Because for me – always, but now more than ever – the human has to be at the center of the process. In these past decades, we’ve talked a lot about numbers – the first, the best. And in a way, this has created a kind of competition that I don’t think you really need. You can forget about creativity and the humanity because it’s all about money and marketing. And that’s not what fashion is for. Fashion is about dreaming, inspiring.
Pierpaolo Piccioli, Creative Director at Valentino.
This quote is from a discussion in Harper’s Bazaar with designers about what’s important to them right now during these challenging times. (Summer, 2020)
The reason fashion has become more about numbers than people is because many of the houses are now owned by big corporations. It’s not a designer running his own house anymore, it’s a celebrity designer paid a lot of money to produce and produced and produced … until he’s used up and another one is put in place and so on. (Think Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Alber Albaz).
Fashion cannot thrive without imagination and imagination needs time and space to develop.
Since staying put at home, I started pulling out some of my vintage pieces that I would only wear to an event. Because they are delicate or not as easy to move around in on pubic transport or walking to and from destinations, much of my vintage wardrobe gets only the occasional outing. But earlier in the pandemic I was showing up once a week to my fashion history class in front of my laptop – no BART rides, no long walks – so why not sport some vintage?
