On day two of Vogue Global Conversations, the new 4 days series of talks with fashion industry professionals, Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps hosted a conversation with Olivier Rousteing – Balmain Creative Director, Cédric Charbit CEO of BALENCIAGA and Natacha Ramsay-Levi – Chloè Creative Director on the future of fashion shows.Â
Yesterday I started sharing here on glamobserver, the main takeaways of the days with you all in case you miss the conversations because I think, in this special and unprecedented time, it’s very important to start thinking about the future and see what the biggest name of the industry think about it.Â
With everything happening, men’s fashion week in Milan, scheduled on June are postponed and merged with the city’s womenswear week in September 2020, Couture Week in July has been postponed and September fashion week for SS21 is still questioned.Â
So it was really interesting to know what some of the biggest names of the fashion industry think about this and how they see the future of fashion shows.
When yesterday, on Day 1 of these conversations, the editor-in-chief of British Vogue Edward Enninful asked Marc Jacobs how he is going to present his spring-summer 2021 collection, the American designer said he doesn’t know if there will be a s/s collection.
So let’s see what Olivier Rousteing from Balmain, Cédric Charbit from Balenciaga and Natacha Ramsay-Levi from Chloè think about the way the will present their future collections.
Olivier Rousteing – Balmain Creative Director
For Rousteing the future of fashion shows is a mix of digital and real shows that he sees differently, one has to be emotional, while the digital one less emotional but to the next level.Â
“When you think about digital, you bring just images that can be strong but it’s not a real experience. We still need that emotion. 600 people in the room are not representing the community, there are so many who dream of fashion so I’d love to open the experience to more than 600 guests list. Digital fashion shows and real fashion shows, I see them differently. I don’t see digital less emotional but an experience where you can push your dreams to the next level, it can be to the moon or in the sky. It doesn’t have to be just a streaming of the real show, but something totally different. The real fashion show has to be emotional with the people in the room, it has to go through emotions and be iconic.
I want to change the experience and be more entertainment, you can create a performance with artists and models. Do models can just walk?
Cédric Charbit CEO of Balenciaga
While the CEO of Balenciaga doesn’t manage the artistic direction he talked about the audience and the numbers saying that online and offline are almost merging.
“600 people attend a fashion show every season. If you look at the digital audience, considering the live streaming via youtube, Instagram and Twitter combined together we have an audience of about 10million viewers. 600 vs 10 million is striking as a number. The audience has to be reconsidered: do we have guests or viewers? Or are they becoming one?
People working on the show are already online and offline mode. We pay models 50% for the catwalk and 50% for the rights when you go live streaming.
Today we are entering into a phase where fashion and tech need to sync, they need to merge. “
Natacha Ramsay-Levi РChlo̬ Creative Director
For the creative director of Chloè, the show is here to stay but its business model should change.
“The audience now it’s mostly digital but I won’t kill the show, the show is a beautiful moment. The digital has to amplify it. Â
The moment of the fashion show is a moment when the whole company is focused on making products and conveying a message that brings value.
Fashion shows have a very small time on the market and there is a total dichotomy to where we put creativity and the business.
The business model of the fashion show has to stop. We are losing the creativity because the moment when us, creatives, are the strongest is the one of the fashion show, which instead is when the business does the less.
 A lot of designers ask the same: we have to change our direction. All the fashion federations should commit to reevaluating the business value of the way this industry is made. There is something about the waste we can’t keep pushing. We pollute so much, we can’t waste materials, but we cannot either waste creativity. The next product I’ll buy has to be relevant.
In the last part of the conversation they all answered one of the most asked questions on the most discussed topic of fashion:
what’s one thing you’ll do to make your production more sustainable?
BALMAIN:
“We don’t want to live on a planet that is going to die tomorrow. we have to protect our world. sustainability is a long and complicated but exciting process. we have started hiring people to understand the beginning….Also from the consumer, if you buy a lot and so we need to present a lot of products, we can’t make anything sustainable. “
BALENCIAGA:
“Being part of Kering, sustainability is an essential topic for us. This time is also to reflect what we can do in a better way. 3 weeks ago I received from Demna [Gvasalia] and the design team, a sustainability roadmap for 2020 and 2021. So it’s not just about the sustainability department but all the company, including the designers, are working on this.”
CHLOÈ:
“There are two important parts: one is that we are finding new fabrics and new techniques and the second part is the one we won’t be able to achieve alone: the waste. The waste comes from a system. You have new collections, you make a product that it’s relevant and you try to make it in a sustainable way and, in 3 months, is supposed to be discounted in stores and not relevant anymore for the market. We can’t reuse the fabrics we buy because people have already seen that. That’s criminal. It’s also a waste of creativity when products lose their value so quickly. So we have to be sustainable in the way we produce, that takes time, but we need to be aware of our waste.”
Photo Getty images
