It’s couture week, folks – and normally, that would mean the usual bevy of runway spectacles and journalists complaining of traffic in Paris (quel dommage). But as we know, that was in the Before Times. This is couture week during the pandemic. Even though stay-in-place orders have slackened in Europe, getting crowds together remains problematic, to say the least. That, combined with months of exile from the atelier, petit mains, and design teams has made both presenting and producing this couture season a bit of a head-scratcher.
Want to know more about haute couture (like, what the hell it is and why it matters)? Check out this post!
The silver lining in all this is, of course, that restrictions breed creativity. Designers have been forced to revisit old traditions, use technology to create new ones, or somewhere in-between. It’s not as if Fashion could just call this one off, after all. Creating doesn’t stop, even if we do; in fact, creation is all the more necessary in times of isolation and chaos.
And, as Tina Isaac-Goizé noted in her Ralph and Russo review, people “still want to get married, after all.” There’s nothing quite as deflating as such casual realism about the concerns of the one-percent. However – as I must remind myself – the very people who are concerned about their couture wedding dresses arriving in time for their nuptials are the ones, for lack of a better phrase, patronizing the art form. I imagine a small, few dozen Medicis scattered about the globe in ruby-studded face masks. But I digress.
How Are Designers Presenting Their Collections?
I should start by saying that some designers – Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli, for one – weren’t able to physically produce a collection due to the isolation orders. As we’ll see, happily, this doesn’t mean that design doesn’t take place. At Schiaparelli, Roseberry released 31 sketches along with a short film, zero mannequins or models involved. Eventually, these sketches will indeed be used to make client orders.
Roseberry isn’t the only one to release sketches in lieu of a presentation. Ralph and Russo supplemented their eight “in the flesh” offerings with 52 exquisite illustrations and a foray into artificial intelligence. Using a South Korean program, the brand used a computer model to present eight of their pieces, painstakingly digitizing every detail in three dimensions. A patchwork of presentation methods, to be sure, but a promising blend of past, present, and future.
Digital Haute Couture Week
The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode organized the first ever Digital Haute Couture Week, and participating designers “presented” their collections in video format this week. You can view all the presentations here. Some are a minute in length, some fifteen; some show zero of their collection, opting to announce a bigger, better presentation at a later date (eg, Valentino), others impressions of an illusory collections yet to come.
My personal favorites? Dior would have been at the top of the list, were it not for the lack of diversity in their film – absurd, given the brand’s continued progressive discourse. Viktor and Rolf, however, nailed it. They produced a concise, sincere, sincerely funny piece that truly speaks for itself. I’ve posted both videos below – let me know what you think!
So how are designers presenting? The best they can. It’s patchy, a bit scattered, but they’re making it work. Just like the rest of us.
Side Effects May Include Democratization
Now that there is no front row, everyone’s in the front row. There’s no gateway this time around, no agency sending invites or bouncers at the door. We see what all the fashion journalists see, although they have the benefit of conference calls with the designers, but nevermind that. It is, however unprecedented, an embodiment of Olivier Rousteing’s vision for making these events more accessible to the public (he spoke of that in Vogue’s Global Conversations).
Rousteing, the artistic director for Balmain, wants fashion to be consumed as art (sound familiar? like, every other sentence on this blog? haha). The public, he argues, should be entitled to see and enjoy high fashion as they would any other cultural treasure – and that’s something I can get on board with. So can he – literally. He literally got out couture archival gowns, put them on models, and sent them on a barge down the Seine for all of Paris to see.
Now, that’s the spirit.
What do you think of how designers are coping with COVID restrictions? Any favorites?
love,
Stig
Cover photo: Ralph and Russo Haute Couture 2020 via Vogue
Sources: Vogue Runway, WWD, and The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode
