Global Fashion Industry converges at majestic Parish Fashion Week 2020

With the pandemic likely to stay for longer than expected, large gatherings of the likes at the fashion weeks do not seem possible in the near future. How will the industry cope? 

By Rahul Vaimal, Associate Editor
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Paris Fashion Show 2019
Representational Image

The $1.4 trillion global fashion market where glamour and glitz ruled has been one of the hardest hit due to the pandemic and accompanying lockdown. As the world recuperates from the blow, the Paris Fashion Week Federation is taking a bold step towards establishing normalcy with its much-anticipated announcement to conduct Paris Fashion Week this year. 

Earlier this week, the governing body of Paris Fashion Week Federation, de la Haute Couture et de la Mode confirmed that the world’s most prominent fashion week will happen from September 28 to October 6th becoming the only fashion week to confirm its show. The body is looking to keep it a mix of live and digital shows through a specially curated online platform but more details are yet to be revealed.

To say that it left the people “not from the fashion industry” baffled would be an understatement as a fashion week of global magnitude, it would require people to fly in from around the world, gather at the venue and then spread back across the world, a thought that is sure to give the shudders to the world since COVID-19 wrecked our lives.

Paris Fashion Week

As many hoped the brief gap will be utilized by the brands and designers as a chance to fix the ‘broken system” of fashion some of them are trying to reimagine the future of fashion events. For instance, Dior had announced that its cruise show will take place in Italy on 22nd July with no guests. Burberry hopes to have an outdoor live show while maintaining social distancing on 17th September in Britain. Gucci has gone a step further and announced that it will rework its traditional fashion calendar.

The industry is characterized by hectic schedules and ever-accelerating pace not to mention the lack of mindfulness for environmental and economic sustainability considering the constant cycle of consumption that they unleash with the launch of each new collection. “Now we know that too furious was our doing, too insidious was our ride,” wrote Gucci designer Alessandro Michele on Instagram.

Aishwarya Rai in Paris Fashion Show
Bollywood celebrity Aishwarya Rai Bachchan at Paris Fashion Week 2019

But there is no denying the fact that it is integral to see a garment on a model, the way it moves, and the way it feels to touch it before it is put up in the store. The system also employs numerous artists from hairstylists to models and plays an important role in the economy.

So what’s the middle ground that the industry can focus on? Phygital seems to be the answer that the industry wants to incorporate into their future fashion events by bringing the best physical and digital worlds together. Though it’s effectiveness can be understood only in the due course.

As the world’s most opulent arrive in Paris this autumn, the world waits anxiously to see a symbolic recovery of humankind with the successful completion of Paris Fashion Week 2020.

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