Earlier this summer, Anna Wintour and her Condé Nast colleague Suzy Menkes invited young design students at Central Saint Martins to pick their beautiful brains during a Q&A session at the prestigious university. As was to be expected, Wintour didn’t exactly compare the fashion industry to a cake full of smiles and rainbows. Instead, she skipped the sugar coating and dished out some killer career advice for achieving success in the industry. From the importance of finding a business partner to recognising the valuable economic opportunities in producing pre-fall and resort collections, the Nuclear Wintour dropped a bomb of knowledge on the starry-eyed students.
Yet when asked to speak about the thousands of runway shows she’s seen in her 25 year tenure at the helm of Vogue, the editor had some surprising grains of wisdom for the next generation of British creatives: “Please listen to me when I say: an interesting creative presentation is just as effective as a fashion show. I see people who are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars on fashion shows, which I simply don’t think is necessary. A presentation gives us all an opportunity to meet you, rather than to go and sit in some dark room somewhere and wait for you to start; then [have] no time to say hello, and rush off to the next one.”
With fashion week on the horizon, Wintour’s wisdom got us thinking about the true potential of presentations. Navigating the fashion week waters as a young designer has only become more challenging. As an emerging talent in today’s increasingly virtual age, how do you maximise your limited resources to best build your brand? It’s important to sustain a strong identity on digital platforms and make your work shine on social media, but if seeing is still believing, where are you left when the runway leaves you bankrupt? It’s time up and coming designers recognised the true potential of the presentation as a more economically practical middle ground. In addition to Anna’s pearls of wisdom, here are a few reasons why:
1) When you’re stomping out 34 looks in 12 minutes to DMX’s greatest hits, it’s pretty likely that some of your most bangin’ details are going to get lost in translation. A hawk-eyed editor might pick up on how the manicurist’s choice of tones and finishes tie into the themes of the overall collection. But with a model gone in 60 seconds, these chances are slim, especially if they aren’t sitting front row with a microscope. Presentations afford guests greater opportunities to view each look up-close and for longer than the blink of an eye. They can inspect the intricacies of your digital prints and patterns and fully appreciate your hair, make-up, nail, and accessories choices.
2) With more show attendees taking quick Instagram snaps than jotting down notes, it’s incredibly important for emerging designers to maximise their social media reach during fashion week. For those who didn’t quite make the front row at the runway, this probably means a blurry shot from similarly far-away distances. At a presentation, it’s much easier for photographers and show attendees to shoot and share detailed and diverse snaps of your looks, which are far more likely to make a splash on their followers’ feeds than the Beyonce-concert-from-the-nosebleeds look photos from the runway end up like.
3) With hundreds of designers showing over a few short days, editors can make and break hearts when it comes to scheduling which shows they’ll actually attend. Smaller or emerging brands that share a show time slot with Rodarte or The Row might have a hard time filling seats, and with runway shows’ limited capacities, every guest matters. Because presentations have longer time frames rather than firm (but always delayed) start times, they afford editors, bloggers, and photographers greater flexibility in their schedules and increase the chances they’ll stop by. And with attendance spread out over a longer time frame, you’ll be able to invite more people to experience your work in action.
4) Other than Marc Jacobs, when was the last time you went to, or heard of, a fashion show starting on time? Approximately… never. With packed schedules and shows spread out all around the city, editors and photographers don’t have any time to spare in the mad dash to make the next start time. To echo Anna’s advice, presentations make it much easier for editors to ask designers meaningful and engaging interview questions without feeling pushed out the door or like they’re fighting for air time at a White House press conference.
5) If you’ve ever found yourself three hours deep into a Bridezillas marathon (trust me, it happens), you understand just how stressful seating charts can be. The same dramatics often apply to runway show allocations, with legions of assistants going to war to secure their editor’s prime placement. But as i-D Fashion Features Editor Anders Christian Madsen explains of Raf Simons’ most recent collection, presentations take out the politics: “Raf’s decision to get rid of seats and seating charts for his show this summer was quite a successful experiment, and – whether intentionally or not – an interesting comment on the institution of the fashion show and its future. I’m sure his PRs got their share of frantic emails throughout the day due to the lack of seat allocations on the invites, but once everyone realised what the deal was it made for one of the most chilled out and easy show experiences we’ve ever had. And because the show venue, the Espace Vendome, was big enough for the format everyone had the best view. I’m obviously not suggesting that everyone should start doing standing shows, but Raf proved that with the right venue and production and PR team, there’s no need for seating charts and hierarchies. Clever man.”
6) Most importantly, presentations give designers greater agency and opportunity to be insanely creative! Innovative German brand BLESS spawned some of the most imaginative presentations Paris Fashion Week has ever seen, never failing to flip the script on the week’s more stoic shows. From models eating their RTW 11 knitwear (don’t worry, the sweaters were made of gummies!) to each model banging in unison on their own individual drum kit during RTW 09, BLESS’ presentations live on as some of the most surprising slices of fashion history. For their autumn/winter 13 presentation, Brooklyn-based menswear brand Highland didn’t just create clothes for mellowed-out ski bum stoners, designers Cramer Tolboe and Lizzie Owens literally created their hangout headquarters. From lava lamps and makeshift rock climbing walls to neon bongs and bags of Cool Ranch Doritios, the pair totally nailed every detail of their dude’s digs. And when Carol Lim and Humberto Leon revived Kenzo for spring/summer 12, the power pair used a presentation to let the world know the house back with a bang. Calling on longtime friends Jason Schwartzman, Spike Jonze, and Chloe Sevigny, Lim and Leon staged a massive takeover of the house’s headquarters that resurrected founder Kenzo Takada’s culture merging philosophy, putting their own American spin on Takada’s legendary “Jungle Jap” vibes. Presentation are perfect for emerging designers looking to break the runway’s mold.
Credits
Text Emily Manning
Photography Ben Fries