Only the fashion industry could make a party while Rome burns (take your pick from global crises), look so amazing. On the eve of the Olympic opening ceremony, Dame Anna Wintour flew into Paris to host an extended version of June’s Vogue World event.
Just over a month ago, Wintour headlined Conde Nast’s show of imperial wit as pop stars Sabrina Carpenter and Bad Bunny walked with Serena Williams and Kendall Jenner around the Place Vendôme “celebrating 100 years of fashion”, with a feature sportif thrown in for olympics. optics – about 88 athletes took part, too.
The point was to cement Vogue’s ownership of the industry, positioning it as a brand extension far beyond its traditional publishing arm. Also watch his new Disney+ series, In Vogue: The 90s, which airs in September and features Edward Enninful with Wintour and other August Vogue editors talking about the decade that changed their PR ball “to forever”.
Telly is deep into her crusade to bring fashion to her payroll. Witness the breakout this year with AppleTV+’s The New Look, Disney+’s Cristóbal Balenciaga and the recent Becoming Karl (Lagerfeld) series; and in September a new drama series based on a fictional haute couture house, “La Maison” (on AppleTV+).
We are in the latest iteration of fashion, where everyone is hoping that the viral interest that this world generates can be used in lucrative content for purveyors eager to cash in on our obsession with making imitation of what we look like.
Everyone is eagerly anticipating that the viral interest generated by fashion-food can be turned into cash
That’s one thing for publishers and production companies — what does all this mean for the core business of selling clothes? Right now, not much. Last week both LVMH and Kering – the two super conglomerates that own most of the fashion brands you’ve actually heard of – posted lackluster financial results. Gucci owner Kering fared worse than LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton and Dior, but given Burberry’s nose, the luxury slowdown is much slower here.
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has closed Matches. This landing page directs customers to Flannels, the existing designer chain (which is seen as a high-stack offering, rather than the carefully selected pieces used to offer Matches). Browns, once the jewel in London’s retail crown, has made more redundancies, losing its branding and editorial teams, and job losses at its parent company FarFetch, which is at the bottom of the cliff.
It is a desperate end to a period where things were treated without end; where brands have unknowingly devalued their stock by putting out £500 t-shirts. They hoped to create desire based on a false understanding of what that brand might say about our own personality (or lack thereof).
We have become so hungry for the idea that a fashion label has equal social currency. We are so happy to create an identity that we understand acutely with ephemeral materials. We are deep in the idea that the “right” item can make you important, that we can buy our way to kudos, that what we buy makes us interesting.
Fashion loves more than smoking and mirror marketing
Fashion brands have taken advantage of this carefully and methodically, building a core business not on flashy ideas, but on viciously marketed trainers and hoodies and interchangeable goods. Prices were raised as they go, the so-called “ambitious” customer went when the sums didn’t work and exchanged it for the offshore bank accounts of the uber rich. Except, poof. Even they have become bored of it now.
Enter our collective overspend hangover, where we remain unmoved (or just broke) by a new shoe that looks like every other £800+ shoe (see the currently trending ballet pump/loaf); even when endlessly paid celebrities pushed these into our algorithms.
However, fashion loves more than smoke and mirrors marketing spending, fueling grand productions that Marie Antoinette could only dream of (side note, only the French could turn that cold-blooded murder into lolz vaudeville).
Despite the bleak retail horizon, Friday night’s hilltop washing opening ceremony was dubbed “the most fashionable of all” (let’s skip the Alton Towers plastic ponchos). This has nothing to do with the reported €150 million that LVMH spent on being the main sponsor, and why Lady Gaga and Celine Dion both wore Dior, why giant Louis Vuitton trucks were outfitted, and what why the medals are being awarded. on Vuitton trays. The message: the world’s best athletes also need the world’s best accessories.
The real question is whether all this branding bombardment can transfer handbags. The industry is adept at raising hysteria and while we may be entertained right now can the highest spend crying their rich clients back?
Feathers at dawn
Sharp-eyed scrollers of Instagram may have spotted an old-school designer quickly stripped down, reminiscent of the halcyon days of yesteryear, when creatives publicly snubbed each other (delivering more fun and rich).
The tea? Anthony Vaccarello, the current creative director of Yves Saint Laurent, took a shadow to watch Lady Gaga’s haute couture opening ceremony for Dior. She was doing a Zizi Jeanmaire number, Mon Truc en Plumes, bedecked in fluffy pink feathers (advertised through the house with the caveat, “the feathers used to make this Dior creation were collected during the birds” – relief , no doubt , for all of us). Vaccarello’s question was historical, that Jeanmaire was, nevertheless, a muse of Yves Saint Laurent, and that it was his house that created her original costumes.
Fashion nerds might point out that the show was unfortunately sponsored by Dior owner LVMH, not Kering-owned YSL, which is why the Italian wasn’t asked to help. Feathers at dawn indeed. Or in Vaccarello’s hastily deleted words, “such a shame, there is no more dignity”. Sacré bleu, etc