Two similar yet different stories happened in the last few days. Last week, on Wednesday, a devastating tragedy unfolded in the Mediterranean Sea. An overcrowded fishing boat, transporting approximately 750 people, mainly Pakistani and Afghan migrants, capsized off the Greek coast during its journey to Italy. Aboard the vessel there were approximately 100 children. The precise number of casualties is still uncertain, with more than 80 bodies recovered and up to 500 individuals reported as missing.
Then, on Sunday the Titan sub, a mini-research and survey submersible taking billionaire tourists on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, went lost. Yesterday, from the debris found in the area, it was confirmed that the vehicle was destroyed by a catastrophic implosion that killed the five men on board.
From a journalistic point of view, both the stories were followed, but there were definitely more reportages about the Titan than about the shipwreck in Greece. Rescue efforts actually seemed more frantic for the Titan than for the boat of migrants. Besides, tributes are pouring in for the victims of the Titan; there aren't instead so many commemorations for the migrants involved in the shipwreck in the Mediterranean. Most of them and their stories and hopes will remain unknown, swallowed by the sea.
There is actually another difference between the two accidents: the protagonists of the former were pushed by that human recklessness that in ancient Greece was defined "hybris"; the protagonists of the second were just desperately looking for better lives for themselves and their children.
Besides, the men who died on the Titan are now considered as entrepreneurial explorers rather than victims of their own recklessness (the vehicle was deemed unsafe); right-wing governments in EU countries, will instead tell you that the victims of the shipwreck in Greece should have stayed in their own countries and maybe arranged for other ways to come to Europe.
From a human point of view there seems to be a gap that is constantly growing between certain extremes in our society, between rich and poor, affluence and destitution, abundance and scarcity, opportunity and adversity, privilege and marginalization, inclusion and exclusion, prosperity and poverty, comfort and hardship.
Fashion mirrors society and this gap is becoming wider also in this industry. You may argue that fashion has always been elitist, but now there seems to be a greater divide between big powerful groups and all the rest of the fashion players.
On Tuesday evening Louis Vuitton showcased in Paris its men's S/S 24 collection, the first by Pharrell Williams, the newly appointed Creative Director of the maison's men's division.
A producer, songwriter, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, Williams, who follows the late Virgil Abloh in his tenure at the house, boasts a curriculum rich in a variety of disciplines and industries, from music to fashion and beauty.
His appointment in February confirmed that the figure of fashion designer is becoming obsolete, in favour of impossibly hip, cool and famous editors and curators with great remixing skills.
The most anticipated show of the season took place on Pont Neuf, Paris's oldest bridge, for the occasion covered in a gold Vuitton trademark Damier pattern, almost evoking the iconic yellow brick road of "The Wizard of Oz" (a reference used by Abloh in his first Vuitton collection).
Illustrious guests - from Nicolas Ghesquière to Jared Leto, from Kim Kardashian to Beyoncé, who stopped in Paris before the Hamburg leg of her "Renaissance World Tour" - sat in the front row. There were also Vuitton brand ambassador Zendaya, and Rihanna, who starred in a teaser campaign for the men's show, while Stefano Pilati turned model for the occasion.
Clad in white and off-white Damier robes, the Virginia choir Voice of Fire sang Pharrell Williams' newly composed song, "Joy (Unspeakable)", providing a live soundtrack for the grand show.
The choir cheerfully and energetically accompanied the models walking down the runway singing the track that contained the mantra "If you want it, you can have it; if you need it, you can have it".
The first section of the show was about a pixelated camouflage version of Louis Vuitton's trademark Damier pattern. For the occasion the pattern was dubbed "Damoflage" to mark the combination of Damier with a pixelated pattern in camouflage shades.
In its leather interpretation, Damoflage was used for bombers and accessories that went from bags and trunks to boots (or small trunks with a transparent lid to carry sneakers or maybe exhibit them...); it was used as prints for suits and workwear garments, employed to create a jacquard-like motif on a tapestry jacket and reinterpreted for fur shawls and jackets.
Variations were provided in this first part of the show by forest camo designs vaguely echoing Williams' 2009 Keita Sugiura collaboration for Moncler.
Then a golf buggy carrying Vuitton trunks marked the arrival of more Damier pattern reinventions, in denim, in more classic black and brown for designs vaguely reminiscent of Dapper Dan's bootlegged Vuitton jackets, and in more colourful versions.
In this part of the show there were hints at Marc Jacobs' Spring/Summer 2013 season chequered looks and set design (Jacobs' metallic Monogram Mirror bags from the mid-2000s also returned), motifs that were then relaunched in Off White's A/W 2019 collection.
Kim Jones' coats with matching scarves from Vuitton's A/W 12 collection reappeared in this second part of the show, while the denim and logo beret pointed at Nigo's designs and a boat shaped bag was maybe a nod to the airplane shaped bag from Vuitton's A/W 21 collection.
Bags were piled high in this section of the runway, they came in red, yellow and green and their colours were inspired by the counterfeit versions sold on New York City's Canal Street. On some of the garments and bags, the initials of the brand, "LV" were combined with Williams' origins and with the slogan of the state he comes from - "Virginia is for Lovers" - reinvented here as "LV Lovers". Pixels returned in this section in a coat and a jacket with prints of Pont Neuf. Towards the end of the show there were also suits that featured micro-embroideries of portraits by American artist Henry Taylor.
Some critics mentioned Minecraft to find the origin of the pixelated camo gear; others mentioned JW Anderson's S/S 23 collection for Loewe. Yet pixels have been used for decades and fashion nerds will remember them in Anrealage's A/W 2011-12 collection (more recently the brand became more versed in creating a sort of kaleidoscope fractured pattern derived from those early pixelated collections).
Probably fashion fans with a passion for the art world would like to wish the camo pattern came from Bernat Klein colour charts and "Lichen" painting (View this photo). Yet this is not the case: Vuitton's pixelated camo pattern was, as stated above, a clash of the Daimer pattern with digital inspirations reinvented by artist E.T., even though this is not a terribly original idea considering that pixelated camo digital clipart patterns (View this photo) have been popular on Etsy for quite a while now (you can buy them from a variety of sellers, like this one, starting from €2,39...)
So, where did the inspiration for the pixellated camo motif come from? Well, it may actually come from state-of-the-art military camouflage gear. Companies such as Canadian HyperStealth produce indeed pixelated "Smartcamo" military clothes, intelligent textiles that change their color to match the background of the wearer in almost all environments, erasing the wearer from the scene (the same pattern can be applied to ground vehicles). The same company developed a "Quantum Stealth" non-powered adaptive camouflage which portrays what is behind the user in-front of the user, bending the light around the target. Basically, if dazzle camouflage confused radars, modern pixelated camo patterns erase the wearer or the vehicle covered with this pattern blending them with the rest of the environment. The forest pattern in the collection may instead be a reinvention of the tree pattern employed in hunting gear and also lifted by Kanye West for one of his Yeezy collections.
The show was more cohesive at the beginning; as it progressed, it gradually became less coherent, even though it was still perfectly remixed like a neat 12" edit.
Yet, after Williams joyfully walked down the runway wearing a green pixelated Damier pattern suit and a new pair of his trademark diamond glasses, after he invited his design team on the runway and knelt in front of them, showing gratitude and acknowledging their input in the collection, while the choir was triumphantly singing, you realized that fashion has become just a component - and not even the most important one - of a runway show.
Indeed, fashion-wise, when properly dissected, the collection wasn't desperately innovative, but the package was new. The collection wouldn't indeed have been the same without the location, the glorious gospel choir, the amazing soundtrack and after-show party and the celebrities in the front row (well, if you stripped the runway of all these components you would probably get a clearer perspective on the clothes and even get the chance to admire the exquisite mini-embroideries taken from Henry Taylor's artworks).
This was indeed an all-encompassing experience, an extended music video that combined fashion and music show (the choir performance and then a live performance by Jay-Z, joined by Williams onstage) with the colonization of an architectural feature in a major European capital (Pont Neuf runs from the front door of the Louis Vuitton headquarters and the group's Cheval Blanc hotel), an operation that caused vast traffic jams and shut down the entire neighborhood (the brand is showing an unhealthy obsession with bridges: this is the second one colonised by a Vuitton runway after a submersible pedestrian path beneath the Banpo Bridge, in Seoul, South Korea, was used to showcase the maison's Pre-Fall 2023 runway).
Cristóbal Balenciaga once dressed a choir; Prada and Armani own the venues where they do their catwalk shows; Prada also owns a Fondazione that regularly organizes cultural events. Quite a few fashion houses have a favourite team of hip architects and designers that constantly work with them and enlist celebrity ambassadors to promote their products and their image.
Besides, some fashion houses can boast of having restored a major city landmark and have used it as the "background" for their show.
Yet, this mega-production, this demonstration of power, was almost a perfect exercise to prove to others that Louis Vuitton can have it all. In brief, despite what they tell you, money matters.
Vuitton invested in Virgil Abloh money and efforts, but this was definitely a bigger, brighter, better version. The scale of the show was scary even for a huge brand, it was indeed designed to almost induce a mixture of awe and elation best explained by Edmund Burke's concept of "sublime".
This is fashion on steroids, a monster with a power that can't be reined in anymore as it has escaped human proportions and control and has recombined with music, architecture and an unattainable degree of coolness, to annihilate all the others.
While fashion undoubtedly encompasses various disciplines, only Vuitton seems to possess the financial resources to engage in a diverse range of experiences that span art, culture, music, gaming, and technology.
This is when you realized that by now the gap in fashion, as in society, is becoming wider and will leave many out of the game (fashion critics and journalists included - think about it: this is not a show that you're supposed to review, but you're supposed to watch it and enjoy it for what it is, without looking for meanings or making connections with previous shows and collections...).
Let's face it: nobody can compete at this level, not even established powerhouses like Prada, imagine smaller brands.
Yesterday it was announced that, facing financial difficulties, Christopher Kane, has appointed administrators for his brand.
Kane is actually not the only one struggling in Britain: without the support of major investors, forging a fashion career has become increasingly tough for independent designers in the UK, due to rising interest rates, Brexit-related trading challenges, and a severe cost-of-living crisis (aside from Kane, also Nicholas Kirkwood closed down his stores in London).
Things are becoming more difficult for younger people who want to get into this business and want to do so at a slower pace or for young designers who hope to become creative directors one day at a major maison (what kind of brand will be willing to invest in a young designer and let them grow up, allow them to commit mistake and design a glorious collection followed by a bad one, without firing them after 6 months?).
Such a grand event poses questions: as a fashion designer can you exist in this business if you come from a modest background? Can you find a job as a Creative Director without being already famous? Can your brand expand without backers, without the support of complacent editors, without a famous ambassador and a co-signer? The mantra repeated by the choir, "If you want it, you can have it; if you need it, you can have it" only works indeed for some of us in this life. Most of us simply "can't have it", no matter how much we want it.
The show also made you ponder about another issue: there is always a lot of talk about sustainable fashion, producing fewer pieces, eliminating furs and luxurious animal skins from your collections and reducing your carbon footprint. But all these things seem to be valid only for other brands and for younger designers, because such a show had a massive carbon footprint and featured luxurious furs and animal skins. The only aspects that seemed recycled were the ideas incorporated into the clothing and accessories.
In conclusion, you can't blame or hate Williams, but you can blame and hate the system that epitomizes the negative transformation of fashion - an ultra-capitalistic, monstrous force that sells not just a dream, but a glittering package that remains not just unattainable for the ordinary consumer, but that poses questions for other competitors as well.
The relentless pursuit of profit within this system is the reason why numerous designers experience fatigue, collapse, or find themselves unable to sustain their labels and ultimately shut them down.This new development is a testament to how fashion has undergone a transformation fueled by money that will destroy many more.
New challenges lie ahead: Louis Vuitton will have to keep up with the standards it has just set, but will also have to deliver results; all the other brands, fashion houses and groups will have to understand how to navigate this new scenario in which clothes are secondary to the actual runway. As for emerging designers, they will have to work even harder to respond to this evolution of the fashion landscape and redirect the spotlight back to the craftsmanship and quality of their garments. And this, as you may guess, is no mean feat, but an endeavor that requires immense skills, passion and perseverance.
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