According to Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico human history goes through stages that are connected one to the other and that generate a sort of cyclical pattern of corsi and ricorsi. Society passes through a specific stage that expresses itself through art, literature, language and politics, until that cycle concludes and eventually starts again.
Though Vico didn't write about fashion, what he said could be perfectly applied to this field. Fashion follows cyclical patterns: wear a 50s frock to a party taking place tonight and you’ll be deemed trendy; assemble a look with random bits and pieces from the 80s-90s and you’ll be absolutely in.
I wasn't aware of it, but American Vogue editor Anna Wintour must be a fan of Giambattista Vico's theories and must absolutely love cyclical patterns, indeed she seems to have the interesting habit of repeating her most annoying behaviours every six months.
People who follow everything that concerns fashion and not just the catwalk shows or the latest trends may remember how, in 2005, she asked the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (Italian Chamber of Fashion) to shorten the Milan fashion catwalk calendar for the womenswear collections to only four days.
At the time she used a rather noble excuse: she was just trying to save time and money to buyers and journalists (I never thought the word ‘save’ could be contemplated in the personal dictionaries of any people connected with fashion at such high levels…).
The Chamber refused, but Wintour the stubborn goat didn’t desist and prepared a direct attack: she contacted the main designers and kindly "suggested" them to move their catwalk shows to the more central days of the event. In case this change hadn't been possible, she or her journalists wouldn’t have been able to take part in the events.
Italian slaves – oh, sorry – designers, scared about losing her support, obviously obeyed the master and what followed was a honest mess, with calendar changes that drove many journalists up a wall.
But it wasn't over. For a short while a truce was declared, at least until the “Yom Kippur War”. Despite sounding like something Biblical, this war doesn’t have anything to do with religion, but it marks the umpteenth war in Milan’s fashion calendar.
Last season’s fashion week, taking place from 23rd to 30th September 2009 coincided with the Yom Kippur celebrations (28th Sept). Apparently lots of buyers and journalists wouldn’t have worked on such a day even though it usually coincides either with the Milan or Paris catwalk shows.
The sad truth was that Anna Wintour wouldn’t have been there, so, after blaming the Italian Fashion Chamber for not remembering the date, designers proceeded to reschedule their shows. It started with Dolce & Gabbana who first ended up coinciding with Cavalli’s show, but then proceeded to quarrel with Krizia and continued with Fendi coinciding with Mariella Burani and other assorted chaotic events.
A few months have passed and Wintour is back on her war path: she recently announced she will stop in Milan only for three days (26-28th February), which means that whoever showcases their collection on 24th-25th February or 1st-2nd March is an utter loser, because SHE won't be there. The news have obviously triggered another war, with Dolce & Gabbana repositioning themselves, followed by Prada, Giorgio Armani, Fendi and so on.
Now, yes, we all know Wintour is terribly powerful; we all know that, in times of crisis, designers are even more desperate for attention and if they were given guns to defend their catwalk show slots they would probably use them; we all know that Milan Fashion Week has turned into a terribly boring event with a few fossils lacking any kind of originality insisting on stating they exist; we all know that Wintour's strategy is studied to turn the attention away from Italy (and often from the few production infrastructures the country still has) and focus it on young, hip and cool American designers. Yet this situation is simply impossible to stand.
Yes, the excitement has gone in Milan: I spoke to a few foreign journalists from different magazines at Florence’s Pitti who confirmed me there was almost no interest in going to see Milan's shows, but this is getting ridiculous.
Why has Milan turned into such the Cinderella of the fashion capitals? Many reasons: too many established designers don't seem to have a clue about the new market forces; young creatives and designers are still seen by many people in the fashion business as suspicious and dangerous anarchists; mediocre press agents used for years a power they shouldn't have been given in the first place (writing demented press releases that cause the hilarity of the foreign press…); the Italian Fashion Chamber opened the Milan calendar to brands that shouldn't be allowed to organise any catwalk shows, because they are completely irrelevant and, in many cases (see lingerie line by banal and vapid "actress" Valeria Marini) a total embarrassment.
The list of sins committed by the Italian Fashion Chamber and Italian designers is, and that's undeniable, extremely long, what's worst is that they are not doing anything to save what could be saved.
In fact, while Anna Wintour, should honestly piss off, the Italian Fashion Chamber and the local designers should take example from ancient Roman warfare strategies and form a testudo or tortoise formation, that is get together and fight back with a new and innovative plan.
You threaten us you won't come to see us and suggest to change the fashion calendar? No problem, we will invite a trendy underage blogger and pamper her/him (it will be even cheaper, hurray!) and open the catwalk shows to ordinary people (who will talk for a longer time about us and eventually buy our designs). You won’t advertise us? Well, you’re not eternal and probably you will lose your job before we will lose ours, after all the printed matter market is a huge Titanic sailing in very dangerous waters.
Yet this is not happening because Italian designers aren’t united like their French cousins (Wintour tried the same trick in France but she never managed to obtain anything) and they are also frightened. Add to this the fact that the Italian Fashion Chamber is also useless in regulating such matters (a few designers such as Dolce & Gabbana aren't even part of the Fashion Chamber, so how do you regulate them?)
What's annoying here is that Wintour behaves in Italy like Mafia criminals asking for a protection fee: the latter ask you to pay or they will burn down your business, Wintour just goes “Change dates or I will stop talking about you”. No difference here, but Wintour should maybe remember that many entrepreneurs have turned in recent years to the police and got the criminals asking for protection fees arrested, so maybe – maybe – something may change in the fashion world as well.
When Wintour tried her trick the first time, the only people who knew about it were insiders. A few months after, an investigation carried out by one of the very few watchable programmes on Italian State TV broadcaster Rai, Report, raised the issue and made sure that ordinary people knew what was going on in the wonderful world of fashion.
It may be hard to stop Wintour's habit – who knows, maybe one day she will call God and try to arrange the world’s entire fucking calendar according to her needs or to the needs of an American fashion market that she allegedly wants us, that is ordinary shoppers, to save – but this farce needs to come to an end as soon as possible.
The responsibility mainly lies with the designers: if they could just resist behaving like slaves and maybe come up with truly high quality, innovative and beautiful collections, while opening their minds also to younger competitors, they would definitely manage to show that, with or without Wintour, Milan still has something strong to say and the city could still be considered as fashionably relevant on a global level.
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