It was the most-hyped fashion season in recent memory. A historic reordering of creative power led to a runway schedule packed with buzzy designer debuts. Most of these people, as far as I know, already had high-profile fashion jobs, either as creative directors or at the heads of giant houses steering the most visible and talked-about collections. But now they all had new jobs, at different houses, with different “codes,” and the potential to change our lives forever.
So, did they?
The hyperbole — “seismic change,” “tectonic shift” — would certainly have us believe it. Finally, there was something to talk about in luxury fashion, and the editors, critics and commentators who live for this stuff did not miss the opportunity to talk about it. But the sheer magnitude of change was too much to handle: Dior, Balenciaga, Gucci, Jil Sander, Loewe, Tom Ford, Margiela, Versace, Celine… In the end, none of the obsessive chatter matched reality. How could it?
Of course, one season never tells the whole story. A first collection is a statement, a place setting. That’s what I hear people saying: Let’s see what they do next. Let’s see how these collections sell. Let’s see how they’re merchandized. Let’s see if Demna can turn Gucci around for Kering. Inevitably, we end up discussing the business instead of the clothes.
This I find very telling. Almost every conversation about the merits of a collection or designer's chops turns into a conversation about the market. In no other form of cultural criticism or commentary is this the case. When people talk about movies they talk about the actors’ performances. When they talk about albums they talk about the songs. A film critic might mention box office sales and a music critic might talk about streams or ticket sales, but not as a way of processing and analyzing the actual work. A show or a collection can be great conceptually but flop commercially. So does that make it a success or a failure?
The obvious answer is both. We want a healthy fashion ecosystem that’s thriving creatively and financially. We want big, beautiful stores full of big, beautiful clothes that get worn by big, beautiful celebrities. Right? Sure, but actually what people seem to want is consensus. We want a designer to set into motion an aesthetic movement on which we can all agree. That will change culture and be tremendously financially successful — the way Demna did during his golden years at Balenciaga. We want the satisfaction of identifying a success, bearing witness to it, and then eagerly anticipating what comes next.
We want to root for the winners and shame the losers. Fashion is a lot like sports in this way. You cheer for your team, for your favorite player, and hope for a winning season. For some of us, Michael Rider going to Celine is like the Giants getting a new quarterback. Finally, we think, our time has come.
Perhaps the change we all want has nothing to do with fashion in the first place. I got the feeling that some of us were projecting our desire for change onto these titans of industry. If we don’t like who sits in the White House, at least we can agree on who sits in the House of Chanel.
I say all of this as someone who truly loves clothes. I think I might love them more than many people who have much stronger opinions about what’s happening in fashion. I thought some of the splashy debuts were great, especially at Versace, Jil Sander and Chanel. But as the giant planetary orbs return to their orbits and the dust settles, what’s more apparent than ever is that none of it matters. I don’t mean that in a nihilistic way. I just mean that fashion’s ability to meaningfully change our lives is at an all-time low. This is a good thing. This is freedom.
One counterintuitive result of fashion’s rapid ascension into the mass cultural conversation over the past ten years is that clothes have gotten better. Not necessarily across the board, but access to beautifully, humanely made clothing is at an all-time high. The good clothes paradigm has been established and proven. Unfortunately, there are no watch parties for me buying new pants. But there are lots of people like me who love good clothes, who are discerning and intentional, and who don’t see their values reflected on Paris runways.
So, unsurprisingly, the most-hyped fashion week(s) in history came and went, and nothing changed. There will be winners and there will be losers, and it will be exciting to watch those stories develop, but the most exciting part is the realization that corporate luxury fashion is a game. Shopping for pants is real life.
