The model, the robot, and the spray-on dress: are viral fashion shows here to stay 

 

Ask any person spending time online, and they probably know by heart the moment Bella Hadid closed the Coperni SS23 show last September. Stepping out in nude thongs, she climbed onto a platform where members of fabric technology company Fabrican, sprayed a white dress on her. Every angle has been edited and shared millions of times on social platforms and has undoubtedly become the universal face of Paris Fashion Week SS23. With strong contenders in the form of Balenciaga’s mud show or Cher closing the Balmain show, there is little doubt that fashion weeks have expanded their scope from industry events to entertainment events.

 

Ironically enough, it was Balenciaga’s creative director, Demna, who brought attention to this in his AW23 show notes. “Fashion has become a kind of entertainment”, he said, while pledging to return to “the art of making clothes”. And while his motivations lie in a range of reasons, his statement still stands. Fashion doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s subject to the current media climate and the way people consume entertainment. An overload of information and shorter attention spans are the perfect cocktail that make everyone fight to gain, or maintain, their place in the spotlight. On social media, the bigger the sensationalism, the bigger the exposure; but as Alec Leach observes in his Op-ed about viral fashion and sustainability, this also means a constant change of spotlight, and a constant race to have the next big moment. 

 

The last two fashion months since the SS23 season brought some interesting developments. It seems that brands have shifted the focus back on the collections, with less attempts at viral stunts. For Balenciaga, for example, what started with a stripped-down apology show last March, continued with an intimate show for SS24 in which family and friends of the designer were the ones walking the runway. Along with that, a high number of other brands have disposed of maximalist designs and have gone back to their roots in a much more toned-down environment. Gucci, Miu Miu, Prada, Louis Vuttion have shifted the focus back on the clothes and the brand. Almost fittingly, in a data analysis by fashion search engine Tagwalk, the predominant colours of the season were black and white, in combination with other muted tones, such as beige, grey and pastels. 

 

This reemergence of quiet luxury over the past two seasons brings into question the existence of these extravagant viral moments. With such a quick turnover, one can wonder if the race to have the next big show is the new normal, or if it has already run its course. 

 

Hostility towards a social-media first approach is not necessarily a positive thing, nor does it mean that a brand is superior compared to one that seeks more exposure. After all, it has been exactly these brands that have widened their customer base and driven their sales significantly in recent years. However it is important to engage critically with these displays, no matter how ‘creative’ they are, position them against a brand’s identity and see how fashion might continue to be consumed. 

 

Take Coperni as an example. In an interview from 2015 with founders Arnaud Vaillant and Sébastien Meyer, they reveal the brand is named after astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. The reason behind it is their desire to be as innovative and revolutionary in fashion, as Copernicus has been in astronomy. 

 

The choice of technology in their shows now seems to make more sense. But the line between innovation and gimmick is thin, and Coperni is treading a fine line between the two. Fabrican, the company behind the dress, has existed since 2003 and has been present at fashion shows before, but without social media, has not gained the same level of exposure. And while a look on their website shows some real-life applicability, the product has not caught on in the wider industry in all these years. 

 

Following that success, Vaillant and Meyer went even bigger for AW23 show in March, employing dog-robots from Boston Dynamics, “the first robot company who signed a charter that they would never give weapons to robots”, as well as and “the first who sent robots to Ukraine to clear dangerous bomb sites”. Arguably, this collaboration is much more innovative and highlights a positive aspect of human-robot coexistence, a concept less discussed in pop culture. 

 

But when it comes to freshness, this moment seems to fade behind its September counterpart. While the spray-on dress, despite not being a new technology, brought an element of novelty to the Paris runway, the robot-dogs, or “Spots”, as their creator calls them, seemed more like an effort to replicate the virality of the moment, rather than a desire for social commentary. And maybe, Vaillant and Meyer realised that too: their SS24 show was much more toned down in this sense, while still giving a nod to their ties with technology through the partnership with AI company Humane. 

 

In the end, it seems that the authenticity of these moments also comes in how seriously the brands take themselves. Milan-based Sunnei, for example, creates witty presentations that don’t try too hard to have an ‘impact’. Their crowd surfing models in February and guests turned into judges at their latest show provided just the right amount of freshness and spectacle. 

 

Going back to Demna’s claim, a strong dichotomy between ‘entertainment’ and ‘making clothes’ only favours big, established names. The brands that toned down in the last season are also those which have already contributed to the fashion industry, and which will be relevant anyway. They can afford to experiment with both maximalist and minimalist approaches and have less coverage in a season. 

 

But social media is not going anywhere, and neither are viral fashion moments. For so many brands, exposure is essential, and is one of the reasons they spend hours of work and a great amount of money to attend these events. 

 

These moments are also a good opportunity for a young brand to experiment with their identity, and carve a place for themselves in the industry. It is when they find a formula that works and keep recycling it, that the moment loses authenticity. After all, Alexander McQueen used robots on the runway in 1999 and Chanel had a supermarket catwalk in 2014, but the appeal of such moments was that less is more. In the end, seeking a viral moment is not detrimental to the fashion industry per se, but the need to have a ‘moment’ at every show every season discards their creative impact and can turn them into gimmicks.