Was digital couture week worth the fuss, straining already-tight fashion budgets?
Advertizement
Obsessions
Was digital couture calendar week worth the fuss, straining already-tight fashion budgets?
Paris couture week went full digital for the offset time this year, with major houses like Chanel and Dior releasing pre-recorded videos showcasing new collections. But given the state of affairs, were they worth the effort, questions one way observer.
Dior's couture collection made its debut in a 15-minute online video. (Photograph: Dior)
On the Friday before the first all-digital haute couture week, designer Maria Grazia Chiuri dialled into a Zoom conference call from Dior's Paris headquarters and took questions from members of the British press.
It was a happy, if strange, reunion: Manner weeks are a trade event, yes; only they are also fun, glamorous and exciting, a fourth dimension when a large cross-section of the manufacture gets to dress up, exchange gossip, and marvel at clients' matching Birkins and fresh botox injections. Wonderful every bit information technology was to melody in to this week's shows from domicile in sweatpants, that buzz of excitement was missing.
Chiuri, for her role, was at ease, perched on a stool in a coincidental white T-shirt and trousers. On her left was a preview of her new couture collection, which would make its official debut via a 15-minute online video on Mon.
The apparel – fragile Fortuny dresses and ball gowns in champagne silk and lilac feathers, a molded woolen Bar jacket and skirt – were typical of Chiuri'southward oeuvre for Dior. What was not typical was their size: These were doll clothes, fitted to mannequins measuring only about two feet alpine. They were a reference to the 1945 Theatre de la Mode, a travelling style exhibition involving 60 French designers and more than 200 dolls so exquisitely dressed they were credited with reestablishing Paris as the earth's fashion capital after the second world state of war.
State of war, pandemic – the parallels are obvious. But beyond providing a thematic link, Dior's dolls were as well presented as a practical solution: They can hands traverse borders at a time when clients tin't. "We can travel with this effectually the globe," said Chiuri, referring to a gear up of three painted trunks, beautifully modelled after the brand's Artery Montaigne headquarters. They will soon make their style to Shanghai and New York, accompanied by cloth swatches and toiles and so that clients tin be fitted for their one-of-a-kind, paw-sewn garments without flight to Paris.
READ> Dior unveils couture collection on tiny mannequins, to exist dispatched to VIPs
Welcome to manner week's new normal: Where live shows have been replaced past pre-recorded videos, and £50,000 (South$88,000) dresses are sold to customers via travelling dolls.
If that sounds a little outlandish, well, information technology is. Since the inflow of coronavirus, the £1.two trillion style and luxury industries have had to grapple with a crisis of unprecedented global scale: Supply chains splintered, orders cancelled, stores boarded-up, the evaporation of the feel-good factor that leads shoppers to splash out on luxury.
Yet mode weeks take gone on – albeit sometimes postponed, and presented entirely online. Xxx-four brands participated in the first London Digital Way Week in June, despite a lack of actual new clothes to bear witness; the organisers of Paris couture calendar week were able to circular up enough designers to evangelize 3 days' worth of videos, delivered hourly. Some showed new, smaller collections; others released sketches, or earnest short-length documentaries extolling the value of hand-embroidery.
Was digital couture week worth the fuss, the strain on already-tightened budgets? The videos, for the most office, were boring or disruptive, resembling film trailers or perfume adverts, and lacking in narrative. The clothes themselves were difficult to see, obscured by studio lights, heavy splicing and poor video quality. Without the live element, there was none of that heady anticipation. There was also no need to release the videos once per hour – in the future, manner week organisers might take a cue from Netflix and release all that pre-recorded content on-need.
Ultimately, the recordings did little to bolster brand equity – the real betoken of haute couture week.
Nevertheless, there were worthy attempts. Four designers not frequently seen on photographic camera – Guo Pei, the Chinese designer backside the extravagant yellow dress Rihanna wore to the Met Gala in 2015; Rahul Mishra, the but Indian designer on-schedule; sometime Sonia Rykiel artistic director Julie de Libran; and British designer Tamara Ralph of Ralph & Russo – took a cue from designers at Shanghai Fashion Calendar week and used the opportunity to speak directly to the public nearly their procedure.
There tends to be a seriousness, a reverent hush around couture, which is why Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren of Viktor & Rolf's evidence was such a welcome change of stride. They injected humour both into their designs, which featured emoticons and dressing gowns, and in their presentation – a unproblematic but effective parody of the salon-style couture shows of the 1950s.
Big brands with big budgets certainly had the advantage of the week. Dior released a 15-minute, feature-quality film on Monday afternoon that was magical to behold. Directed by the decorated Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone and inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, the motion picture followed a pair of liveried porters as they carried a torso of dolls, dressed in Dior couture, through an enchanted glade inhabited past nymphs, dryads and satyrs. Mesmerised past the dresses, nymphs crawled forward to touch them; stone statues became mobile; a damsel untangled herself from her lover.
But still gorgeous the production, it ultimately did a disservice to the Dior brand by featuring only white models. As the scenes were inspired by the Italian painter Sandro Boticelli, to cast diverse models would take been "forced", Garrone said. There was also an uncomfortable scene where a nymph looked to her satyr-partner for permission to social club a dress. For a brand that has positioned itself as a champion of feminism, information technology was a bewildering misstep.
One brand that could have gone all-out on a video – but didn't – was Chanel. Creative manager Virginie Viard shot her new collection on a handful of punkish-looking models confronting a uncomplicated studio properties. Equally a operation it underwhelmed, merely the clothes were fun and spirited, inspired by Karl Lagerfeld's salad days partying at the Le Palace night club in the Eighties. All ruffled taffeta and metallic tweed, they seemed just the thing to dress up in after months of austerity.
READ> Punk princess: Chanel'due south fall couture drove is a nod to rebel socialites
Only the evidence that deserved the most praise wasn't role of the haute couture schedule at all. On Sunday afternoon, designer Veronique Nichanian and director Cyril Teste debuted Hermes's new men'southward drove: A meticulously choreographed performance that gave viewers a glimpse of what fashion shows typically look like backstage. The motion picture was shot and streamed live, lending a dramatic tension that was missing elsewhere. With its long shots and careful lighting, it also showed the clothes to great advantage.
It was peradventure the starting time fashion prove equally interesting to lookout online as in person, setting a bar for other brands to measure against.
READ> No runway, no fuss: Hermes unveils 2022 menswear with live operation fine art
Balmain, too, showed live and off-schedule, streaming on TikTok a performance from French vocaliser Yseult and a gaggle of models dancing on a boat floating downwards the Seine. While plagued by somewhat unglamorous connectivity issues, designer Olivier Rousteing's willingness to risk a live performance to connect with his many social media fans was applaudable.
One hopes to come across more of it. While brands are eager to return to regular manner weeks in September, the pandemic has presented a rare opportunity to finally crack digital video.
Information technology'southward about fourth dimension. Style shows are no longer private events only public-facing ones; digital, not live, audiences should be the priority.
Information technology is a claiming with inherent risks; few are the brands willing to gamble their brand equity on a marketing experiment. Only as Hermes showed, when information technology's done correct, the results can exist fantastic.
By Lauren Indvik © 2022 The Financial Times
Contempo Searches
Trending Topics
trujillotwome1978.blogspot.com
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/obsessions/digital-couture-week-paris-247766
0 Response to "Was digital couture week worth the fuss, straining already-tight fashion budgets?"
Post a Comment