EYE
Fashion Month, what I saw then and what I see now.
Ok people, let me tell you in case you have missed it: Fashion Month is already well underway! Meanwhile, in other parts of fashion, reality goes like this: eight hours of shooting clothes in a dark studio basement. Yep, that's how I’ve spent this past week. It’s funny how life is, the one before that I was super excited to be doing a live session of my podcast in the hq of a big accessories company in Alicante to a fairly interested audience. It flows from one side of the spectrum to the other quite unexpectedly. Still, I love that and feel super fortunate that no two days are the same.
Anyway, I’ve been exhausted but trying very hard not to miss my deadline for this newsletter, which I in the end did; it’s Sunday today instead of Saturday, but last Friday evening all I wanted was a glass of wine and lots of cheese while chatting with my friend Gema on Facetime. We hadn’t meet in person because I was set on making the deadline, well, you can see how that went.
One very special thing happened this week while Fashion Month was following its course for the World and photographing during the day and prepping/planning for this newsletter in the evening was happening for me. I finally reconnected with one of my teenage best friends after 17 years apart. Seventeen years is a f***ing long time. It made me so happy! More on the hows and whys of that maybe in the future, but she told me a story that I forgot and still haven’t been able to remember which is perfect for today’s topic.
When I first started in fashion I was invited to a show and I took her along with me, but when she turned up I gave her a hearing because she was wearing the same dress she’d worn all summer. It was a nice flowing white dress, I don’t remember the story itself but I have a recollection of that dress, and though it probably wasn’t “appropriate” in fashion terms at the time, I’m certain that she did look gorgeous and that I was being a snob. I apologised and we laughed, also remembering another friend of mine who used to come to the shows barefoot (for real) during an Earth-connecting phase of his that lasted a few years. I'm afraid I must have scolded him too, he did mentioned something about it a while ago. I know what you’re thinking, but no, she didn’t dump me after that.
I've realised how much my perspective and priorities have changed ever since my early days in the industry when my whole being wanted so much to be part of it: I wanted to fit in, to do everything, attend every event, every show, every presentation. For me, fashion shows represented the epicentre of style, individuality and the joy of dressing, they were a whole reason in itself to be working in fashion. Today, I don’t have the same faith or that much time to go to the shows as for dressing up, it’s not a thing in my life anymore. Still, I wanted to break down this area of the fashion industry, for the sake of the younger me who was so hungry and relatively unscathed then.
Fashion month happens twice a year in the fashion capitals, and is usually attended by a very specific group of people:
celebrities, magazine and newspaper editors, buyers and influencers. And that is that. Everyone else either comes into a particular show in support of a friend or colleague, is a student who managed to gatecrash the event, a street-style photographer going about their who-is-who or is working (models, photographers, show production crew, pr, stylists and dressers, MUAH teams, casting directors, etcetera.).
During this time, there are roughly three possibilities for fashion people:
1. You are an intern strating your a career and have been invited to the shows, you give it your all, dress up for the event, take your closest friends and prepare to experience the holy grail: FASHUN (as in my story).
2. You work in one of the fields mentioned above, so you drag yourself from show to show, somehow stuck between loving everything you see and hating everyone out of sheer exhaustion, or maybe even hating everything and everyone for the same reasons. Your photographic memory, in the case of editors, should be studied scientifically because frankly, the level of it!
3. You work in fashion, but you don't have the time or energy to go to the huge number of shows that are usually held in every godforsaken corner of the city, and you have other work to do, so you end up watching the shows on youtube, tagwalk or vogue.com. When the job is finally over, you'll catch parts of them while scrolling through Instagram. You tell yourself: I'll see what I need when I actually have to prepare a shoot/event/write your option here. And there's also presentation month, so you'll catch up.
I have of course been in all three categories, but i find myself most often in the third where together with me there’s a big portion of fashion professionals. We work to get the system running, but very often don’t get to participate much in the fanfare of it.
On the other hand, there is the question of what this season of shows stands for anymore. Designers desperately need the media coverage that the shows can pull, and the same goes for celebrities and influencers. Mega-brands use the opportunity and publicity to continue their hegemony while the events themselves generate a very valuable profit for the cities that host them. Up to this point, everyone’s happy. But there is also the argument, which began during the pandemic, that these events are highly unsustainable, and that, in regards to inclusivity and representation, the situation has plateaued and things are not evolving as expected. More on that in this very accurate and informative rant by Tamara Cincik from Fashion Roundtable.
My word today is EYE, as in perspective, point of view and ability to discern, which is one of the most valuable skills in a good fashion professional and indispensable when it comes to fashion shows. I thought it would be great to take the edge off of fashion with Phil Oh, someone who I think has a very unique eye. He is the official street style photographer for Vogue, which says a lot about the ways in which Vogue has evolved, although there’s still plenty of room for improvement. The way Phil Oh sees fashion is very organic, fully integrated with the world around it, I love scanning his images in search for the real subject. Because I sense that there are two levels to his photography, one is who the magazine wants to see featured and the other who Phil Oh actually sees in all their human glory. When the subject is truly special, he doesn’t have anything else happening so that they can glow. It occurs to me that he must be super nice because nearly all of his subjects seem delighted to see him. His pictures don't just talk about the fashion crowd, they also document how the world reacts to them, and even how that crowd really feels when they’re caught off guard. I love the sense of humour in his work, something invaluable in Fashion.
Here are some of my favourites, the hearts are of course mine, the rest is all Vogue’s and Phil Oh’s. Have a look and see who catches your eye or imagination.
What do you think? I would really love to hear your thoughts on this, so you know, please like, comment or share this post. Happy Sunday, Misfits!
I feel seen with your three categories 🙈. As I have grown into my career in fashion, I have learned to live and consume fashion at the pace that suits me best. Of course, my work needs me to stay up-to-date, so I am very selective as to where I look for information and the type of information I am looking for. I don't feel like I am missing out anything not going at shows .
Phil Oh is a very interesting streetstyle photographer whose images bring joy to the viewers. Something that is rare in the genre he does. Seeing his pictures always makes me wonder the interaction he has with the people he photographs. There is a spontaneity in his shots that I don't see in other streetstyle photographers, and it is definitely his signature.