Since the start of Covid-19 and the beginning of lockdown, with all the problems that it brought, the Fashion Industry has had its own problems in how it was going to show it’s new seasons designs. The obvious way was to photograph a selection of the new seasons looks and send them to Buyers and the Press. This has resulted in a myriad of images shot on a white background hitting everyone’s inbox. But some more creative fashion brands had other ideas and maybe, along with their bigger budgets could experiment more. Here is an example of a few that have caught Queerguru’s eye around the world of fashion from New York, Paris and Milan.
Starting with DOLCE & GABBANA’S menswear in Milan, back in July. ”I don’t like the digital show solution” said Domenico Dolce “The fashion show cannot be substituted on a screen.You need the physical contact, the human connection, because fashion begins with people.” (I am sure many of us would like physical contact with many of his chosen models.)
D & G relocated to 30 minutes south of Milan to present their Spring/Summer 2021 of 104 stunning exits, mainly in blues and whites. They landed in the gardens of the Campus of Humanitas University. A giant barred cage was erected to house the models, where they posed for photographs and where then released to strut around the construction to a select distanced audience.
The ETRO menswear show will go down in history as the first physical show held in front of an actual audience since the enforced lockdown. Held in the open air in the gardens of the Four Seasons Hotel in Milan, on the 15th July, they welcomed 80 masked and socially distanced guests to cappuccinos at breakfast time.
The women’s wear show in September, due to a heavy rainstorm, was moved from the Hotel’s garden to a nearby garage space near the ETRO’S headquarters in Via Spartaco, Milan. With a nod to diversity the show included supersize stunning model Ashley Graham in a dark silken gown. The theme of the show was very patriotic with the symbols of Italian beach life.
The end of the show finished with a PA announcement like on an airplane, that attendees were asked to exit, in stages, with those near the door to go first. Just a few of the especially self-important people or ignorant show goers flouted the rules, because you can.
British classic brand BURBERRY now designed by the edgy Riccardo Tisci for its resort collection used it’s own in house team as models photographed at their own front doors outside their London homes. For the later presentation for S/S 2021 mens and women’s combined a video and walked a show with no audience.
This was all created in an undisclosed forest venue outside London, the cameras caught in their lenses models preparing, before entering a clearing where performers dressed in white danced a dance macabre amongst billows of orange smoke. The models emerging from behind trees walked among the green foliage in clothes mainly in orange and blue tones.
CELINE The house’s menswear again was a video format. A drone hovered over the boy models who strutted around the deserted race track Circuit Paul Richard in Southern France. The collection now designed by Hedi Slimane, referenced his teen, LA thrift store jumble style walked along the sides of the marked out race track all at a social distance.
JACQUEMUS
Most designers seemed to prefer the outdoors as a venue for the feel of it and also seemingly safer during this time of the virus. One designer quick to take up this challenge was JACQUEMUS who back in July still eager to do a runway show took his audience of 100 VIP press and celebrities to a wheat field in the French Vexin region.
Winding through the crop a 600 metre runway was made with spectators dotted around the fields to watch the show. The designer Simon Porte Jacquemus of this namesake brand called the show “L’Amour” in honour of his team. He said, “for me the runway can’t be a video. It’s the heart of what we do; it’s not superficial.”
MOSCHINO: Jeremy Scott the designer at Moschino decided for his womenswear S/S 2021 to concentrate on a couture feel for this collection. He was inspired by the “ Theatre de la Mode” of the second World War when Paris couturiers created miniature dressed dolls to send to customers especially in the US.
Scott approached the design team at Jim Henson makers of the Muppets to help realise his dream show. Scott designed 40 couture outfits for normal sized models and then scaled down the garments to fit his 30 inch puppets on strings. He based the puppets on his favourite runway girls as well as creating an audience of notable press including Anna Wintour and Hamish Bowles from American Vogue.
The puppets bobbed along to the soft sound of a violin soundtrack with a puppet of Scott appearing at the end of the show. The whole experience was a lot more expensive than a real show.
VALENTINO: The couture show for fall 2020 at Valentino was shown in Rome as a digital mixed with a physical event on a movie set at the famed Cinecitta movie studios. The 16 looks were all in white. Models hovered above, first captured on video then revealed as elongated dresses falling to the floor yards below them.
Sarah Mower renowned reporter at Vogue commented. “There is nothing that digital wizardry can possibly ever do to compete with the visceral wonder of seeing a Valentino haute couture collection walk through a room on his models. For now that precious experience is the dream we are all left with.”
CHRISTIAN SIRIANO
This nostalgic collection was shown, in New York, outdoors in a garden around a pool. Models walked in retro looking couture looks. One of the highlights was Nico Tortorella performer, and star of “The Walking Dead :World Beyond” in a peaches and cream dress.
Another spectacle was pregnant super model Coco Rocha walking around the pool in a spectacular jersey red dress plus long frilled hem, suddenly decided to walk into the swimming pool with the dress surrounding here. She had to be helped out, by on hand sexy boy model Don Hood, before she sank completely.
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DRIES VAN NOTEN This has to be my favourite collection for both men and women. Dries as he is always known, loves the drama of putting his collections on a runway. Because of Covid-19 he had to re-think his presentations for S/S 2021.
The first thing was to combine his mens and womenswear, a first for him in one presentation. Mostly shot on a sandy beach near Rotterdam he asked the Dutch contemporary photographer Viviane Sassen to shoot both stills and a video for him. This whole new experience for him was very pleasing. Maybe he will SHOW NO MORE like a few others, we will see.
For more insights in to what some designers achieved, download Vogue Runway or watch the videos on the Brands own websites. Plus always look out for QUEERGURU as we love fashion here
| GRAHAM FRASER Queerguru’s Culture, Fashion and Arts Correspondent was once half of the award winning FASHION DESIGNER duo WORKERS FOR FREEDOM. Years spent working in the luxury end of INTERNATIONAL FASHION he now lives with his partner the artist RICHARD NOTT and their two Cavapoos Albert and Raf in a stunning renovated 1950’s house on the edge of the Sussex Downs with distant sea views.
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