Politics, Russian boom and nodels: What happened to fashion in 2016
CONTINUING THE RESULTS years and remember the most important events that we will remember the 2016th. It’s hard not to notice how the world and the fashion industry have changed along with it: in advertising and on the catwalk more and more atypical models, conscious consumption becomes ubiquitous, and fashion is mixed with politics. We talk about the most important thing that happened in the past year.
Scheme "I saw - I bought"
The new concept "see now, buy now" has become the main trend of the September fashion weeks. Calling them "spring-summer" is now difficult: some designers, adapting to this sales scheme, began to show things seasonally in a season or even make one-time collections, which are designated as "September". Burberry became the pioneers, and the example of Christopher Bailey seemed to nudge everyone else. Among the followers are Tom Ford, Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Topshop Unique, Rebecca Minkoff. For some of them, only a part of the collection went on sale immediately, while others had everything available entirely. The transition to the new scheme was supposed to help brands monetize the interest that was still fresh after the show. The brands were guided by simple logic: having reduced the time gap between “I want” and “I can,” they hoped to instantly increase profits.
The results summarized in a month turned out to be ambiguous. Some online stores said that sales of experimenters stamps soared to the skies, others did not notice the difference. Some of the items were sold out in the very first days: at the same time, Burberry had only three of the 175 models included in the collection. But the brands that took part in the action exactly attracted attention. Business of Fashion gives statistics on the Lyst online sales platform: on the day of the Burberry show, the number of search queries on the brand increased by 400 percent compared to the usual one. In the case of Topshop - at 75. So, if a new concept cannot guarantee super-sales and cannot, then the interest of buyers is quite. That for the industry, in which the majority of the main income bring cosmetics and accessories, very well.
Closing the second lines
Large houses continued to close the second, more democratic line - one of the last victims was Sonia by Sonia Rykiel. Do not be sad: the "younger" lines do not die, but only merge with the older ones, and brands do not refuse from more affordable products. The same intention was announced by Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood, and Paul Smith - now you don’t have to be confused in numerous subcategories.
Such a decision was not easy for fashion houses: merging the second, third, and N lines that have been produced requires large financial investments. In addition, a wave of staff cuts follows him, as in the recent case of Sonia by Sonia Rykiel. Stamps go to such a serious step, weighing the pros and cons: buyers change their habits, which means that brands should change after them. Refusal of branches helps more precise positioning. Owners no longer want to distinguish between "simple" and "complex": both cases for iPhones and embroidered jackets have the right to be in the same space.
Conscious consumption
Fashion friendly to the environment, a year ago was popular except in Scandinavia. In 2016, new players were brought up, but the center of the struggle for respect for nature is still in the north. H & M in Sweden launched a stormy activity in search of "green" talents, and in Copenhagen gathered the main faces of the fashion world at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit. Among the guests were the critic and fashion director of the New York Times Vanessa Friedman, fashionable businessman Renzo Rosso, adidas, H & M and a dozen denim brands practicing a conscious approach. One of the newcomers to the summit was Miroslava Duma, one of the few representatives of Russia in the list of the most influential people in the fashion world, according to Business of Fashion.
adidas announced that they would abandon plastic bags in their stores in the near future, and continued to work with materials derived from ocean garbage. Monki launched their own collection campaign, joining H & M. A group of British brands, including Topshop and ASOS, yielding to the requirements of animal protection, announced that they would give up bird fluff. The fashion giant Kering has published a report on its large-scale eco-program.
The winner of the H & M Award for Young Designers, who will make the collection next year, is Richard Quinn, an eco-activist in the fashion world. Stella McCartney once again reminded of her beliefs, making inscriptions on the things of the spring collection "Girls thanks, no fur, no leather". Many people associated with the problem of ocean pollution are marine motifs that appeared in Maison Margiela and Miu Miu. Appeared more and more Russian and Ukrainian brands, opposing the "slow" fashion fast. Finally, conscious consumption has ceased to be a niche topic, once in the field of view of fashion gloss.
New Russian wave
Demna Gvasalia, definitely, became the designer of the year. If at the end of the 2015th edition, they were still trying to understand "who is Mr Gvasalia", then by the end of 2016, the genius of Georgian origin no longer needed to be introduced. Proof of this are not only numerous interviews, but also the number of followers. Although Gvasalia himself, without hiding it, quotes Martin Marghela, the rest quotes him already - and the post-Soviet 90s in general. This happens not only in Russia and Georgia, where the designer is considered "his", but throughout the world.
This year Gosha Rubchinsky also forced to talk about himself: first of all due to the success of the collection at Pitti Uomo and the release of the first fragrance together with COMME des GARÇONS. Attention to the designer reached its climax at the beginning of this winter, when Kanye West flew to the capital of Russia. Their meeting, documented in social networks, became a sufficient reason for speculation.
You can not ignore the success of models of non-standard appearance of the agency Lumpen, fashionable hoodies Russian Mafia New World Order and the popularity of the Cyrillic alphabet in the design of the inscriptions. Even the sports uniform of the Russian Olympic team was in the center of attention - Dazed, for example, published a material with the headline "The main winner of the Olympiad is the uniform of the Russian national team."
New supermodels
For a long time, the word "supermodel" was in tight bundle exclusively from the 90s. Few have worn this title - Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Kate Moss - whose career takeoff fell on the golden decade. Although the media has never stinted on advances, calling all popular models “super”, by 2016 a new title appeared, indicating success. Today an instagram account with hundreds of thousands of subscribers is a great help for a successful career. Now instamodels with Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid headed the heroines of the fashion world. Over the past couple of years, they have managed to prove that they are the new "super" - those models whose participation instantly displays the project in all the news headlines.
Some of the old guards were outraged at this turn of events. In June, a real scandal broke out because of the statements of model Stephanie Seymour. In an interview with Vanity Fair, she said that the new heroines are completely different from the previous ones, so the word refers only to the past, but for new ones it’s worth looking for something else. She offered her mizoginistichesky version of "Bitches of the moment", which predictably did not appreciate neither Kendall and Gigi themselves, nor the public.
However, the discussion on whether these girls can be called supermodels began a long time before it ended. In April, the British Vogue asked on its Twitter question: "Who said that Kendall and Gigi are not„ true supermodels “?" - In response to this, hundreds and thousands of short "everyone" showered. About Gigi and Kendall often say that they do not have the "magic" of the old supermodels, that the fame came to them not through hard work, but simply because of their origins. But their names, let's be realists, are recognizable today no less than the names of fashion houses.
Politics in fashion
Fashion and politics have never been so close as this year. Of course, designers had previously expressed directly from the podium about actual problems - for example, we recall the famous “feminist” march of Chanel or the regular demonstrations and meetings of Vivienne Westwood. This time, however, the interaction has reached a new level.
Election of the President of the United States forced designers to openly declare their own political convictions - the majority supported Hillary Clinton. Designers did merchandising for the candidate, agitated in social networks, closed their own T-shirt shows in her support. Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue, became almost the official stylist of Clinton, Ralph Lauren - practically her tailor, having made many famous trouser suits. Opening Ceremony turned their show into a political performance. Many did not hesitate to openly blame Trump: the R13 brand, for example, has released dresses with the words "FUCK TRUMP" and "God Save America". Pantsuits (recall the #pantsuitnation action) and Nasty Women T-shirts turned out to be the greatest hits of the election season, and the main accessories after that were the pins with which you could declare your support for the ideas of equality and respect.
Americans borrowed the idea with the pins from the British, who also responded to Brexit. They recalled a referendum on leaving the EU and on the catwalks: Indian designer Ashish Gupta, who has lived in London since 1996, in his collection mixed traditional saris with overalls and usual sports items, and bowed out in the top with the inscription "immigrant".
Variety of beauty
The set of heroines and role models of the fashion world has never been as diverse as today. In the list of Top Newcomers Models.com, entirely girls from Brazil, Dominican Republic, Korea, models of very different appearance and origin. On magazine covers - all the same. British Vogue for the first time puts a plus-size model, although some designers, as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Alexandra Shulman writes, refused to work with the team, having found out who they will wear. It is noteworthy that this cover is the most ordinary, and not a special issue dedicated to the diversity of beauty or plus-size models. At the same time, "nodels" continue to appear on the catwalk - non-professional models with various figures found on the web, on the streets or among friends of designers.
In Russia, the joint project of the Bezgraniz Couture brand and the British Higher School of Design, which was shown in October at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, attracted much attention. Yanina Urusova and Tobias Reizner, together with students of the British Higher School of Design, make truly beautiful clothes for people with disabilities that suit their particular needs. And the Russian glossy publications not only did not ignore this story, but also highlighted it from all possible sides: someone interviewed the ideologues, someone made a shooting with the models from the show and asked them. And this is perhaps one of the most revealing things that happened in the past year.
New creative directors
As you know, there are no irreplaceable elements: even the house of the name of the designer during his lifetime and against his will can easily fall into the hands of another, as we remember from the example of John Galliano. So, all the fashion houses left without creative directors got new ones during the year - and most of them even managed to present their debut collections. The spring season came out especially intriguing: Maria Grazia Curie showed the first collection for Dior, Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Larent, and Bushra Jarrar for Lanvin. Jonathan Saunders, who began working with Diane Von Furstenberg, was not paid due attention, but in vain: his work turned out to be unconditionally good.
Vakkarello was most definitely accepted: he released exactly what was expected of him, receiving perhaps accusations of excessive caution. Busher Jarrar got the most - her version of Lanvin was not appreciated at all. It is not only an exceptionally ugly parting with the house of Elbaz, but, alas, in the collection itself. The most talked about was the debut of Maria Gracie Curie, formerly known as the half of Valentino duo, in Dior. The first woman in this honorary post provoked two main branches of discussion: the sincerity of political statements from the podiums (all because of the very T-shirt) and the movement of modern fashion, including the old luxury houses, to everyday life.
Raf Simons got a job in a new big house, leading Calvin Klein, - there is not enough work on his own brand. But Edie Sliman, who recently raised Saint Laurent’s sales to the skies, is still suing Kering Holding. This year, he was told two ways: there were rumors that he, with the support of Arab investors, would open his own brand or, alternatively, replace Karl Lagerfeld in Chanel - the latter does not seem so incredible. Founder Marni Consuelo Castiglioni left her post to take up personal life, and Francesco Risso replaced her. In Oscar de la Renta, two designers of the young and brisk brand Monse were invited to work, so it is hoped that the American house itself will be a match for them. DKNY said goodbye to Tao-Yi Chou and Maxwell Osbourne from Public School, who in one and a half years managed to make the brand truly worthy.
One of the most curious stories of the year is the short collaboration of Justin O'Shea and Brioni, from which only photos from the campaign with the Metallica group and one collection of fur coats remained. Although, when O'Shea was appointed creative director of the brand in March, many found the event programmatic. But the predictions did not come true: Brioni and O'Shea diverged in October.
Photo: Gosh Rubchinsky, Burberry, Lane Bryant, Reformation, Mango
