It's no secret that the coronavirus (COVID-19) is the push the fashion industry needed to clean up its act [1]. Now that everything from garment supply chains to performative fashion shows are in desperate need of restructuring, who will be the voices of fashion's future [2]? Gucci's Alessandro Michele is one person leading that conversation and thinks the annual seven-season fashion show schedule is "worn out" — we couldn't agree more.
Following Gucci [3]'s virtual press conference on Sunday 24 May, creative director Alessandro Michele took to Instagram to elaborate on how the brand is embracing a more sustainable fashion show schedule. "I will abandon the worn out rituals of seasonalities and show to regain a new cadence, closer to my expressive call," Michele muses in a poetic Instagram carousel captioned Diario. "We will meet just twice a year, to share the chapters of a new story. Irregular, joyful and absolutely free chapters, which will be written blending rules and genres, feeding on new spaces, linguistic codes, and communication platforms. And beyond. I would like to leave behind the paraphernalia of leitmotifs that colonized our prior world: cruise, pre-fall, spring-summer, fall-winter. I think these are stale and underfed words. Labels of an impersonal discourse that lost its meaning."
Ahead, Alessandro Michele's full thoughts on the future of fashion's show schedule.