On Creative Directors
The Impact of Big Egos on Fashion: What to Expect?
As the fashion industry evolves, reflecting on creative directors and their work seems crucial to understanding its direction. Indeed, the shift from the figure of designers to creative directors brings about some considerations. What should we expect in fashion? Creativity and skills or marketing and big egos?
The Work of Creative Directors
From what we’ve seen so far, creative directors take over a Maison and shape it with their own aesthetic. How do they do it? They can access extensive archives and substantial funds. Corporations produce and flood the market with their products, promoting them across every single media. However, after too much exposure, people get tired. When love ends, sales plummet, and, as a consequence, the creative gets kicked out. Nobody wants to purchase products of the unfortunate brand anymore. Not even off-priced.
While that brand struggles to regain identity and credibility, the creative jumps to the next one, replicating the very same view under a different logo. In this game, brands lose their uniqueness and look all the same. Every reference is NOT a coincidence: Alessandro Michele represents the most striking case. His recent looks for Valentino seemed more like an advertisement for the new Gucci campaign. A hybrid Gvucci or Vucci, as you prefer. However, he is not alone. The havoc John Galliano made on Margiela is another example.
But why don’t these creative directors launch their namesake brands? They avoid it because out of that box, they lose their relevance. Their skills rely on immense archives and huge investments. They excel at styling and marketing, but the creativity of a fashion designer is a different matter. Their ego overpowers.
Conclusion
With perseverance and hard work, designers of the past created a distinctive style, developing a culture around it. The unique idea of fashion they believed in was idiosyncratic, and they worked with determination, committed to spreading that idea.
In fact, the role of the creative director is a marketing necessity for corporations to lure consumers. Unfortunately, the side effect is a flattened fashion industry, where the only focus is profit.
As we witness the rise of creative directors, we need to acknowledge that these figures fail to introduce innovative elements or enrich the discourse within the fashion industry. Instead, they perpetuate a dangerous cycle of overproduction, which they would never attempt to change because they are part of the system. Employees and accomplices.
This, we must take into account.
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