These are the new post-pandemic fashion shows
Runways are an essential ingredient for the fashion industry structure. Runways serve as the main communication channel between the designer and the buyer. Since the first Paris Fashion Week in 1973, twice a year the fashion industry travels around the globe from New York to London, to Milan, and finally to Paris to see the new collections of our beloved brands. But of course this year it was different. The format and structure of runways has barely changed over the years. Even though we have seen examples of runways that try to break the stereotypes (Martin Margiela for example), the shows showcased at Fashion Week have remained pretty stale over the years. Apart from live music, or dancers, or an interesting location, the showcase format has remained the same. Models walking down a runway. People sitting down, watching, and taking photos. That was basically it.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects the global fashion industry as governments close down manufacturing plants, and through store closures, and event cancellations to slow the spread of the virus. The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on fashion brands worldwide. At the same time, the fashion industry faces challenges in consumer demand. Fashion brands had to reinvent themselves to continue to work in this new era that we are facing. Fashion Week are events that bring together hundreds of people in close spaces, a thing that is now illegal due to different government sanitary regulations; so they had to reinvent the runway format in order to continue working as they have had, but in this new post-pandemic era we are going through.
Let’s start with GCDS. They are a streetwear brand from Milan, and nothing they do is ordinary. Days before the runway, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw a post by GCDS’ designer Giuliano Calza saying that the runway was not going to be physical but streamed on his website. On the day of the show, I found myself watching some kind of cartoon. A virtual animation in some kind of epic post-apocalyptic world in which these 3D characters were walking around this runway wearing the new GCDS collection. All computer-animated. Not one physical person was shown in the live stream. My favorite part was seeing a 3D model of designer Giuliano Calza walking down the runway at the end thanking the viewers. Also part of Milano Fashion Week, historic brand Moschino made a beautiful job. A puppet show. A bloody puppet show. They made small figurines, made small costumes of the new Moschino collection for these small figurines. And made them walk the runway. The degree of detail of the clothes was something that amazed me. You could really get the idea of the clothes in their miniature version. Last but not least, Balenciaga. Remember those old music videos in which the title and artist appeared in the lower-left corner? Well, that’s how the Balenciaga pre-SS 21 starts, and then we have the models walking around Paris at night, with excellent transitions and a song titled ‘sunglasses at night’ that perfectly conveys the Balenciaga mood.
Even though the pandemic had a disastrous effect on sales and the stock prices of major fashion houses, it sure helped for the same brands to rethink their creative outputs and to turn around the idea of a Fashion show and make the most out of this new ‘socially-distanced’ era that we are now part of.
