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Since taking the reins at Gucci in 2015, Alessandro Michele has infused the century-old house with a mi casa, su casa ethos reflected in his exuberantly eclectic clothes and accessories, his platforming of young designers-notably with his launch last year of the Gucci Vault, an online concept shop hosting both vintage Gucci and a curated selection of pieces by emerging brands from all over the world-and with the mix of models, artists, musicians, and actors of all ages, ethnicities, body types, and gender identities in his campaigns and catwalk extravaganzas. “It’s not a unisex or non-gendered collection it’s identity-expansive.” -Nicole Phelps Alessandro Michele of Gucci “I like the idea of clothing not holding any expectation for a specific type of body,” he says. Rogers cuts his trousers so that people can feel comfortable in them, regardless of identity. That June show drew comparisons to Isaac Mizrahi and Christian Lacroix-but what links his work with Gen Z, despite those influences, are those proportions. “I think we represent a hope-making clothes that have an earnestness to them that people can identify with,” Rogers says. He’s since built a devoted community around the brand. After he nabbed the CFDA/ Vogue Fashion Fund prize in 2019 at the age of 25, fresh from the Savannah College of Art and Design, he went on to dress Rihanna, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Lizzo on the red carpet Michelle Obama chose one of his suits for her Becoming book tour.

Not that Rogers has any trouble standing out-his exuberant, eclectic aesthetic is resonating widely. Mid-pandemic, the New York up-and-comer opted to move to the pre-season schedule to boost his sales and stand out from the Fashion Week crowds. “I think fashion ought to reflect the world.” -Maya Singer Christopher John RogersĬhristopher John Rogers made a colorful return to the runway in June. “We live in a terrifying world,” Demna pointed out at the Stock Exchange in May, as-in another accident of timing-crypto bubbles popped and markets began a precipitous slide. More than a few guests departed the venue in tears. Once a refugee himself-from the former Soviet republic of Georgia-Demna opened by reading a poem in Ukrainian, and gifted everyone in attendance a T-shirt in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as models made their way through a fierce artificial blizzard to the mournful sound of Dvořák. That impression was ratified a few months later at the fall 2022 Balenciaga show in Paris, mounted as Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine. It made you see how deeply felt his project had been all along.

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How, though, to describe what Demna accomplished with his reintroduction of Balenciaga couture after a half-century hiatus? The collection was revelatory both in the polished homage it paid to Cristóbal, the original master, and in its nakedness, as Demna revealed the tender spot in his designer soul entirely free of irreverence. “Logos, historically and tragically, are symbols that require the shortest time to be digested by the brain,” Demna says, explaining that this makes them vital shorthand in a Twitter-speed era. As Diana Vreeland once famously said, remarking on the mirror fashion holds up to society, one can “see the approaching of a revolution in clothes.” What’s fascinating about this particular fashion moment is that it augurs not a single revolution, but many all at once. Through the lens of a collection, we see a stylized snapshot of our time-its obsessions, its dreams, its anxieties, its strategies for making sense of the world-and, counterintuitively, it is this keen responsiveness to the present that points the way forward, to something new. Everything’s breaking down-global pandemic, culture war, actual war, climate crisis, inflation, what even is crypto, anyway?-but the song keeps playing on its endless loop, and so we keep dancing to its beat.Īt its best, this is what fashion does: It shows us the now.

Aha, I thought: Yes, truly we are living in the extended-dance-remix era of late capitalism. There was a moment, midway through the Balenciaga show at the New York Stock Exchange in May, when the venue’s countless stock-ticker displays began to freak out, screens flashing and pixelating in time with the techno soundtrack as latex-masked models clad in satirically large business suits stomped by, never breaking stride.

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