What is the fashion show for?

The fashion show

To address this topic, I think it is necessary to start from some essential premises to understand the function of the Fashion Show in the era we are living in.

First of all, it is important to understand the meaning of two terms that encapsulate the great world of fashion: Haute Couture and Prêt-à-porter.

L’Haute Couture, sinonimo di sartorialità, exclusivity, elegance and luxuryIt could be said to have originated in 1857, the year in which an English couturier, Charles Frédéric Worth, opened his atelier in Paris, revolutionising the purely executive work of the tailor (he who makes garments according to the demands of his customers) by creating for the first time unprecedented models in complete expressive autonomy. The customers were therefore limited to choosing from a series of predefined proposals, which were then tailor-made by the aforementioned couturier. Today, haute couture creates original and unique clothes, which are often true one-offs, designed more as a showcase for the designer than as items to be mass-produced.

The Prêt-à-porter It was born much later and we could date it back to the 1960s/70s when, first in France, in Paris, and then in Italy where many well-known fashion designers made Milan the international capital of prêt-à-porter’, i.e. a collection that follows standard rules and mass production rules and concerns a fashion that is, as the word itself says, ready-to-wear. It therefore focuses on more or less practical garments designed for everyday style, without neglecting exclusivity and fashion sophistication. Obviously, today, the two expressions of fashion coexist.

The Parade

The fashion show, which can be collective (comprising several designers or brands) or single (a single designer or brand), originates as the presentation of a new seasonal collection and serves to show buyers, shop owners and the international trade press, who are entrusted with the task of putting together all the shows and extrapolating the season’s trends, new proposals and new models. The fashion shows of haute couture garments, true works of art, are reserved for a very restricted clientele and are mainly used by brands to maintain a luxury image worldwide. The prêt-à-porter shows are characterised by larger collections, which are then distributed in the shops, and are aimed at a broader clientele. Therefore, it is still today one of the most powerful promotional tools of the fashion system, increasingly infected by the mechanisms of spectacularisation, acquiring the character of entertainment and grandiose event coveted by most. Attendance, especially sitting in the front row, was perceived not only as the best place from which to view the collections, but also as a status symbol. In fact, especially since the 1980s and 1990s, fashion shows have been radically transformed and have become a spectacle, a public event followed by the media and attended by many people: stars, actresses, businessmen, journalists, blogger and influencer (also live streaming, with the advent of the Internet), where the top model were as famous and prominent at the event as the names of the most well-known and established fashion designers. Music, theatricality, alternative locations and stage effects are some of the ingredients that still continue to amaze and fascinate audiences today.

The evolution of the parade today

After the period of euphoria of the fabulous 1980s and 1990s, economic and social changes and the extraordinary technological development (the Internet has also had a huge impact on the fashion industry, allowing live online broadcasting of fashion shows, resulting in an instant international audience and unprecedented access to the fashion world), have diminished the grandiosity of the fashion show event. In fact, those exclusive events reserved for a restricted circle of spectators have gradually become democratised thanks to the web and especially social networks. Today, fashion shows can be followed more through the lens of a mobile phone than in presence. There are now many influencers, bloggers, and users of all kinds who film, even live, and photograph the most beautiful looks and then instantly share them on their own channels. However, it seems that there is not much new under the sun; trends are repeated almost the same on every occasion and, in the end, the fashion show, especially for the big brands and fashion designers, becomes an event that keeps the attention on a griffewhich in this way can show itself to the public in a spectacular way.

Today, the most important parades take place during the so-called ‘fashion week“(to which I would like to devote more space in another blog), organised four times a year in order to present the new autumn/winter and spring/summer collections for both women’s and men’s wear to the various players in the system.

At this point, the question arises as to why the fashion show event retains, albeit in a different way for each fashion designer, its function. To answer this, it is necessary to go back and analyse who the actors are today and what benefit each of them derives from it.

As a result of social, market, production and distribution changes, which have also occurred in the fashion world in recent decades, some creative professionals have changed their role or diversified it.

In the past (as already written) there were the couturiers who offered their customers predefined models to be made to measure (the Haute Couture). Just think of the great artisan tailors of the Sorelle Fontana, or Pucci, or Versace, or Gianfranco Ferrè and many others, just to name a few of the Italian ones.

Haute couture today creates clothes that are unique pieces, designed more as a showcase for the designer than as elements to be mass-produced: pure stylistic exercise for its own sake and, sometimes, merely self-celebratory.

With the advent of prêt-à-porter, many fashion designers and creators had to diversify and started to create collections for mass production. The fashion designer, the creative figure of excellence who imagines, designs and plans fashion collections and complete outfits, has become an industrial entrepreneur.

Fashion designers study trends, select colours and materials, invent, design, supervise final production, inspire communication campaigns and fashion show concepts, i.e. the moment of maximum visibility for a luxury brand.

The figure of the couturier, however, survives with artisan tailors, bearers of those values that refer to the application of sustainable product life cycles. With them, thehaute couture tailoring comes back to the fore and becomes a protagonist by recovering ancient techniques in the wake of the best Italian sartorial tradition, creating and offering customers unique, exclusive and long-lasting garments. Their role takes on social and economic importance in this evolutionary process, innovating with a different culture that also addresses the environment, with a call for sustainability and a return to quality, especially that of innovative fabrics and yarns because they are less polluting and more durable.

In conclusion, fashion shows are still necessary for all fashion creators: for designers and big brands to attract attention, especially from buyers for luxury mass production and for artisan tailors to launch new ideas and attract more customers to their ateliers who want a dress made exclusive, high-quality, long-lasting and environmentally friendly bespoke: a small personal luxury, a must for all connoisseurs of elegance.