“I have been so inspired by what I’ve heard, and energized by the ideas of necessary, radical change that our speakers have talked so passionately about,” Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour said Friday at the start of the fourth and final Vogue Global Conversations Zoom broadcast this week. “We all want to rebuild this industry that we love so much and leave behind the old habits that are out of date, or indeed, unsustainable.”
From the enduring importance of creativity to minimizing waste and collaborating with former competitors, the brightest minds in fashion shared their vision for the future of the industry and their hopes for what may come next. Here are some of the more memorable moments from the past week.
1. Marc Jacobs on the enduring power of creativity
“Creativity will never stop — it’s absolutely essential. Where would everyone be during this quarantine if they didn’t have books to read and movies to watch? I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have something to get dressed up for every day. It’s just vital to me; it’s as essential as anything else… Being creative, and creativity, are absolutely essential. It will always live.”
2. Virgil Abloh, CEO of Off-White and artistic director of Louis Vuitton menswear, on opportunity and collaboration
“This time period is a pause to rethink and re-analyse what fashion means […] We make dreams and we sell them […] This is our calling to make the industry transform into what it can be for the people […] We need to show our resilience, this is the time to prove our industry is a valuable one […] If our industry is truly going to move forward and really exercise itself not as a vain profession but as a humanitarian profession… We should have a formalised coalition.”
3. Natacha Ramsay-Levi, creative director at Chloé, on the frequency of fashion shows
“I think we all agree that we value a fashion show. It’s a moment where you can gather the community; it’s a moment where there is human sensitivity… We can’t waste materials, because we pollute so much, but we can’t waste creativity [either].”
4. Stella McCartney on nature’s resilience
“We’ve seen, in such a short period of time, how incredible nature is, how she bounces back so quickly, when we just stop for a second. I think that’s so hopeful […] We can come out of this moment as a fashion industry and go, ‘You know what, we can do so much better, we can do so much more with all this waste, we can consume completely differently’… [This is] an absolute reset button moment in the history of Earth as we know it.”
5. Olivier Rousteing, creative director of Balmain, on reimagining the digital fashion show
“There is something that we can give to you guys in the audience that is different than just a normal runway… I see digital [fashion shows] as an experience where you can push your dreams to the next level.”
6. Cédric Charbit, chief executive at Balenciaga, on harnessing the full potential of technology
“We have the opportunity to accommodate and invite 600 people to attend our fashion shows, more or less, every season. That’s the physical audience… [Online] we have an audience of 10 million viewers… [Fashion] shows have to be built from a digital standpoint, somehow, in the first place. To make sure we manage an experience that is both online and offline that is equally relevant for the people… [Last season’s show], for example, is not weaker if you watch it [online] or if you’re in the room… To me, it’s very exciting to see that finally tech and fashion are merging and are in sync because they need one another.”
7. Remo Ruffini, CEO of Moncler, on the importance of a brand’s ‘voice’
“I think we need to study a new way to be close with our customer and, for sure, we have to change the tone of our communication. This is very, very important… We have to change the tone of our communication. It is the time to raise your word, not your voice.”
8. Marc Jacobs on radical change and the fashion calendar
“I’ve only ever thought there should be two shows a year […] The amount of stuff we make and the quantity we make and the amount of times it’s shown — it’s just so excessive. We’ve done everything to such excess that there is no consumer for all of it, and everyone is exhausted by it […] It’s all become a chore and it’s a chore that’s just a waste of time and energy, and money and materials […] I just think that whole waste is taking the luxury out of [fashion], as well as the creativity out of it, because when you’re on such a tight calender and you’re just told to ‘produce, to produce, to produce’ it’s like having a gun to your head and saying, ‘Dance, monkey’. It’s just ridiculous, you know? So I think, again, if the system doesn’t change then we’ll change.”
9. Kenneth Ize on utilising fashion’s online spaces
“Creativity never stops… It needs to keep moving […] You have to find a way to do it. And I believe that […] the way forward […] with the situation we are in now is just to keep creating content and using the spaces that we have to […] tell our stories.”
10. Vittorio Radice, vice chairman of La Rinascente, on revealing your emotions as a retailer
“Show [emotion] in your product, in the way you set up your store, the way you talk to your customer, in the tools that you’re using — just show yourself… We are trying to position ourselves as more of a place than a store: a safe place to be, a friendly place, a place that is always open for you… That function of security and a safe place to be, as soon as we reopen, is going to be even more important.”
11. Olivier Rousteing on the industry’s responsibility to the environment
“We don’t want to live [on] a planet that is going to die tomorrow. We need to protect not only our fashion industry but also our world.”
12. Pierre Yves-Roussel, CEO of Tory Burch, on the future of retail spaces
“The store offers something that you cannot have online… There’s a social dimension to going into a store. I can take the analogy of restaurants — you can cook at home, you can have food delivered to your door, but people still love going to restaurants… Retail is becoming more and more [about the] social dimension… We already conceive our stores, from the very beginning, as an extension of our home, so it’s a very welcoming environment… And I think we will see more of that trend.”
13. Gabriela Hearst on the duty of a designer
“Waste at the end of the day is a design flaw; it doesn’t exist in nature.”
14. Stephanie Phair, CCO of Farfetch, on e-commerce and the power of storytelling
“Direct to consumer is not just transactional […] it’s about having a conversation with the customer […] It’s not just about selling, it’s about actually creating that human connection. And if there’s any industry that’s able to adapt, it’s the fashion industry, because we’re an industry of storytellers.”
15. Pete Nordstrom, executive VP at Nordstrom, on retail agility
“There’s a great opportunity for us to reset and act in the best interests of customers… It’s been inspiring that we all find ourselves in a situation where we have mutual problems to solve… We do know that the combination of physical and digital assets, how they work together, is key to our success going forward… It’s important to us that we don’t reduce what we do to transactional business — it has [to have] a point of discovery and curation.”