THE LOOK 6
merge. In a normal year we can wear quite a lot of the clothes we buy for spring and summer right through autumn and winter.
You should be thinking already of alternative ways to show your clothes. A presentation is much cheaper than a catwalk show and can be an effective way to get your message across, although it lacks the drama of a show. Presentations can be treated like an art installation and be entirely static or can be a mixture of displays and live models. You would be unlikely to need more than five models and, as with a runway show, you do not have to present every piece you have made. In fact, at your stage too much variety can be an actual disadvantage. You want press and buyers to go away with a clear idea of what you believe in. They’ll either like it or not. But chucking everything you’ve ever thought of at them won’t win them around. The old saying “You can’t please everybody all the time”is true. That’s the job of the mass-market high street chains that produce clothes in such vast quantities, they can hedge their bets by making a well-selling line support a less popular one. You don’t have that luxury.
Which is better? To do a show so on the cheap that it doesn’t reflect either your aesthetic or your quality or to find another way to get your message across? Only you – and maybe your backers, if you have them – can decide. But look at the facts so that your decision can be an informed one.
What makes a designer successful is publicity. Mega labels with instant brand
recognition around the world have reached that point through the effect of publicity campaigns as much as for the quality of their product. And, over the years, they have spent millions on them, using the world’s top models, stylists, hair and make- up teams and, above all, photographers of the highest calibre. For you, with no budget to spend this is bad news but, as long as advertising continues to help fund magazines, then it is the advertisers who will receive the editorial pages and credits, often regardless of quality. You will find it hard to get a look in, as the main fashion pages have to be devoted to the big advertisers.
One of the problems in London is the fact that designers so often come straight from college and present their own collection whilst there heads are still full of college thinking – which means full of the aesthetic of their tutor, course leader or whoever. In London I have sat through so many young designers’ shows which are actually just one show, with the same ideas that I had seen in the graduate and post graduate shows that they took part in. Designers who eventually become real stars – Galliano, McQueen, Chalayan – were original in their college shows, let alone their early own-name ones. They were not dominated by their teachers. Nowadays, far too many of the teachers want to be stars too. Which is why, when I hear the old mantra about our art schools being the best in the world, I feel it needs some qualification. They certainly were years ago but are less pre-eminent now.
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