The limits between the old year and the new one have been erased from the Fashion Industry’s calendar. We had just come back from the holidays break and it was already LCM in London. No time to get comfortable in our desks or recover from the vacations hangover, it felt like we went literally from zero to a hundred in one second. And, paraphrasing Suzy Menkes, in the following weeks we have the haute couture shows, then March is ready-to-wear, May is cruise, June is LCM again, July couture again, September ready-to-wear, November resort. “Or is it cruise again?”. And then back to square one. It is as if we are all running a race but no one really knows where the finish line is. We just follow the money and see where it takes us. Fast is the new black, and if you can’t keep up you better step aside.
But, if Fashion in 2015 taught us something it’s that we are only humans and there is only so much pressure that we can take. Last year we saw the departure of the Creative Directors of some of the big fashion houses: Raf Simons from Dior and Alexander Wang from Balenciaga, both after only three years, Alber Elbaz from Lanvin… whether they left or were made leave, what’s undeniable is that the pressure that these designers are exposed to has a high toll to pay. And none of them want to be the next John Galliano or in worst case scenario the next Lee McQueen. Raf Simons told Cathy Horyn: “This is the feeling I have all the time, there’s never enough time.”
I was having a chat the other day with my friend, who is also a creative, and he was concerned that he was too old to not have accomplished anything yet and life was passing by in front of his eyes. He is only 25. And I bet this reality applies to other young people in and outside our industry. Where are we all running to? Where do we think this race takes us? What’s the rush?!
What’s funny is that we like to think of ourselves as living healthy lifestyles with our cross-training and our juice cleanses, but there is nothing healthy in the reality of our jobs and it is driving us to insanity. Why do we avoid Fast Food like the plague but think all this Fast Fashion model is harmless? I think that before the year goes any further we all need to take a break, have a sip of tea and remind ourselves that it is the journey not the destination. Especially if we have no idea where this road is leading to.
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