When Luxury Stops Leading and Starts Chasing (Pt.1)
Luxury used to set the trends - now it’s just chasing attention. Time for a reset?
It’s Women’s Fashion Week Season!
New York Fashion Week this year felt pretty silent and not as engaging as it usually is and not only because of the snowstorm that hit the city during the week. Many luxury international brands have decided to showcase their collections or presentations elsewhere to better focus the attention on them. As a consequence, the only highlight of the week was the debut of Veronica Leoni at Calvin Klein.
Who’s Veronica Leoni and What’s the story of Calvin Klein?
Calvin Klein was born in 1968, when Americans were starting to change their mindset towards idealism and so, fashion. The ideals of making money and working 24/7 were becoming central to U.S. culture, which then changed people's needs in fashion: it had to be practical, interchangeable, and comfortable but also visibly confer social status. Calvin Klein promoted itself as the brand that wanted to dress working women in a modern but minimalistic way, paving the way for the European wave led by Armani later in the ‘90s.
Calvin Klein’s problem is that, with time, it lost its appeal - it went from a luxury brand to a fast-fashion one with low quality products and relying heavily on provocative, sex-driven advertising campaigns. This diluted its brand image and caused a disconnect with its original target market.
CV: Veronica Leoni, student of Pheobe Philo, the woman who redefined contemporary fashion while at the helm of Celine back in 2010, working alongside Matthieu Blazy and Daniel Lee. She then designed for The Row and proceeded to create her own brand Quira.
REVIEW: If you look at this collection you’ll see some resemblance to the codes that we’ve seen at Bottega Veneta or Jil Sander under Raf Simons. In fact, her aesthetic seems very similar to what The Row, #oldceline and Jil Sander are offering, which are not sexy at all, whereas Calvin Klein used to rely most of its communication strategy on the concept that ‘Sex sells’.
This doesn’t mean that the collection didn’t deliver. The goal was to bring back the core design codes that made the brand relevant during the ‘70s and ‘80s, together with subtle hints aimed at minimalist streetwear culture. She is now guiding the brand’s identity to a new chapter that will help restore its image. Her debut was the event that kept New York Fashion Week relevant this season.
I also found their communication strategy very interesting: the Campaign posted on their socials with iconic celebrities like Kate Moss, Kendall Jenner, Georgia Fowler, Cristy Turlington - effectively bridging the brand's past to this new chapter.
The State of London Fashion Week
Never before has there been such a significant gap between two major Fashion Weeks, as it’s logistically more expensive due to the additional costs for accommodations and flights.
Main New York Brands: Khaite, Marine Serre, Calvin Klein, Collina Strada, Altuzzarra, Thom Browne, Tory Burch.
NYFW DATES: 6 - 11 February 2025
GAP: 11 - 20 February 2025
LFW DATES: 20 - 24 February 2025
MFW DATES: 25 - 3 March 2025
PFW DATES: 3 - 11 March 2025
Meanwhile, London Fashion Week is going through a major crisis because of its major brands missing from the schedule: Vivienne Westwood, Victoria Beckham, and Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen (now at Givenchy).
To make you better understand the severity of the situation: the schedule of London Fashion Week is so empty that they mixed the runways with the presentations, which hardly ever happens during a normal Women’s Fashion Week.
Who are the last relevant voices left at London Fashion Week?
Simone Rocha
Roksanda
Richard Quinn
Burberry
Who’s suffering the most from this situation? Emerging designers. They genuinely need visibility, but the limited budget and reduced attendance makes it even harder for them to attract attention.
But if we look at it from another perspective, it could mean that people will have the time to see most of the shows, giving the less-known designers more visibility. So maybe it could have a positive impact? I don’t know.
This shift will result in fewer people attending the four main Fashion Weeks, prioritizing Paris and Milan, which still attract the greatest engagement because of their larger brands’ presence.
Overconsumption and Conglomerate Influence
Another major topic is that fashion shows have become too fast and too many, leaving professionals - editors, buyers, stylists, etc. - with too little time to digest and truly understand what they have in front of them. Some shows now last as little as 15 minutes, just so guests can rush to the next one.
I do personally believe that Fashion Shows are a very important tool for a brand’s visibility. These events give the chance to better define their whole identity through music selection, location, overall vibe, and, most importantly, models’ selection together with their speed of walking.
This chaotic restructuring of Fashion Weeks reflects a toxic cycle within the industry: this huge pressure to produce more, sell more, and capture attention at all costs. The constant production of new collections, capsule drops, and fashion shows leaves little room for reflection, both for designers and consumers. This is a symptom of how luxury fashion has shifted from craftsmanship to mass production, mirroring the broader problem of overconsumption.
Inevitably, the problem of overconsumption comes not from the consumer but from what the industry offers. Fashion is a form of art but the difference is that clothing is made to be consumed and, with time, the quality and the preciousness of the garments got lost in the way. Since Kering and LVMH began acquiring the major fashion luxury brands, the industry has turned into a rat race for revenue, overshadowing the true meaning of ‘luxury’ and ‘quality.’
Fashion Weeks sometimes feel like they’re just trying to do something different or weird just to go viral on social media. From a consumer’s point of view, I’ve started to feel a disconnect from these kinds of tactics, and it seems like people, in general, are getting tired of it. Maybe it’s time for the industry to realize that true luxury isn’t about grabbing attention, but about creating something meaningful - something that sparks conversation about our culture, like Galliano did with Margiela’s Haute Couture show last January 2024. That side of the industry is fading, and creatives are struggling to keep up with the constant demand for newness.
There’s too much happening in the industry to fit into one newsletter, so I’ll be splitting this into two parts - thank me later.
I will come back soon with a Pt. 2 :)