Is Fashion Really "About the Clothes" and Not About the Hype?

image: Vetements

Last week in an Instagram post lashing out at Highsnobiety for questioning Vetements’ relevance, Demna Gvasalia declared, “Fashion is not about hype.” Instead he stated, “Fashion is about clothes.” The problem with these statements: He could not be more wrong. Modern day fashion is about almost everything else before it is about clothes. One need not look much further than brands’ overly-Instagram-able fashion week spectacles in which they show garments that are oftentimes never made or sold to ascertain this.

Fashion has arguably never been less about clothes and more about hype than it is right now. This is something that Alexander Wang seems to understand. Mr. Gvasalia’s Balenciaga predecessor demonstrated this rather clearly by way of his Spring/Summer 2018 ad campaign. The campaign at issue made headlines when it was released in large part because it does away with models. But what was not discussed a length was how perfectly this advertisement taps into the status quo of the fashion industry at large in 2018 and what – exactly – is driving consumers to shop.

By TFL.

Full story at The Fashion Law.