Is Fashion Week Redundant?
It's day three of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia #MBFWA annually held at Carriageworks in Sydney and I have attended two shows. First up was Menswear designer Justin Cassin where Jordan Barrett opened and closed the show to the pumping tunes of David Bowie, and today, C/meo collective.
This is my third year attending Fashion Week, where, in 2015, I was merely an intern. When you've just started in the industry, seeing the Fashion crowd with your own eyes is so exciting. In my first year, Samantha Harris (who I had posted all over my childhood bedroom walls) strutted past me and I shook hands with Toni Matičevski who is one of the kindest people in the industry, taking time out before his biggest show of the year to have a chat with Interns he doesn't know.
Even now in my third year, I can't help but scan the room every three seconds to see who has just walked through the front glass doors and into the foyer.
However, the event has felt like a ghost town this year with big names like Edwina McCann and Christine Centenera nowhere to be seen. We can see Poppy Lissiman and YanYan Chan posing for the street style photographers in their colourful outfits but it seems that the most powerful industry movers and shakers are either coming in via the back door to avoid the media circus and hangers on wanting a photo or are not coming period.
We can see that while Edwina McCann has posted 3 times about Fashion Week, keeping a low profile while Christine Centenera doesn’t seem to be attending the shows at all.
With fashion at your finger tips thanks to Instagram that sees shows broadcasted AS they are being held, it has become acceptable to take the day off and stream a fashion show from your home instead if attending the event.
I met a young 'Instagram influencer' who had bought her ticket to the event and flown over from Perth... BOUGHT! There is no exclusively, people used to fight for tickets and now they're available to purchase online. A lot of the people who buy tickets will attend the week-long event and berate the vast array of recognizable Industry representatives with questions and photo requests when they are there to work. It makes me wonder if this growing aspect of #MBFWA is causing the recognisable faces to hide until they are safety sitting front row at a show.
At the Justin Cassin show on Monday, the second to sixth rows were illuminated by light while everyone took their seats and the first row was shrouded in darkness until the show began and the catwalk lit up.
With the big names in Fashion choosing to hide, be extremely selective about the shows they attend or sit out Fashion Week altogether when once they would have moved mountains to attend, I must ask… Is Fashion Week becoming redundant?
