also championing diversity and the struggle of immigrants.
A bold move by Osman Yousefzada saw a film, entitled Her Dreams are Bigger, give voice to Bangladeshi workers by recording their words as they imagined the white women that would buy the garments they made. Emphasising the urgency of social responsibility and sustainability, Marques' Almeida unveiled an entirely upcycled collection, ReM’Ade, aiming to right fashion’s wrongs through transparency and fair pay.
Springing a delightful surprise, Jonathan Anderson threw a whimsical and memorable “Show-in-a-Box” for the Spring 2021 men's and Resort 2021 women’s lines of his namesake label, sparking joy and optimism in dark times. He was filmed on video explaining the collections using the contents of the box, which was filled with lookbook photos, fabric swatches, pressed flowers, paper masks and motivation cards. This concept was repeated for Loewe with an extravagant box of objects that brought the collection to life, supplemented by a 24-hour festival on Instagram Live showing craftspeople and creatives around the world giving talks, demos and workshops.
As London’s menswear shows came to a close, next up on the calendar was the digital Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week in early July. Turning to Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone, who created a short surrealist film called Le Mythe Dior for Dior's Fall/Winter 2020 haute couture collection, Maria Grazia Chiuri took a leaf from Théâtre de la Mode, a 1945 exhibition of doll-like proportions in the aftermath of World War II, to showcase her collection on the same miniature scale.
Debuting a hybrid concept straddling IRL and virtual formats, Pierpaolo Piccioli's "phygital" Valentino haute couture show took the form of a dialogue, titled Of Grace and Light, between the designer and photographer Nick Knight. Staged in a pitch-dark Cinecittà set in Rome, and attended by a small audience of locals, the livestream experience of Piccioli's latest romantic fantasy was spliced in a video of Knight’s imaginative segment and a runway-cum-installation of the dreamy, all-white collection. In spite of the limitations imposed by the pandemic, these designers have found their own way of keeping the fashion dream alive via an artistic, theatrical or cinematic approach, among others.
Claiming the spotlight next were the big menswear players of Milan and Paris (MFWM and PFWM), who kept the momentum going with their Spring 2021 collections. Ahead of the official PFWM schedule, Hermès partnered with experimental director Cyril Teste of Collective MxM fame to deliver a minimalist production that seemed shot in a single take.
Prada's Multiple Views virtual showcase raised the bar with its modern art direction in a strong reminder of Miuccia Prada’s knack for storytelling. The back-to-basics Spring/Summer 2021 collection was revealed in five chapters conceived by five image-makers and artists: Terence Nance, Joanna Piotrowska, Martine Syms, Juergen Teller and Willy Vanderperre. Each created a distinct interpretation of the Prada man and woman, capturing a different facet of the collection in a dramatic transformation from purity to radicalism, simplicity to complexity.
In Kim Jones’ effort for Dior Men, art and fashion convened in a calm collection that was not short on uplifting prints and colours. A collaboration with Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo was juxtaposed with Dior’s craftsmanship, and told through a lookbook and a dreamy documentary. Virgil Abloh and his team, meanwhile, worked remotely to bring Louis Vuitton’s Spring/Summer 2021 collection to a real-life dockside presentation in Shanghai that was shown to local guests while being livestreamed to the rest of the world.
Also noteworthy was John Galliano in his filmmaking endeavour for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection — a part documentary, part reality show of the whole making-of process, which made for insightful and stimulating viewing. Olivier Rousteing, meanwhile, took a mix of new and archival Balmain designs on a cruise down the Seine to celebrate the Maison’s 75th anniversary. Enlisting the help of various luminaries, from Beyoncé’s art director Andrew Makadsi to choreographer Jean-Charles Jousni, the show was streamed on TikTok to audiences across the globe.
The Cruise season, usually held in far-flung corners of the world, saw most shows either cancelled or postponed, such as Prada in Japan, Giorgio Armani in Dubai, Max Mara in St. Petersburg, and Versace and Gucci in the USA — with the exception of Dior, who went ahead with its original plans, livestreaming the Cruise 2021 production in Lecce with a small physical audience of models, locals and a handful of clients.
Having announced in May that Gucci would be going seasonless with just two co-ed shows every year, creative director Alessandro Michele unveiled his men's and women's Epilogue collection on the last day of Milan Digital Fashion Week, in lieu of a traditional Resort 2021 show. The finale in a trilogy dedicated to a behind-the-scenes look at the multi-layered ritual of putting together a fashion show, the Epilogue narrative was livestreamed over the course of 12 hours. Staged in Rome’s Renaissance-era Palazzo Sacchetti, the looks were modelled by Michele’s team of designers and revealed in a presentation that felt authentic with a welcome dose of Michele idiosyncracy.
In London, Burberry jumped on the bandwagon of getting its design team to model its Resort collection — the effect was fresh and appealing, emanating a sense of warmth and community.
Delivering virtual experience after virtual experience, fashion’s tour de force pushed ahead with novel ways to communicate within a rapidly reconfigured world. The digital space and its communication tools are definitely here to stay, and it’s only a matter of time until brands and their followers become acclimatised to the eclectic ways in which fashion can be presented, besides straight up and down a runway or a frolic in front of the camera.
Using various platforms to broadcast fashion, such as podcasts, documentaries conceptual videos, short films, animation, CGI, performance art and more, we can look forward to a flourishing of creativity, along with a renewed power to inspire, empower and attract.
What the last few months have shown is that the fashion industry has the capacity to change, reset and regenerate — for the better, giving birth to a new chapter that is hopefully kinder, more inclusive and sustainable, without losing its magic and wonderment. Jonathan Anderson captured it succinctly with the printed cards in his “Show-in-Box”, which read, “The future is unwritten” and “The end is the beginning”.
