How street culture has changed fashion
Mods line up behind the exclusive Nike model, in the first row on the Paris shows, the guys are sitting in adidas slates, the girls put New Era caps backwards. On world fashion weeks, brands start to appear, whose presence would have been difficult to explain: Nazir Mazhar releases her girlfriends in basketball shorts with an elastic logo on the podium, Hood by Air calls to close the hip-hopper show A $ AP Rocky, VFiles even shows about designers Style.com. Big Fashion Houses interpret history in their own way: Kenzo makes collaborations with Vans and the same New Era, Givenchy launches guys in t-shirts with numbers and leggings, and Christopher Kane legalizes slates for urban life.
During the Paris Fashion Week, Wonderzine talked with WAD magazine fashion director Jean-Paul Paula about how, over the past couple of years, street-culture has become evidently influencing fashion and how it threatens.
Lookbook Hood by Air
It seems that wearing sneakers with a dress recently and sports socks with sandals was the greatest ban. Things are changing: now a couple of naykov even have a conservative in the style of Karin Roitfeld, and Givenchy is releasing his version of caps and leggings. Tommy Ton and other street-style photographers shoot people who are not afraid to break the rules in fashion, and automatically hang on them the label "it". Tumbler spreads photos around the world in a couple of days. Kanye West at Paris Fashion Week? A crowd of guys in a Givenchy plaid shirt, Rick Owens leather trousers and classic Nike Air Force 1 - on the street. Everyone wants to be part of a fashionable crowd, flashing on blogs. But are heroes like Anna Dello Rousseau being surprised now, who put on all the most fashionable things at once simply because they got them first?
What fascinates us in sportswear now is that it does not create a sense of fashionable dictates. Sneakers, T-shirts and shorts - affordable things that are comfortable. These are the things that determine lifestyle, and not belonging to the fashion clan. Look at the man in the subway, dressed in a strict suit, or quite extreme - a whole crowd of discharged men on Pitti Uomo. Do you think they look fashionable? If you look into the future of men's fashion, it becomes obvious that they want to say too much with their appearance, and show the old dusty chic.
Many fashion editors are not influenced by trends so much: they can buy a new thing, but their style will remain recognizable. But you need to understand that there are self-confident people who are not afraid to experiment and do it successfully, but there are those who follow them. The so-called "fashion victims" make the industry what it is now. Designers lose their creativity, they create things to sell. This is not high fashion, as it was in the 1990s, it is a fashion "pop." You can blame anyone and anything: degradation, globalization, the Internet. But the reason - in society, that is, in people who buy. Who cares about Lady Gaga until she became a fashion icon? Why are H & M and Zara doing sales that they have never seen before? People want Balmain jeans for 5,000 euros, Zara copies them and in two weeks brings them to stores all over the world. Brands have stopped doing things that look unique. Look at Maison Martin Margiela - even they have ceased to risk.
What needs to be done now to interest the public who does not want to be drawn into this commercial cycle, which falls in love with the thing, but loses delight incredibly quickly? Sportswear plays on the interest of people in new technologies, but remember how concerned, for example, are Nike. We thought that in 2013 we would be driving cars; This did not happen, but we have the most comfortable sneakers in the world. Yes, Chalayan always looked into the future, but his clothes were unsuitable. Sports brands take the same, but convey the idea to the streets. How to continue to grow and not lose the interest of the public in a couple of seasons? Create new models in collaboration with designers and people who are pulled by the audience. The Kanye shoes for Giuseppe Zanotti are sold out, the Rihanna collection for River Island is a great success. Collaboration with interesting people always brings a positive result, and the combination of design with the comfort of sportswear is the perfect combination.
It seems new to come up with fashion is already difficult. Religion, androgyny - all this has already happened, and a T-shirt with Jesus or a dress taken away from the mother will not surprise anyone. Many seek inspiration in a time when there was no such crisis, they are trying to revive the 1990s and 2000s. British designers J.W. Anderson, Nasir Mazhar, Shaun Samson do it successfully in their key. American luxury-streetwear brands do show that fashion education is not necessary in order to interest people who are looking for something new. The latter are even attracted by the idea of wearing cool things that are less associated with fashion and more with lifestyle. Look at what HYPE is now Hood by Air - a brand created by a New York DJ / promoter. No, seriously, their latest collection is awesome. You either hate yourself and think that you will buy a thing promoted by such skillful marketing, or you simply put it on, look cool and feel happy. It really works like that.
Photo: Getty Images / Fotobank (3)