The world’s top brands are announcing their return to the runway
Fashion is back. Yesterday, Fendi announced its plan to reopen Milan Fashion Week this September (22-28th) with a full traditional catwalk show at their HQ in the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome on the 22nd. The show will host a limited guest list of the brand’s top guests and will be broadcast online for the general public.
The move follows Burberry’s announcement of a full outdoor show, complete with physical guests and high-spec digital broadcasting. Commenting on the logistics of the show, creative director Riccardo Tisci explained that the show on September 17th will be fully immersive, celebrating “the great British outdoors” but that it will be optimised for live consumption on social media.
By contrast the British Fashion Council maintains that London Fashion Week will continue to be a largely digital experience overall and encourages designers to exploit the online medium to create new touch points for the industry and consumer.
Over at Paris Fashion Week, LVMH-owned French powerhouse Dior has opted to continue with an indoor show for the brands “closest friends and family”. Nevertheless, digital streaming will be an important component, with creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri stating that “it will largely be performed for the cameras”.
As per the DDW report last month, Kering Group’s Saint Laurent and Gucci brands have both opted to walk away from the traditional fashion schedule by “going seasonless”, with Gucci’s eccentric creative director Alessandro Michele embracing the sustainability angle in fashion voicing his view that “clothes should have a longer life”.
Despite the seismic changes in the industry, to date NY, Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks have not followed London Fashion Week’s example by going fully digital but rather have opted to see how things go with the pandemic and how LFW truly fares with their online experiment.
Italian brands such as Fendi have certainly held the torch for optimism in the industry. This week’s performative Fendi Renaissance – Anima Mundi concert of Vivaldi’s L’Estate (Summer) from The Four Seasons by Italian-Romanian violinist Anna Tifu and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’s orchestra (one of the oldest musical institutions in the world) marked the Summer Solstice and showed the world that fashion is here to stay.
Today, Fendi continues its brand tour-de-force by releasing a teaser of their capsule collaboration with artist Joshua Vides – a much anticipated ready-to-wear collection. The pace and bravado of the Italian brand has uplifted many in the industry who have felt disenchanted with the pandemic’s crippling effects on the fashion industry. We hope it will continue to inspire others to rethink outside of the box and join the re-opening of fashion.
