Sometimes it feels like designers are on a special frequency that allows them to access and absorb things that are happening on a deeper level. What’s really remarkable is that so many collections developed six months in advance can be so on-the-mark when they are released. This sixth sense, if you will, is one of the reasons fashion is said to be a mirror of the times.
Below you’ll find designer reflections gleaned from the reviews Vogue Runway posted from New York, London, Milan, Paris, Copenhagen, Berlin, and Tokyo. Floating in the ether is the idea of the sartorial group-hug through cocooning garments that comfort us. Reading between the lines, there is a general sense of malaise countered by a spirit of resistance and the belief that work and community are keys to moving forward in strength.
Rei Kawakubo via Adrian Joffe, Comme des Garçons
“Small can be mighty. She thinks we’re a little bit tired of big business, big culture, and global systems. What about the small things that happen over all continents, everywhere—aren’t they global, that’s not big?”
Keisuke Yoshida, Keisukeyoshida
“Reality is more important than the past, and so I thought I should start expressing that more from now on.”
Conner Ives
“I think when stuff gets as real as it’s gotten over the past year or so, fashion can feel especially frivolous, and that ended up being the challenge of this season. You ask yourself, Why am I doing this? Well, I’m doing this because I have a fashion degree, not a degree in humanitarian studies. I have to try to make sense of the world in the way I know how.”
Dilara Findikoglu
“It’s about finding beauty through destruction. It’s kind of about my life—and everyone’s life too.”
Simone Rizzo and Loris Messina, Sunnei
“The moment we’re living in calls not for fashion magic but for fashion realism. We weren’t aiming to make any one statement—let’s keep it a concept-free zone.”
Caroline Hu
“I feel the world is harder and harder—it’s cruel—so that’s why I wanted to show something more romantic.”
Thom Browne
“Because of politically what’s going on, I wanted [birds] to be a hopeful kind of reference. It morphed into the idea of freedom to be as expressive and creative as you personally want and not to listen to other people.”
Chet Lo
“The collection took a darker turn this season, as I’ve been very emotional recently, feeling super-angry at the world.”
Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen
“The show and the collection that I make is a reflection of my emotional state. [This season, it was one of] “burnout and overwhelming hopelessness…[at the same time ther is] an insane uplifting of community at the moment that’s rising.”
Aaron Potts, A. Potts
“I was in a really dark place when I started developing this collection. It’s this fucking election. I knew I needed to use my creativity to find some joy.”
Danial Aitouganov, Zomer
“What’s happening in the world is kind of going backward; it’s insane. Zomer is not a political brand, but I feel we are on the sidelines.”
Caroline Engelgaar, MKDT Studio
“I always pick a theme that is relevant to the world we’re living in. There are so many directions which are really extreme.”
Anna Heinrichs, Horror Vacui
“With my work, I don’t want to express visually what is happening in the world right now, but I do want to show, metaphorically, that it is in our hands to change it.”
Kasia Kucharska
“Life is getting kind of tricky right now, and I think we are responsible for what our future looks like. And for me, it’s positive. It’s cheerful, it’s colorful, and it should be fun. My fashion should help here. And it doesn’t always have to be super functional.”
Melitta Baumeister
“When I started the brand, the future was very desirable and I was looking far into the future and imagining it. Then there was COVID and the future felt a bit more like the future is now, and it was more about community. Now I feel the future is a little hard to imagine. We’re not so easily moving and looking ahead, we are kind of scared of what’s coming, and so I feel like there are a lot of pieces that have a bit of a resistance.”
Paolo Carzana
“What I’m thinking about is definitely a fight against AI and a feeling that we’re going towards our own self-destruction…everyone using it as a tool, slowly taking away their own thoughts and their own ability. So everything I do is all about hand processes. It’s a fight, I guess, to make people aware of what happens if we don’t look after our own intelligence and the creativity of our brains.”
Lamine Badian Kouyaté, Xuly.Bët
“I even went back to my parents, all the education that I took from them, and my source of Africa. People there don’t like to throw things away, which I think is part of my inspiration and how I came to recycling stuff. It’s a part of my childhood, people that inspire me and trying to draw a future with a mix of a lot of influences.”
Miuccia Prada, Miu Miu
“The typical accessories of femininity: the bra, the brooches, the fur…. The question is what do we retain of femininity? Does it help in this really dangerous moment? In war time?”
Cecilie Bahnsen
“It was something so feminine, but so rough at the same time, and I think there is this femininity and something dark and unhinged in this collection; it’s like a quiet rebellion.”
Dimitra Petsa, Di Petsa
“We don’t really see our desire or carnal feminine sexuality. There are so many elements of visual language in fashion and art that signal a monoculture—I want to enrich our vocabulary with a woman’s perspective.”
Elena Velez
“Conceptually I’m just really fascinated with this cultural interpretation of body horror and thinking about women as horrifying, genuine other. I’m seeing all of these different stories about women and their unfathomability as something that makes them strange and potentially sinister and scary.”
Petra Fagerstrom, CSM MA
“I’ve been looking at this traditional wife trend that’s going on. I wanted to comment on that very conservative way of dressing. Then through my AI glitches, I kind of deconstructed those garments into someone who feels like they have the opposing values.”
Duro Olowu
“So often women feel like they’re being told what to wear, so you have to be a bit rebellious and do things your own way—you have to fuck things up a bit.”
Ashish Gupta, Ashish
“I just wanted now more than ever to say that it’s important to be visible, to be seen, to keep our space, and not to render or concede.”
Sinéad O’Dwyer
“I feel it’s for me to continue expanding on the girls in the world. To go beyond representation, so it’s about the community.”
Tolu Coker
“Even when I speak to people today, they automatically assume I design sportswear or streetwear, but a lot of what I do really leans into British heritage. The thing is, general perceptions of Britishness rarely take migration into context. With my work I want to affirm that these stories have value.”
Hillary Taymour, Collina Strada
“I just want everyone to feel protected during this time—all my queer models and all the humans in the world, and everyone, because who knows what’s going to happen.”
Raul Lopez, Luar
“I wanted to reclaim that word [pato]. Especially right now—I’m not going back in the closet for no one.”
Steven Raj Bhaskaran, Matières Fécales
“A lot of people from the cast are exactly the same as us. And, you know, we’re a small community, but there are a lot of us that are interested in the post-human aesthetic. And at the same time we all kind of help each other, giving courage, especially during these times.”
Yuji Abe, Irenisa
“Gender is born from the influence of those around us, and at the same time, our own self-image is created by what others think of us.”
Ib Kamara, Off-White
“It’s about a futuristic community coming together to solve a problem of what’s to come.”
Julien Dossena, Rabanne
“It’s as if you’re normal on the outside, but nuts inside.”
Johann Ehrhardt, Haderlump
“[Ghandi] took a bigger, kinder view of things. And we all need to do that right now, especially with the way the world is.”
