Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of
COVID_19
FBS C19 Issue 7:
19.06.20

It is entirely indicative of the times we live in, that the title and focus of this issue changed
during forty-eight hours. As stated previously this is not a political newsletter, it’s a fashion
focussed report to offer information both during full lockdown, and as lockdown shifts. Its
horizons are global and also encompass the arts in general, as these often run parallel to
fashion and style. So, what are we looking at specifically in this issue? The big brands,
cultural style mistakes, celebrities & influencers, technology and local versus global are
amongst the topics below, but why? Because things are changing, but not in one simple all
embracing ‘easy to wrap’ package.

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
Everything is shifting and being discussed, from the serious, with obviously COVID 19 and
Black Lives Matter as the two prime examples, to the serious in relation to the fashion
world. How will the coming seasons work, what will happen about about sales and price
reductions, can we still support very cheap clothing made in terrible factory and worker
conditions? ‘The death of the fashion show’, or simply the “hot item” of the week point us
to think about these established components of the fashion construction. This is week
seven of these reports, and everything we’ve included is factual, and the endless
discussions posing unanswerable questions have been excluded. We do not know at this
point the real facts of the future of fashion, simply because we are still inside the COVID 19
situation. Since doctors have still to find many answers, we are far to unsure of fresh
outbreaks, or mutations of the virus, to predict a spring fashion season in 2021 exactly like
the spring season of 2019 would be insane. We cannot make clear and final predictions or
decisions.

However, what we can be very clear about it, things are already changing. The distance
between the statements issued regarding future planning by Gucci and Chanel is the
perfect example of the earthquake which is creating huge cracks in the “system”.
With seven weeks of these papers or reports we can clearly begin to see the key questions
and the responses to the immediate fashion future. Ideology and wishful thinking would
suggest that, make better and make less, local not global, fair wages and working
conditions, and sustainability will rule the future.
The truth is we don’t know, but we can hope.

Tony Glenville
Fashion Commentator

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fashion-retail-business-bankrupt-
stores/2020/06/12/463572b0-9c56-11ea-ac72-3841fcc9b35f_story.html

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
London Fashion Week & Others:
What will we learn from this event?

As the first of the four international fashion weeks to “go online” London Fashion Week has
been a subject of huge scrutiny. One journalist described it as “a funny mix between the
amateurish and the thought provoking. It was clearly a triumph that it happened at all, that
the BFC were able to indeed shift from live events a an open to all platform which must
have increased the global audience. If this is a future template for fashion weeks? Gender
neutral London may have been, but in July Paris is keeping Haute Couture and Menswear
firmly separated, plus it’s all still for the professionals with registration required by the
federation being still mandatory.

For the bodies like CFDA and BFC it is essential that they do something, we have been in
lockdown in one for or another since basically the last day of the last season in March.
Plus, stories of sickness and the physical effects of COVID 19 are not remote from the
fashion business.

After the final show by Louis Vuitton many left towns without completing orders, interviews
or go sees of collections. The start of the COVID 19 times was already clear, and indeed
many who attended a party at the end of Paris became sick, some extremely so. Sophia
Neophitou-Apostolou stylist and founder of 10 magazines was in a medically induced
coma for a month and is only slowly recovering.

Being a key player at the very heart of the global fashion industry means that her story will
influence many people regarding future plans.

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
It is important to realise that a fashion week is much more than the shows or the schedule,
it’s the off schedule and the beginners, the first timers, and the discoveries. It’s the
exchange of views and information, and yes, gossip. It’s how news travels, it’s how views
are formed, it’s how just be watching the front row you can tell if it’s a fashion moment, or
a fashion disaster. Glamour is the icing on the fashion week cake, the rest is relentless hard
slog and a mind focussed only on work.

It’s the speed of appointment after appointment, bumping into people after a seasons gap.
It is live, it’s atmospheric and it’s the highs and lows; the favourite who lets you down and
the unknown who lifts you up. I think the words I’m aiming for are – people and creativity.
Hard to replicate online or the ‘new normal’?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/fashion/virus-london-fashion-week-
digital.html?searchResultPosition=1

https://www.vogue.com/article/digital-fashion-weeks-2020

https://fashion.cloud/en/digital-fashion-week/

https://cfda.com/fashion-calendar/important-dates/upcoming

https://www.pittimmagine.com/en/corporate/fairs/uomo/news/2019/pittiuomoexperience.html

Global News:

Eco Textile news ‘COPENHAGEN’ - The Global Fashion Agenda non-profit has released an
agenda to guide fashion leaders in futureproofing their business models after the
coronavirus pandemic by placing sustainability at the core of their operations.

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
Entitled the CEO Agenda 2020, written with contributions from global management
consultants McKinsey & Company, it outlines opportunities for CEOs to rebuild the fashion
industry with guidance for recovering profitability and embedding greater resilience by
advancing sustainability.

Based on in-depth consumer research, supplier research and interviews with industry
leaders, it aims to help optimise fashion’s value chain in the short term, and to emerge on
the other side with more resilient business models in the long term.

Originally named a Global Pandemic, COVID 19 has been different in its intensity and timing
across the world, just as every country has responded to the outbreaks in a different way. It
is clear that from the fashion point of view we are looking at every single aspect of the
journey a garment makes. Creative design studios, fabric sourcing, manufacturing,
deliveries, magazines, retail, and everything that you can think of and name across the
fashion business has been affected.

Since early March COVID 19 has swept across the world, and the fashion business has
been hard hit, it has had to stop and now it has to restart, but how. Manufacturing to retail
it’s time to think, but it cannot be guesswork because this is business. Japan, America, Italy
China, wherever we look there is information and as we gather it together, we can hope it
will keep us informed and support our decisions.

Below we glance at responses to different aspects of these effects in a range of countries.
The number of jobs, the roles within the industry and how the chain, from the initial idea
through to the customer, works involves so many people and so many skills.
If students and those newly launched into the industry who are looking for help, reading
and learning certainly doesn’t stop when you graduate. It’s not just about reading Vogue
online it’s about a wide range of observers and platforms. Being well informed and having a
breadth of knowledge is always essential, but right now it literally the only way to survive.
Looking around us means you’re not isolated, and learning from others, both their
successes and mistakes, is a great way to develop your power.

Live blog: How the Coronavirus affects garment workers in supply chains.
https://cleanclothes.org/news/2020/live-blog-on-how-the-coronavirus-influences-workers-in-supply-
chains

A broad range of viewpoints to read and digest from financial, business and fashion
industry:

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/06/09/2045523/0/en/Global-Fast-Fashion-
Market-Report-2020-to-2030-COVID-19-Growth-and-Change.html

https://shenglufashion.com/2020/06/05/covid-19-and-u-s-apparel-imports-updated-june-2020/

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/04/10/business/coronavirus-japan-shoppers-buy-
online/#.XudnlC_Raf0

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/perspectives-for-north-americas-fashion-
industry-in-a-time-of-crisis#

https://www.elle.com/fashion/a31958030/fashion-companies-covid-19-relief/

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/style/story/future-fashion-70749311

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevendennis/2020/04/21/covid-19-and-fashion-and-luxury-retails-
lost-season/#4943c78d707f

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_on_the_fashion_industry

Fashion has always known how to adapt to the world around it - and that's never been truer
than right now. Face masks, once worn as fashion statements, have become indispensable
amid the coronavirus pandemic. Big luxury groups and smaller outfits alike have
repurposed their production lines to produce vital protective equipment. Covid-19 is forcing
the world of fashion to take a long, hard look in the mirror. Who better to discuss these
unprecedented times than Parisian designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac? He joins us on
the show under lockdown.

https://www.france24.com/en/culture/20200508-covid-19-and-the-future-of-fashion

Marine Serre:
Marine Serre is a French fashion designer who won the 2017 LVMH Prize for Young Fashion
Designers.

Speaking with a fresh voice, Marine Serre thinks recycling should be the rule not the
exception; and we agree. Vintage scarves and other upcycled materials may form the base
of each collection, but there’s nothing old-fashioned about these designs.
Streetwise and not afraid of a little modest femininity either, this collection is filled with
sportswear, tailoring and Islamic influences.

https://youtu.be/dYUa5-8JrIk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Serre

https://models.com/work/blanc-magazine-christopher-john-rodgers

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
Christopher John Rogers:
Simply the latest from this extraordinary talent.

https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2020-ready-to-wear/christopher-john-rogers

BLANC Magazine: https://blancmagazine.com

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
Celebrities & Influencers:
Be careful.

Making mistakes is what people do but making a mistake when your income and status
depends on it is a major mistake. Influencers and celebrities have been plunging into a
variety of situations at the drop of a hat. Those with PR support are separated from that
infrastructure and are making decisions on their own, those who are independent are just
ploughing on regardless. How their status will be going forward is anyone’s guess but the
ability to put their foot in it seems to be peaking right now for many of them. Think before
you Tweet, reread that email before you press send, and carefully think about that YouTube
posting, would seem good advice. Below are some observations from a variety of sources.
I’m sure you can find many more comments with absolutely no difficulty.

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/social-media/2020/06/george-floyd-protests-white-
influencers-instagram-clout

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jun/11/influencers-protests-staged-photos-black-lives-
matter

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/may/02/theres-a-sense-that-celebrities-are-irrelevant-
has-coronavirus-shattered-our-fame-obsession

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/arts/virus-celebrities.html

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/27/lifestyle/dear-celebrities-here-are-some-dos-donts-your-
covid-19-posts/

https://jingtravel.com/chinese-travel-influencers-handling-covid-19-jing-travel/

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
https://www.emarketer.com/content/covid-19-hinders-influencer-marketing-collaborations-causes-
some-creators-to-shift-focus

https://influencerdb.com/blog/pandemics-impact-on-influencer-industry/

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/i-take-responsibility-and-the-limits-of-
celebrity-activism

Shopping:
It’s not a simple as it’s seems.

Traditionally a business selling clothes had a simple enough formula. It was based around
the money made which was worked out in ratio to the amount of stock/product on the
shop floor. Pounds, dollars, euros, etc per square meter of space. However, all shops now
slowly opening are having to put out less stock which means this ration is no longer
working, plus staff cannot be ‘selling’ in the traditional ways in close contact with the
clients.

Take these restrictions onto fragrance, beauty, accessories, and the limitations and the
logistics become more and more complex. So, opening up retail as far as fashion is
concerned isn’t a case of some hand sanitiser by the door, it’s a whole new way of thinking
about selling and running a retail fashion business.

As shops reopened in the U.K. this week it became clear that this is a slow business, and a
different business. The key word seems to be ‘caution” as some out of town branches
opened ahead of London.
The expression ‘return to normal’ is much bandied about, but what exactly does it mean in
relation to crowds, masks, sanitiser, changing rooms, testing, and all the components
which go to make up the retail experience. The high streets of the country are made up of
spaces designed to bring people together, to encourage groups and to make shopping
enjoyable with family or friends. None of this matches the demands of buying something
during the time of COVID 19.

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Fashion Changes Shape, In the Time of - COVID_19
We will all be anxiously watching and learning during the coming weeks, not just in the U.K.
but across the world. Not only will this be about retail and the rules, but those rules having
been “invented” or created as a response to lockdown have never actually been tested en
masse. This is trial and test by the public and its responses and behaviour.
Many people are not ready to return to the shops, 40% according to a poll on June 15th
2020; maybe some never will?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/harrods-reopens-after-lockdown-with-a-72-hour-quarantine-for-
rejected-dresses-and-a-ban-on-makeovers-f97ddpln9

https://internetretailing.net/covid-19/covid-19/how-department-stores-are-planning-their-store-
reopenings-21475

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/15/fashion-beauty-trends-coronavirus/

https://www.ft.com/content/07bd5ad6-6979-400f-a26e-bb0eefac1e6d

Fashion Shows or No Shows?
A hot fashion topic.

The fashion show. Is it a relic of a bygone fashion age, or simply lying dormant waiting to
spring back to life at the first opportunity?
Fashion shows started as a means of showing the fashions and styles of the day and
season on living models moving about and visible from all angles. The fitting and salons
enabled clients to touch the fabrics and see the pieces in close up. Then, since back in the
old days it was only couture, the client requested another colour or modifications. Ready to
wear doesn’t include the last element, and many of today’s observers and commentators

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have little knowledge or interest in cut, fabric and finish. So, where does this leave the
fashion show? It’s a selling tool and has been for some years. It’s sets an image in the
retail clients mind, it communicates a designer’s vision, and it can be used on screen for
many weeks of the season as a promotional tool. Played at fragrance counters it invites the
consumer into the enchanted world of fashion.

He real magic element though is live. Just as every performance of a ballet or a play is
different every night in those magical theatres across the world, so with fashion shows you
need to be ‘in the room”. It’s a brief flowering of location, audience, production, casting,
music, hair and makeup, accessories and the team’s single vision of those clothes for that
moment. Just as a filmed ballet isn’t the same as being in the audience so with fashion
shows. The fifteen minutes which flash by when you’re there, is edited to three minutes
online, it’s a hint of the real thing.

We may have to think long and hard about the return of the show, just as Broadway, The
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden or a comedy club are doing, it live is at the heart of the
arts. Gallery to performer, exhibition to catwalk, the arts need interaction between the
creative work and the audience.

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jun/08/fashion-shows-weeks-catwalk-runways-digital
https://youtu.be/JwlGthexzHY
https://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/news/how-coronavirus-is-changing-the-fashion-week-circuit-as-
we-know-it/news-story/da179954c6259cf56aa92355a2f8bcdb
https://www.voguebusiness.com/fashion/the-fashion-show-as-we-know-it-is-over-covid-19

Chanel:
Making their own rules.

Big Luxury houses, brands, names or labels can make their own rules. The wish to slim
down to streamline and edit isn’t the way forward for Chanel.

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Interestingly they don’t produce menswear collections unlike Saint Laurent and Gucci so
the edit from these two is even more severe. Cruise went ahead all be it in a digital format,
and future shows seem to be fixed.
This is great news for the avid Chanel customer and will no doubt support sales. If, and its
pure guess work, but if the future of fashion is less is better and quality not quantity will
Chanel continue to stride along the same road for the foreseeable future?

https://www.chanel.com/en_WW/fashion/collection/cruise-2020-21-collection-presentation.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/08/style/chanel-cruise-digital.html
https://wwd.com/runway/resort-2021/paris/chanel/review/
https://www.vogue.com/article/chanel-virginie-viard-coronavirus-story
https://highxtar.com/chanel-keeps-its-calendar-of-6-collections-per-year/?lang=en
https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/chanel-calls-time-on-extravagant-paris-fashion-shows-1.4974372

Culture & Clothes:
It’s complicated…

Fashion and clothing has swapped and shifted, “been inspired by” and paid homage to
many icons of traditional style and dress. It’s always been a controversial subject, since
without an understanding of the origins and nuances of pieces, often refined and worn over
decades, it is easy to offend, dishonour or insult.

In today’s multicultural society, where identity can be multi layered and where our origins
can be any racial mix, the rules still apply; know your facts. The headdress or blouse may
have a significance which you are unaware of, or the importance through religion or
ceremony means you are being offensive. During the current times clothes, hair,

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accessories, or really anything, can become an unspoken weapon or simply a massive
mistake. I repeat again, something I return to again and again, that Africa is a continent
with more than fifty countries making up the land mass, from Egypt to South Africa. Algeria,
Nigeria and Ghana are very different countries within the African continent and to lump
them together is not only a mistake, it’s exactly the right way to cause offence.
Take a minute to check out the national dress for these three countries, all fabulously
beautiful and rich but also totally, completely and utterly different. If we admire, and love,
and think we are paying homage, we can still offend. It’s not enough to simply say ‘I didn’t
know’ or make an apology, the damage has been done.
It is exactly the same as misquoting the words from a primary source, or a grammatical
mistake in speaking a foreign language; it is easily avoidable. Cultural appropriation is in the
news right now more than ever, for obvious reasons, but it’s always been a trap for the
unwary. Take time, research, think and if in doubt, ask.

https://www.gq.com/story/nancy-pelosi-police-reform-outfit

https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/fashion/from-dreadlocks-to-kimonos-does-fashion-have-a-
problem-with-cultural-appropriation-1.1010276

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2019/06/30/issues/kimono-not-supposed-fast-
fashion/#.XuYIKi_Raf0

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/fashion-designers-appropriate-black-hairstyles-fashion-week

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/non-black-minorities-appropriation_l_5d974be7e4b0f5bf797372ba

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/kimono-fashion-history-cultural-appropriation/index.html

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/designers/a32815075/fashion-industry-professionals-black-
lives-matter/

Technology:
Is it the answer?

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If technology is to help fashion it has to be creative, it’s not just about adapting it’s about
how fashion and cyber, digital, technical inventiveness can support fashion. Gaming,
shopping online, and anything which is already established is fine but it’s time the two
worlds united to move forward in appropriate ways. Expertise from the two areas isn’t
necessarily compatible, why should it be? So virtual dresses must still be designed by a
fashion expert and put into reality by a technical expert, if that’s the best answer. Moving
image and fashion has taken a huge amount of work and application to make it a success.
If we look at TV and fashion, it’s generally an uneasy partnership.
So, think and watch carefully how the discussions and the experiments and the outcomes
really work and look at the success rate. It’s early days.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhackl/2020/06/08/why-virtual-dresses--augmented-fashion-are-
a-new-profitable-frontier-for-
brands/?fbclid=IwAR17fWtStDSzIwGe6WjIKzHEZOpdV3WU3LNge5FN2O41tZFueLDAcoi2XFk#230b
add862c8

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-52761571/coronavirus-the-3d-artists-helping-
fashion-through-covid-19

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/05/random_fashion_brand_valentino_shares_custom_anim
al_crossing_new_horizons_clothing_codes

https://arpost.co/2020/04/10/fashion-perfect-fit-augmented-reality/

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In these times of social distancing technology can bring us together. We partnered with
photographer Fee-Gloria Groenemeyer to try the remote shooting app CLOS, the world’s
first app allowing artists to organise high res video and photo sessions from a distance -
wether is across the street or in another continent.

https://feeglory.net/

https://www.vogue.it/fotografia/article/fee-gloria-groenemeyer-remote-portraits

https://www.vogue.it/fotografia/gallery/remote-portraits-photogallery-fee-gloria-
groenemeyer?image=5ee71cd19344b2986d555651

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=fee-gloria+groenemeyer&client=safari&hl=en-
gb&sxsrf=ALeKk01wpIY4-
wE95ESiNhofHYCgQfNySQ:1592298094460&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGw6_S
_IXqAhVl8uAKHVUCCIoQ_AUoAXoECAwQAw&biw=1261&bih=1474&dpr=2

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Moynat:
Make less make better? It has to be the way forward.

Fashion is never as instant as it appears, ideas take time to evolve and fashion often works
a long way ahead. The discussion about the over production of clothes, the appalling waste
of pieces worn very few time’s and thrown away. Clothes which can’t be sent to be
recycled, reused, or repurposed in anyway has been a conversation for some time. Buy
better, buy less, has been surf acting as a fashion mantra or banner for some time and in all
sorts of ways.

It’s not just about sustainability and ethical sourcing, it’s not even about having a
conscience, but even prior to COVID 19 the fashion wheel was slowing down, trends were
either popping up so quickly again they’d barely been banished from customers
wardrobes or were so vague that they were meaningless. There has also been for some
time a gradual separation in terms of customers, something Inditex have been targeting for
some time. The Zara Man and the Massimo Dutti man are different, just as Pull & Bear and
Uterque are for girls and women. Focus on specific customers who are either classics
driven, or fashion driven, more formal or more casual means that these groups are adding
to their wardrobe not switching all the time. It’s not considered wardrobe building
necessarily, but it prevents sudden swerves of style. This is what fashion can be about with
gradual developments across the seasons to the next shift rather than seasonal dictates on
what’s ‘in’ or ‘out’.

Investment dressing, classic update, versatile pieces, and many other expressions support
the new mood. Less social interaction, less travel, less disposable income, and right now in
June 2020 nervousness as to the future.
Of course, there will be those fashion victims who will return to the old ways at the first
opportunity, but let’s see what percentage they are, shall we?

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https://www.ft.com/content/1b03efec-8895-11ea-a01c-a28a3e3fbd33

https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/22/could-the-coronavirus-crisis-spell-the-end-of-fast-fashion

https://www.sustainyourstyle.org/en/reducing-our-impact

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/buying-less-by-buying-better/462639/

Local Versus Global:
An important discussion.

If travel is limited, if money is limited, if we are trying not to ship everything halfway across
the world for the carbon footprint, local is where it’s at.
Food is the prime example of our habit of demanding stuff at any cost. The air miles and
packaging to enable us to have many things all year round is insane. The lack of a seasonal
rhythm to our food consumption is selfish and makes a mockery of our ideas of
sustainability and ethical sourcing. In the same way a t shirt flown across the world is
madness, and we are only doing so because we want it cheap, not because the t shirt
couldn’t be made locally.
Traditions can be lost through the use of other countries manufacturing resources, local
skills, local crafts and local cultures can be reflected in fashion terms. Especially if we want
less and better, then for example, knitwear and tweeds from the U.K. are superb, whereas a
paisley shawl is best from India.
Look carefully at what fashion says and how it says it, it’s a language and a tool. Michelle
Obama mentions how clothes and fashion impacts on her roles in the Documentary
‘Becoming’ on Netflix as does her advisor Meredith Koop.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/may/10/foodanddrink.shopping6

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-meredith-koop-became-michelle-obamas-stylist-and-
confidante-ggzcfh2lf

Will local, smaller shops save retail centres? Pinterest Shop to highlight small and
sustainable brands. According to Pinterest, searches for ‘support small business’ have
increased by 351% on the platform as users increasingly look to buy and support small and
independent companies. At the same time, Pinterest has noted an increase in searches for
‘eco-friendly living’ and ‘zero waste products’, which have risen 93% and 108%
respectively.

https://econsultancy.com/how-social-media-platforms-are-helping-small-businesses-amid-covid-
19/

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-small-shop-blueprint-to-save-town-centres-
q23z708jf?shareToken=2e6a19bcb4e9671ffeed82dce10dbc54
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/covid-19-will-change-way-shop/

Tisci for Givenchy:

Gossip: Givenchy has announced its new Creative Director/Designer.

         ‘The Cut’. On Monday morning, the house of Givenchy got a new top dog.

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His name is Matthew Williams, Matthew Williams, the founder of cult street-culture brand
1017 Alyx 9SM, and key figure in the luxury streetwear scene, has been named
as Givenchy's New Creative Director. He succeeds Clare Waight Keller, who stepped
down in April.

If you’re a follower of menswear, or a fan of ‘hardware,’ like fancy buckles, you may have
heard of him. He’s a 34-year-old self-taught California native who got his start in music,
designing for Kanye West and later Lady Gaga. In 2010, he founded the Been Trill collective
along with Heron Preston and Virgil Abloh, and in 2015, he started his own label, 1017
ALYX 9SM (known more simply as Alix _ ah-LEEX _ after his older daughter). It began with
womenswear but has grown to become one of the most exciting labels to show during
Paris Fashion Week: Men’s.”

The house that once dressed Audrey Hepburn has shifted since the time when Riccardo
Tisci proved so successful with his bold statement casual menswear. Today it’s looking in
the direction of the commercial success which could be so useful to the brand and
company of this style. It certainly made world headlines with this new appointment, since
Mr Williams is certainly of the Kanye West/Virgil Abloh/ Kim Jones/Heron Preston/Palm
Angels/Moncler style of luxury music and lifestyle (did someone say “street wear”?)
inspired mood. Let’s watch this space.

https://www.givenchy.com/es/en/matthew-m-williams-new-creative-
director.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw26H3BRB2EiwAy32zhcWvrN3Yf7Kj4Unyv7557JGb-
68fTleqbKRLzJ4rkMmloN5RUUgrbBoCDk4QAvD_BwE
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2020/jun/15/givenchy-appoints-matthew-m-williams-as-its-
new-creative-director

https://wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/givenchy-new-designer-matthew-williams-alyx-
1203651011/

https://www.hindustantimes.com/fashion-and-trends/givenchy-appoints-designer-matthew-williams-
as-new-creative-director/story-6Sunlkp9OPjB24bQs1D2AL.html

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1690176/lifestyle

Thank you
T.G.

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