This document discusses the future of fashion shows in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It suggests that 2020 may be the year without physical fashion shows, as designers are opting for digital formats instead. This raises questions about how brands can plan for this change and what they need to consider for virtual shows. The document also discusses how some designers have already embraced digital formats and social media to promote their visions. It questions whether physical live audiences will still be needed for shows, and considers if alternative experiences could achieve the same goals.

1. What Is the Future of the
Fashion Show?

2. Using a fashion show as a marketing and
communication tool isn’t some nefarious
scheme. Look back to the most spectacular
fashion shows of the past and you’ll see that
those with the most lasting impact are often the
ones in service of a greater message.
That can be a social message, an aesthetic
message, or a cultural message, but rarely is
“Let’s sell some bags!” enough to carry a brand
from year to year.

3. So, what would a year of NO
Fashion Shows mean for the
industry?
Creativity is still the beating heart of
the fashion system. And each season it starts with
the shows. They are the primary medium through
which designers crystalize and convey their
creative visions, which then inform the products
that fill stores and the advertising campaigns that
support them, as well as other creative content,
from window displays to the editorial shoots that
appear in glossy magazines.

4. As the coronavirus takes its toll on the global economy,
businesses of all sizes, sectors and markets face an uncertain
future. The fashion and retail industries in particular need to
steer through changing consumer sentiment, shuttered stores
and disruption to the usual cadences of seasonality.
2020 may be the year without any more physical fashion shows,
with many designers already opting to live stream or host
digital events instead. As June approaches, even more brands
will have to follow suit or risk losing touch with buyers and
consumers altogether since the upcoming men’s runways in
London, Milan and Paris, as well as July’s Haute Couture shows,
have also been called off.
How might brands plan for this eventuality? For a start, should
they look to Asia.

5. So, what do brands need to know before going virtual?
Fashion, a business predicated on how we present ourselves to the world, is now grappling with how we imagine
ourselves in the new digital reality. The industry has had to embrace this digital consciousness quickly, crafting sights
and scenes explicitly devised to tap into our desire to snap, post, share, go viral.

6. A new generation of designers are working to conquer this psyche, none more masterfully than Demna Gvasalia, the creative genius behind the fashion
collections at Balenciaga.
For the recent spring-summer 2019 Balenciaga show in Paris, Gvasalia approached Jon Rafman, a digital artist whose immersive work has referenced video
games, virtual realities, and Google’s Street View mapping project.
Presenting the collection inside a cylindrical, LED screen-paneled tunnel, viewers confronted a Blue Screen of Death that slowly dissolved into
digitally-rendered liquids.
The visually startling journey continued to reveal alien landscapes, calamitous ecosystems, and techno-fetishistic civilizations on the brink of collapse.
As Gvasalia stated, “Fashion shows are for transporting people, otherwise there’s no point. It was like working on a movie, getting people into another reality,
so it stays as a memory.”
But the question is, do we need a physical live audience?

7. Social Media Is the Future, But It Can’t Be the Whole Story…
As fashion Industry has paused to ponder it’s future, a digital first strategy will be crucial, but can it replace the IRL experience. “It needs to be edited
and designed to fit well on a screen that fits in the palm of your hand that is available to the audience: the iPhone video and Instagram,”. The
purpose of the shows, is to help luxury brands communicate and to continue to make the audience dream. What that means [for the future] is that
we need to continue to make people dream in a more efficient, shorter way, and in a way that the POV of the audience matters more
than the one from the traditional media.
Virgil Abloh’s Menswear Collection for Louis Vuitton, drew heavily on the legacy of Michael Jackson.
Invitations were sent out in the form of white rhinestone-embellished gloves, the set was designed to evoke Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean’ music video and
models walked the runway in a variety of Jackson-inspired looks.
But could this have been produced in a Studio / Music Video Format and streamed direct to the LV audience? Do we need to start considering
alternative experiences…

8. Community Matters More than Ever
Simon Porte / Jacquemus’s Spring 2020 show the designer staged a sun-kissed show in the lavender fields of Provence, France. It was the
least traditional show: off-site, off-calendar, off-audience & “Off-Everything,” because the audience was only
about 10 or 20% professional.
“It was very, very small compared to other shows, but it had to do more. It proved that with a smaller audience you
can still create a gigantic buzz.”
Why then do we need to have the entire Fashion Circus travel over four major cities up-to 4 times a year…?

9. Fashion Must Be Sustainable or Risk
Losing Its Relevance
Sustainability isn’t a choice anymore; it’s
essential. But maybe fashion is too late to the
game. “The only no-impact fashion show is the
one that we don’t do!”
After Christian Dior’s spring 2020 womenswear show, the trees that lined the catwalk were replanted in parks around France

10. “It's a new era in fashion- there are No rules”
Alexander McQueen