Musical chair
This is a season with an unprecedented and unexpected record. The highest number of creative directors who left the brands they worked for. It all began months ago with the news that Alexander Wang would show his last collection for Balenciaga as indeed he did.
After some time, and with this issue ready to go to print, Raf Simons declared he was leaving Dior in order to focus on his own brand, creating confused assumptions about his successor.
Finally, on October 28th, Lanvin admitted in an official statement that Alber Elbaz will leave the French brand, owned by a Taiwanese company, a few days after Elbaz publicly stated that “Today, rather than creative directors we are image makers and our job is to make sure that women look magnificent when photographed. Hype seems to be the new creed: I prefer to whisper “.
Perhaps it is time to stop and think and to understand that the current rhythms have become unsustainable for the designers whose profession is mainly based on creativity and on generating new ideas. Creativity is not a tap that can be opened or closed at will and according to the needs of the brand owners. When forced to design six or even eight collections a year, it is almost impossible to maintain the highest level of creative input because ideas after a while stop coming and the type of rhythms strangle fashion professional workforce. I deem unnecessary to mention extreme examples such as Alexander McQueen or John Galliano. But I guess that the question in everyone’s mind is why Raf Simons, and he is just an example, was required to design two ready-to-wear and two haute couture collections, plus two pre-collections, a year. Maybe it is now time to stop and find a more sustainable way to produce new ideas.