Fashion Is Fake. It's not that I didn't know it, but I found it surprising reading this slogan on a sticker stuck on the Baker Street windows of The Toy Store in London. The slogan may be simple, but it perfectly summarises a current condition the industry is living in.
The debate is rife at the moment in fashion about the role of the creative director (average lifespan at a fashion house: between 6 months and 3 years), the new fashion calendars, the constant rise of e-commerce and the changes in consumers' habits with the "see now, buy now" collections. There are even further and more technical problems and issues, such as the possibility of detecting consumers' behaviour by analysing data like algorithms based on the purchases of a shopper and the constant interest fashion is developing towards new wearables technologies.
In all this madness and confusion there is one issue that hasn't been addressed yet: what about fashion education? If fashion is changing, should courses about this subject open up and maybe incorporate other disciplines that may teach young people interested in entering the fashion industry other aspects as well? For example, an "unconventional profile" (and sadly not real experience…) seems to be the winning ticket to access the role of Creative Director at the moment and more and more fashion houses are interested in people with unorthodox backgrounds.
So should universities teach a variety of skills and topics, such as dealing with image, writing about fashion (by the way, how do you acquire the necessary skills if reviews may become obsolete soon and if the number of publications releasing genuinely valid pieces about the industry is constantly shrinking?), the retail environments, marketing and advertising strategies, the power of social networks (will it be worth teaching it if in ten years' time they may not exist anymore?) and the history of the catwalk presentations (again assuming they will still exist…). Or should we maybe take fashion to the next level by creating hybrid courses merging architecture, science and maybe software design with fashion?
Besides, if fashion houses pick directors according to the numbers of followers they may have on social media, will students start doing the same with their university courses? If you want, you can join the debate with the #FashionBraveNewWorld on Twitter. Would love to hear your thoughts, especially if you're a student.
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