Breaking Fashion's Fourth Wall
What is the Focal Point of a Fashion Show?
While scrolling through my TikTok feed during Milan Fashion Week, I came across a video posted by an account called Iconic Front Row. The general premise of the page is to show the attendees at various fashion shows and how they react to the collections. The specific video that made its way onto my For You Page was of a TikTok influencer scoffing at Anna Sui’s Fall 2023 Ready-to-Wear collection at New York Fashion Week. Immediately scenarios began to fill my mind: was she scoffing at the designs or the way the models were walking? was she genuinely displeased with the collection or did the camera just catch her at a bad moment?
but most of all, why does any of this matter?
Over the past three years, as the fashion industry worked to maintain its relevancy both during the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath, there has been a growing interest in the audiences of fashion shows. Perhaps its a desire to be among the few whose social capital made them immune to lockdown protocol, the growing accessibility of runway livestreams, or good old-fashioned stan culture. Regardless of what prompted it, as the majority of people invested in fashion week switches from those physically in attendance to those tuning in via Instagram Live, the focal point of the show is forced to adjust with it.
Livestreams introduce an entirely unique approach to fashion. Prior to the age of live social technology, viewing a fashion show meant sitting in the physical audience or catching the photos an hour later on Vogue Runway. In both scenarios, the perspective shown is one that is entirely human, either from your own perception or an individual cameraman’s. However now in the era of the livestream, we are digitally handed an omniscient eye that not only sees the runway in real time, but also everyone in attendance. The discussion is no longer between the show’s attendees and the runway but now, with this electronic panopticon, the conversation is split between those in front of the screen and those behind it, ultimately leading to physical audiences being grafted into the show itself.
This can be explicitly seen during Mugler’s Fall 2022 Ready-to-Wear collection where celebrities on the runway were directed to interact with other celebrities in the audience. The Showtime talk show host, Ziwe, walked the runway while holding a call-and-response with The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills veteran, Lisa Rinna, who was seated in the audience. Arca also walked for the show and briefly stopped to fight with JT from the City Girls over one of Mugler’s spiral curve handbags.
However one of the more subliminal ways the adoption of the audience is demonstrated is through the growing amount of celebrities and influencers who attend fashion shows wearing designs that are a mere few minutes away from debuting on the runway.
In fact, this marketing strategy entirely changes the idea of what it means to “debut on the runway.” Since many of these designs are captured by photographers before the show starts or even voluntarily posted to Instagram by the celebrities themselves, there is nothing really to debut on the physical catwalk. Instead “the runway” becomes a much more ambiguous concept consisting of the brand, the audience, and their collective social media presence.
An audience member’s ensemble doesn’t even have to appear the way it looks on the runway in order to be grafted in as part of the show. This phenomenon has recently been demonstrated through Doja Cat’s attendance at Paris Couture Fashion Week.
Although these looks are directly from the runway, they deviate from the overall theme of the show. This is not inherently bad, in actuality in adds an entirely new dimension to fashion presentation. Fashion shows are now able to simultaneously exist through a carefully curated collection of designs while also deviating from itself through the presence of celebrities with their own unique brand identity. This sort of Schrödinger’s catwalk allows the collection to exist in a vacuum while also taking credit for the creative liberty of the show’s attendees.
But what happens when we open that box?
As the omniscient eye in this newly emerging cyberspace that is still working out its rules and regulations, we as the digital observers currently hold the power to decide what is grafted into the shows and what is excluded entirely. This power is wielded through our collective interactions and commentary that pushes certain elements of the show to the top of the algorithm.
For Prada’s Fall 2023 Ready-to-Wear collection, the point of interest that dominated the news cycle came from TikTok fashion influencer, Madeleine White. Before attending the show, White posted a get-ready-with-me video where she cuts up a jumper from Prada’s previous Spring 2023 Ready-to-Wear collection. Although this style of garment repurposing is a common theme on her page, the responses she received for this specific look were polarizing.
One side of the argument sees it as a disrespectful or rather tacky stunt to haphazardly chop up the clothes of the designer whose show you are attending; the other side sees it clearly as a marketing strategy carefully organized between the brand and influencer.
but, again I ask, why does any of this matter?
We’ve grown so accustom to our all-seeing eye, to the point where the main focus of a fashion show doesn’t even have to consider the content of the collection being presented. At what point do we draw a line in the sand and reinstate the boundaries between the runway and its audience?
the idea of schrödinger’s catwalk is so compelling and so aptly named! also it’s sort of eerie how simply attending a show makes you a part of it, whether you want to be or not. with social media tapped phones being as ubiquitous as they are, i can’t imagine that relationship between runway and audience ever returning to what it used to be.
You are an absolute genius. I hear this trait is hereditary on the maternal side.