Only the fashion industry could make partying while Rome burns (pick one global crisis) look so fabulous. The night before the Olympic opening ceremony, Dame Anna Wintour flew to Paris to host what felt like an expanded version of June’s Vogue World event.
A month earlier, Wintour headlined Conde Nast’s empire show “celebrating 100 years of fashion” at Place Vendôme, alongside pop stars Sabrina Carpenter and Bad Bunny, Serena Williams and Kendall Jenner; it added a sporty element to the Olympic visuals, and was also attended by about 88 athletes.
The aim was to solidify Vogue’s grip on the industry, positioning it as a brand extension far beyond its traditional publishing arm. Also look out for Edward Enninful’s new Disney+ series In Vogue: The ’90s , out in September, which will feature Wintour and other esteemed Vogue editors in PR conversations about the decade that “changed fashion forever.”
Telly is deep in his crusade to bring fashion to life on the payroll. Witness this year’s explosion with AppleTV+’s The New Look, Disney+’s Cristóbal Balenciaga and, most recently, Becoming Karl (Lagerfeld); there’s also a new drama series coming in September based on the fictional haute couture house “La Maison” (on AppleTV+).
We’re in the final stages of fashion entertainment, with everyone hoping that the viral attention this world generates will translate into lucrative content for purveyors looking to cash in on our obsession with how we look.
Everyone is desperately hoping that the viral hype created by fashion entertainment can be monetized
This is one thing for publishers and production companies—what does all this mean for the core business of selling clothes? It doesn’t mean much right now. Last week, both LVMH and Kering—the two super conglomerates that own most of the fashion brands you’ve actually heard of—reported weak financial results. Kering, which owns Gucci, fared worse than LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton and Dior, but considering Burberry’s decline, the much-vaunted luxury slowdown is here.
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has closed down Matches for good. Its landing page now directs customers to its existing designer chain Flannels (which is seen as a high-rise offering rather than the carefully curated pieces offered by Matches). Once the jewel in London’s retail crown, Browns has made further layoffs, leaving its brand and editorial teams with job losses at its troubled parent company FarFetch.
It’s the hopeless end of an era when we were bombarded with endless stuff, when brands were unwittingly devaluing their stock by producing £500 T-shirts, hoping to create desire based on a misguided understanding of what the brand might say about our own personalities (or lack thereof).
We have greedily swallowed the nonsense that fashion labels equal social currency. We are in such a rush to create some kind of identity that we cling desperately to ephemera. We are neck-deep in the idea that the “right” product can make you matter, that we can shop for fame, that what we buy makes us interesting.
Fashion loves nothing more than smoke and mirrors marketing spend
Fashion brands have exploited this eagerly and methodically, building core businesses not from exciting ideas but from sneakers, hoodies and ruthlessly marketed interchangeables. Prices have been jacked up as they go, the supposedly “avid” customer cynically abandoned when the stakes don’t work, and replaced with the offshore bank accounts of the ultra-rich. But poof. Even they’ve had enough of it now.
We are faced with our collective hangover from over-consumption. We don’t care (or can’t afford) a new pair of shoes that are identical to every pair we’ve ever bought for £800+ (see the current trend of ballet flats/loafers), even though they have been aggressively fed into our algorithms by countless paid celebrities and influencers.
But fashion loves nothing more than smoke and mirrors marketing to fund the kind of extravagant productions that poor beheaded Marie Antoinette could only dream of (side note: only the French could translate this cold-blooded murder into lolz vaudeville).
Despite the bleak retail horizon, Friday night’s wildly lavish opening ceremony was dubbed “the most fashionable of all time” (let alone the Alton Towers plastic ponchos). That’s thanks in no small part to the reported €150m LVMH spent as headline sponsor, and the fact that both Lady Gaga and Celine Dion were outfitted by Dior, giant Louis Vuitton trunks displayed and medals presented on Vuitton trays. The message: the world’s best athletes also need the world’s best accessories.
The question is whether all this brand bombardment will change the bag. The industry is adept at whipping up hysteria, and while we may have a moment of amusement at it, can spending to shout the loudest really attract its wealthy customers?
Feathers at dawn
Wary Instagrammers may have quickly removed old-school designer tantrums, which harken back to the good old days when creators publicly denigrated each other (and provided more entertaining, richer gossip).
Tea? Anthony Vaccarello, Yves Saint Laurent’s current creative director, took umbrage at Lady Gaga’s Dior haute couture opening-ceremony look. She performed Mon Truc en Plumes, a Zizi Jeanmaire number adorned with plumed pink feathers (the house announced that “the feathers used to create this Dior collection were collected during the molting season of birds”—a relief for all of us, no doubt). Vaccarello’s problem was historical; Jeanmaire had been, bien sûr, Yves Saint Laurent’s muse, and it was his house that created his original costumes.
Fashionistas may note that, sadly, the show was sponsored by LVMH, which owns Dior, not YSL, which owns Kering, and so the Italian was not called to the rescue. Feathers at dawn, indeed. Or, in the words of Vaccarello, hastily deleted, “it’s a shame, there is no more honor”. Sacré bleu, etc.