The Fashion Show As We Know It Is Over (For Now!)

On a cold February afternoon—before COVID-19 had assailed Paris, and women’s Fashion Week was still in full swing—I pedaled my bicycle from my Left Bank home/office to the Dior show in the Tuileries. And as I came across the Seine, there before me was a sea of shiny black sedans—scores of them—parked on the majestic Place de la Concorde. They would sit there, idling, for an hour, as the thousand or so editors, retailers, bloggers, and influencers made their way through the glorious gates of the park to a sprawling tent pitched solely for the 10-minute show. As I locked my bike, I thought, “None of this is sustainable.”

Not only that. Once inside, everyone looked so bored. I haven’t attended the shows for a few years, since I was working on my new book, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes. But I had heard—and even read—complaints from those privileged enough to be invited. Fashion Week felt old, they said. Too many shows. The season dragged on and on. Fashion Weeks were blurring into a fashion year.

A few brands attempted, tentatively, to change things up: show-now-buy-now; meld men and women’s shows into one. But none of the top-tier brands had been bold enough to alter the actual format since Alexander McQueen tried to livestream his show in 2009. (Lady Gaga tweeted about that show right before start time, and the site crashed.) No wonder everyone was drowning in ennui. Fashion is supposed to be about novelty. Modernity. What's next.

Models (and their digital doppelgangers) at Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2010 show.

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Victor Boyko