Disturbing The Peace
On innovation and the fashion industry (or why we can't stop buying old Céline).
Ironically, as I was putting the final edits on this newsletter, The Cut published a new article written by Cathy Horyn (whose previous articles I cited below) that dovetails fairly closely to what I have written here. I won’t say “great minds,” but, maybe, something is in the aether?
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about nostalgia and references as they relate to fashion and my appreciation of it. Despite my earlier post detailing the new things I was excited to buy for Fall, the only actual new pieces I have added to my wardrobe this Fall are either old Céline or an update to something I already own. In looking at my mood board, it does feel very much consumed with looking backward, and for the most part it is: the only “current” images are ones I took from The Row’s Spring ‘24 presentation and Bottega’s Fall ‘23 show, the rest are of icons of the ‘80s and ‘90s and old Céline runway and lookbook images. I don’t see this as a failing, per se: nothing is ever entirely new in creative fields, and people are always utilizing and interpreting what came before them in order to develop solutions to new problems, but I wonder if all of this looking backward and fetishizing of old collections or former designers is specifically hindering my ability to see the future of fashion or if it is merely a symptom of the general malaise that is afflicting the industry and many of its creators at this moment.
What is the significance of the fact that some of the most compelling clothes to me, and I think many of my peers, are ones that debuted five or ten years ago? Is it a testament to the timelessness of these clothes, the ascendence of my least favorite trend, “quiet luxury” (a rant for another day), or a sign of something deeper? I was pulling some images together to illustrate a few of the seminal recent fashion debuts that I mention below, and just looking at those images gave me a palpable sense of connection, possibility and joy. I am not sure if this is simply nostalgia at play or if it is because there was something truly novel captured in these images that has yet to be replicated. Given that trends are cyclical and how difficult and rare it is for a creative to present a truly new idea in terms of form, silhouette or fabric, the danger in fashion is to be too reliant on what has come before and miss the opportunity to see what is next.
Cathy Horyn often writes about what separates a great designer from the rest and her assertion is that great designers have the capacity to “shock us or at least surprise and confound us.” Fashion, like any other creative endeavor, is of course entirely subjective, and I have frequently argued with my friends and colleagues about what constitutes creativity and talent among fashion designers, but I think Horyn’s definition is spot on. There are many designers who may be talented and creative when it comes to sketching or draping flattering clothes, or image makers who excel at cultivating a marketing vision or lifestyle, but when it comes to those designers who redefined how we chose to present ourselves to the world and the silhouettes that we accepted into our everyday wardrobes, their earliest showings were typically accompanied by a sense of unfamiliarity and confusion or even, in some cases, aversion, followed by a feeling of new ideas settling into place, sometimes suddenly, sometimes after a period of acclimatization.
Few ideas are new at this point in our evolution, and so those who are able to present something that we have not seen before, or at least a new interpretation on an existing idea, are those who truly move the conversation forward and deserve our attention and respect. Per Horyn, “[t]hink of the landmark fashion debuts in recent times…Martin Margiela at Hermes, Raf Simons at Jil Sander, Phoebe Philo at Céline, [Marc] Jacobs at Vuitton, Demna at Balenciaga…They disturbed the peace.” I would add a few others to her list of recent meaningful debuts including Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga and Jonathan Anderson at Loewe (I think, based on other things I’ve read, that Horyn would agree with me here). Whether you appreciate those designers- for the most part I happen to, but that is hardly required- they have doubtless influenced the way you dress and the clothes that you see around you, from a jacket worn over the shoulders and a focus on women’s preferences when it came to proportion and silhouette, the rise of white sneakers and Birkenstocks as fashionable footwear (Philo), to gorgeous maximal minimalism, slim suits and sensual tailoring (Simons), to a spotlight on collaborations and incorporating other artists’ work into the commercial mores of fashion (Jacobs).
I am not lamenting a lack of trends- we have those, arriving from TikTok at a velocity with which it is impossible to keep up- but rather a dearth of ideas that make one uncomfortable and require wholesale reconsideration of things that we hold as aesthetic truths. I have a stable of brands that I personally love and would still classify as “fashion-forward” and producers of covetable and unique product that I would not include in the above list of game changers. Despite the esteem in which I hold them, I am not sure that they have the capacity (nor the desire in some cases) to disturb the equilibrium of the fashion system as described by Horyn. Some operate outside the confines of the fashion industry by showing on their own cadence, uninfluenced by typical seasonal constraints, and some are happy to play within the established business by creating beautiful product at a smaller, independent scale. Even if one does not adopt the vision of those disruptive designers into one’s personal aesthetic, I think the overall jolt that they provide to the industry is crucial in evolving our perception of our own wardrobes and what we value in getting dressed. The challenge that designers face in presenting an entirely new proposition at this particular moment is that fashion has become a massive, global business, and most young creatives are given little time to develop their points of view and establish their customer base before being replaced with the next safe bet by the brands’ (typically large-scale conglomerate) owners.
It is likely the case that, having worked in retail for many years, my own tastes may from necessity skew toward the commercial, although my greatest fear as a buyer was not (to the disappointment of my supervisors) investing heavily in a collection which performed poorly, but of missing the truly new or next when presented with it. What sticks with me most about the examples mentioned above, namely Phoebe and Raf, Marc and even Demna, is that most of them also drove significant commercial successes in addition to the creative boundaries that they pushed. Perhaps there is no longer room for this type of innovation within the parameters of the fashion industry or perhaps that type of seismic change needs to come from those who place themselves outside of the parameters of the industry, as Lee McQueen and Martin Margiela did when they first established themselves years ago.
Without innovation, the industry risks becoming defined solely by commodification, “merch” and spectacle, or devolving into a musty relic with no direct connection to how real people live their lives. I worry that we become overly referential at our peril. I believe that there is nothing more personal and inherently vulnerable than exposing yourself to the world via your clothing choices. Clothing can often serve as a form of armor for people but regardless always makes some kind of statement about us: about what we do or don’t value, about how we see ourselves or wish that we did. Perhaps all of my existential hand-wringing is actually asking the wrong questions. Perhaps I’m missing the point of what fashion stands for. Certainly much of this has been discussed before and no doubt will continue to be. In spite of some of the negative undercurrents that I discussed above, I remain hopeful that somewhere someone is studying their references, looking at old Raf Simons and Prada shows certainly, but also art, design and historical events, which they will use as merely a jumping off point to present an idea that feels completely fresh and requires processing to appreciate fully. Hopefully we will recognize it when we see it.
Love this perspective