It is a good thing that designers and professionals discuss the physiognomy that fashion intends to assume in the Coronavirus era. “I believe in freedom – comments Carlo Capasa, president of Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (the National Chamber of Italian Fashion) -: this is why we should expect the world to be fluid, and brands are free to do what they want”. But Capasa draws a line on fashion week, that is, the event organised by the institute he chairs. Because now that many, from Giorgio Armani to Van Noten, going through (above all) Alessandro Michele (Gucci), have expressed themselves on the changes they expect from the system, including fashion shows, Capasa reiterates that certain values, and therefore certain mechanisms, are indisputable.
Capasa draws a line on fashion week
Responding, therefore, to Michele, who spoke of events not only seasonless, but that “mix the genres”, Capasa reiterates to Fashion Network that “we should have separate weeks for Men and Women twice a year”. Why? “These are different sectors – he says – with different buyers, resellers and producers. This remains true even if some brands may want to differentiate and stage co-ed fashion shows, which is good for them”.
Time factor
Among the topics of the debate, there is also the question of the seasonality of collections. And not only that, as there is also the one regarding of the proximity of their presentation to the commercial release. Capasa doesn’t want the two moments, catwalk and distribution, to be too close. “I absolutely do not agree with the fact of organising fashion shows just before selling the collections in stores – he thunders -. First of all, it would mean presenting a collection that was sold six months earlier, and the fashion show would become a merchandising project and no longer a creative expression”. And then? “If you squeeze the system based on what you sold six months earlier, you have much less creative freedom”.
At the center is creativity
In short, the president of CNMI does not want that the fashion revolution, starting from the assumption of wanting to bring the system closer to the needs of a society scalded by Coronavirus, ends up placing commercial interests over creative ones. “We don’t believe in pure marketing. And I think our French friends in Paris think the same way – are his words -. The future is not marketing, marketing and more marketing. It is creating dreams”. In this sense, then, the format of the see-now buy-now must be rejected too: “It can work for some brands. But when Burberry or Tom Ford tried it, it didn’t work very well, did it?”.
The discipline of change
CNMI therefore confirms the digital appointment for July, while the September format remains uncertain: it depends on the evolution of the pandemic. Speaking of the ferments, Capasa greets them with favour, we said, but also invites to maintain a sort of discipline: “Change should start from within each of us. Let’s not forget that, historically, our business has always worked very well – he concludes -. Just think of the number of young designers who are successful today. As we say in Italy don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.
Read also:
