rewiringfashion

‘Rewiring Fashion,’ They Said?

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News from the SS22 Milano Fashion Week


Rewiring fashion seemed to be the new purpose in the fashion field. Unfortunately, there was no trace of it during the Spring-Summer 22 Milano Fashion Week.

Back to back, physical fashion shows, digital presentations. Both, in some cases. All perfectly aligned with the pre-pandemic world. You can smell the status quo. And not for fear or lack of courage, rather because that’s the way to make money.

More than anything else, the urgent brands’ intent seemed the will to connect with the Chinese market. This quest reverberated like a scream or a cry for help in the majority of the presentations.

The only new element (in case we still want to consider it so) is the calling of a diverse flood of models. Now different silhouettes or ethnicities are well represented in fashion events, and it is clearly positive. Although it’s lovely that anyone can identify with the models and see how dresses fit on various body shapes, the problem is that many of these new generations of boys and girls have no sense of elegance. So the image of these fashion shows looks poorly.

The Roof Milano
Milano Fashion Week
The Roof Milano

Spring-Summer 22: rewiring fashion?


It is not that now the trend is more sporty, that is the comment we heard during a fashion show. It’s that elegance is dead. Culturally dead, in wearing, speaking, or living.

Most importantly, there is no shift in terms of communication. Indeed, what emerged is the same way of spreading the work. Perhaps with a further decrease of the overall perceived value. The Instagram way seemed still relevant, with all the related circus. Which, by the way, we found boring. If not annoying. We are fed up with it, aren’t you?

The official press, or what remains of it, can only be condescending or applauding. Budgets for advertising are already cut to the bones, better avoid any further reduction.

Designers are creatives, and creatives are supposed to have views about style, life, and the future.

But what is the vision?
What kind of woman do they want to promote?
What kind of future do they want to see?

And what about the rewiring fashion idea? Apart from the empty marketing slogans, which want to represent the (fake) change, what are we talking about?

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Sale Season! The Status Quo Never Dies

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Why we keep buying into it


We’ve entered the sale season and the entire industry–sustainability advocates included, has jumped into hard-discounting mode.

While it’s understandable that Covid impacted the market, leaving high inventories, it seems clear that the status quo wins.
The push to leave things as they are, sticking to the usual patterns of production and sales, is stronger than the will to change.

The interests of the industry players are intentionally focused on maintaining the status quo. And the game is well-known: massive overproduction that corresponds to an omnipresent, gigantic distribution.

In order to sustain this system, mark-ups have gotten higher and higher.

Even those who launched “Rewiring fashion” did it following an outdated pattern, simply postponing delivery dates or sale seasons. Is that the solution? Really?

Perhaps this means that nothing has to change. Covid was not a lesson to learn but just an obstacle along the path. Rather than learning the lesson and changing strategy, they would prefer to sell all the stocked goods to any alien species. And maybe exploit a whole galaxy too.

Producing goods for the sale season


Producing goods to be sold during the sale season is the blind strategy of a sick market system. A short-term solution that offloads all the costs onto workers–creating new slaves–and exploiting the planet.

If sustainability includes ethical work–giving a proper wage to those who make our clothes, then sales, as they are, are not sustainable.

Prices are often inflated from the start to account for expected sale seasons. No sales means more realistic prices throughout the season, and therefore, more affordable items.

We hope to see industry players in the fashion field coming together  to find new strategies to avoid sales. By connecting and collaborating, they can add value to products and establish a viable, long-term strategy.

Furthermore, if they all claim to support sustainability, they should also take action to make it a reality.

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