Spring fever is in the air and is indicative of many things here on campus (many of which I will refrain from saying here because my mother finds many of my favorite words and phrases obscene). The fashion industry, however, is not one to take anyone’s mothers (or feelings in general) into account and continues to thrive on its own version of spring fever and shock value. These past few weeks have surely been true to form. The actual shows aside (and please, please check out Sarah Burton’s dresses for Alexander McQueen), it surprisingly has been the people behind the labels that continue to make headlines. They may be relevant only to the select few of us that actually know who the hell these people are, but that fact aside, it still matters even if you like fashion in the most casual of senses.
Perhaps the biggest news (do not even get me started on Kanye, God bless his egotistical soul) is the revolving door, hot mess of a musical chairs game that is occurring in the designer and creative director departments of major fashion houses. It was just a year ago that John Galliano made headlines when he went on an anti-Semitic rant that was, like any good scandal, caught on tape for your viewing pleasure. Monsieur Galliano was taken to court in France on racial slur charges and subsequently shown the door at Christian Dior where he resided for 15 years. Although I agree with Dior’s decision to axe the fallen designer, it has done essentially nothing to fill the gaping hole in its staff. Bill Gaytten has become the unofficial head of the label but not before rumors swirled of Marc Jacobs, Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy or, most recently, Raf Simons taking over.
I mention Galliano’s troubles only because it was then that this game of switching designers came about. Fashion used to be about the clothes, the art and what statement can be made through shows, not who is switching companies. Season after season, the craft of fashion designing used to be pushed to new heights by a growing and demanding consumer base.
And perhaps that is just the problem. Maybe the pedestal was pushed too high and the result was businesses that are never satisfied with the product by their creative directors. Of course, this is assuming that it was (and is) the suits that are causing these changes. In Raf Simons case, he was “unceremoniously dumped (from designing for fashion label Jil Sander)” as “Women’s Wear Daily” put it right before the show. Harsh, much? Simons is by no means on the unemployment line as talks with Dior have heated up, according to fashion insiders, but the fact remains this unsettling nature is getting under the skin of everyone semi-involved with the industry. And if they are pissed off, what does the fashion industry really have left?
I think Cathy Horyn of the New York Times, who is infamous for saying what most of the champagne and chignon set are afraid to, said it best in her own column when she stated, “Now you sense that designers, their talents apart, are being used in a dreary chess game of brand power.” She is referring to the heart of the matter, the designers themselves. Push from consumers, push from corporations such as LVMH (who own Louis Vuitton, etc.) and PPR (who own Gucci, etc.) have made designers the real losers. Actually, I retract that statement, because at the end of the day it is us who miss out because the fun of fashion becomes devalued when designers have no incentive to push for a unique, artistic product. Mostly for fear of not getting approval from the all-important editors and bloggers and, in turn, for fear of the revolving door of PPR and LVMH’s corporate madness. Ideally, we should push harder to keep our designers as independent as possible because once a company is sold to a corporation (and many have if only to survive), it loses the freshness that ignited the passion for it in the first place.
But until this economic crisis is sorted out and small businesses can thrive once more, everyone just needs to find a seat and calm the fuck down. Sorry, mom.