The grandiose that physicality allows has for long (and still is) the fuel that drives the fashion industry forward. But with the digital realm reigning, will it make physical events a remnant of the past?
The masks, with all their glittery iterations, glued to our faces are like remnants of the pandemic that looms over our heads like a bad omen that just won’t go away. It’s a sour memoir of everything that followed the pandemic; the good and the bad across industries.
Fashion was one such arena whose glistening gates got rustic with the gloom that had tightly grabbed hold of it. The world that relied heavily on the physicality of the business was thrown off as the tug of war of the pandemic pushed it to make things digital. While fashion complied, even so reluctantly, it did not forget to innovate and play with virtual reality and phygital modes became the newest fad on the runway but deep inside the heart of their ocean like the lost blue diamond, did fashion really yearn for physical runways?
Source: Grazia Daily
With the end of Paris Fashion Week, one begins to wonder that fashion modified when push comes to shove but why did it go back to its old ways? Well, because fashion weeks have been a sensory experience, from the touch-feel, the up-close viewing of the hand-embossed beading to the lighting and the creative art direction that brought clothes to life.
Source: Vogue
On going back to the physical mode, Giorgio Armani said, “I don’t think that the solution is to rely entirely on digital… Fashion Week is a fundamental social occasion for the sector… It must remain a network that brings together the big and the small, and offer them all, at the same time, the possibility to present their work. I am therefore convinced that Fashion Week, in its current form, should be maintained. The virtual fashion show can be a tool, but it is not the future.”
So the fashion world has torn itself into two sides: digital and physical while the third half believes that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s argued that while the physical aspect rightfully leaves no room for airbrushing and tweaking details, presenting a teleportation to a world of all things glittery, the digital space allows more inclusivity, expanding audience, painting over that air of mystery, and demystifying the myth of what truly lies behind a brand. So, the future of fashion weeks so far stands at crossroads with the foot of the industry evenly distributed within two landscapes.
“Will the beast of digital fashion swallow the digital,?” “Will runway models be chased off by AI influencers,?” “Will fashion’s resistance to the digital continue?” only the future holds the key to its fate so buckle up for the ride.