The pursuit of viral moments has been building momentum in fashion for quite some time. The tendency of an image, video, or piece of information to be circulated rapidly and widely from one internet user to another; is the quality or fact of being viral. Virality is fed by spectacle – the more sensational the stunt – the more unexpected – the greater chance the architect has at crafting a viral moment. Newness is the modus operandi, though if you take a closer look you might find the strategy is not so new after all.
Consider the translucent white dress spray-painted onto Bella Hadid at the Spring 2023 Coperni show. Before that, McQueen’s pair of robotic arms defaced a rotating (and bewildered) Shalom Harlow at the Spring 1999 Finale.
This season’s theatrics tore the curtain in half. The designer Duran Lantink sent a waifish male model in an exaggerated breast plate down the runway in his Duranimals collection at Paris Fashion Week. There were plenty other notable accoutrements: snakeskin boots, repurposed cowskins, even bareback jeans, yet only his enhanced prosthetic tops seem to break the seal of disapproval. Online, a storm brewed. Many accused the show (and the model) of eschewing Instagram censorship guidelines, as women are still policed for ‘indecent exposure’ when nipples are bared.
Notions of ‘cheapness’ were thrown around. But is cheapness a cornerstone of spectacle? On the runway, is it possible to have one without the other?
If crafting a viral moment was the only prerequisite for executing a good show, this would be a much shorter article to write, but the prosthetic breasts were one of many found in Paris last week: Doechii in Schiaparelli, Sarah Paulson stomping down in Miu Miu. The ubiquity of spectacle is unavoidable at such events. To survive, all shows rely on the usual suspects of house friends and fashion creators to capture the experience. It’s how the machine is oiled.
This is not to say that there is no place for gimmicks on the runway. But the art of delivering impact appears obscured by their surge in popularity.
The photojournalist Henri Cartier Bresson coined the term “the decisive moment” to describe the precise instance when all the elements within a photographer’s frame come together. This can be extended to fashion, too, when we consider the composition of what makes a show memorable.
We might have our answer when we look to Naomi Campbell. At the 1998 Gianni Versace menswear presentation at Milan Fashion Week, Campbell stalked her prey wearing a glittering lavender cowled dress and toting a gun. A male model is seen haloed in a white spotlight, vulnerable to Campbell’s advances, and she engages him in a song and dance of desire, impervious to his fear. Hunter and gatherer overtones aside, the performance defied typical show conventions. There’s nothing flashy – just Campbell with a prop, but a 36-second edit of the performance on TikTok holds 48,000 views.
The Versace show was designed by Gianni himself and put on during a new era when Donatella assumed her position as the creative director of the brand. At a time of brand and personal instability, Donatella’s vision is exacting: power can (and should) be wielded by a woman. And perhaps Versace was the antidote to the violence and power imbalance of the time.
Other moments rely on the totality of spectacle. McQueen’s 1998 AW collection Joan is one of them. Inspired by the patron saint Joan of Arc, the show evoked the martyr’s death through a red gown obscuring the final model’s whole face. Following a medieval procession, the show’s Joan crawled to the front of the runway before a ring of fire erupted around her to mimic the flames that swallowed the saint. The presentation is heralded as one of the designer’s most incendiary. On faith and fire alone, the display opened the world of runway up. During his tenure at Givenchy in Paris, McQueen would often pass by a gilded statue of Joan on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. He became consumed by her story. Meshed metal, red eyes, and lifeless hair, accompanied by images of Romanov children printed onto garments also contributed to his perspective. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei were bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries under Yakov Yurovsky on the orders of the Ural Regional Soviet in Yekaterinburg. As a survivor of child abuse, McQueen found a commonality with his subjects. He quested for loss of innocence, and violence against maligned women. As the finale went up in flames, the voice Diana Ross came as supplication: ‘You’re gonna make it, you’re gonna make it.’ Moments such as these reinforce that spectacle is as much about high-voltage dedication from the cast as it is about world building.
Fashion shows today should invest in this responsibility. A show’s cultural success hinges on its comment on broader cultural movements and crisis. It must have depth for it to be truly revolutionary. When in action, and for the spectacle to be successful, it must also echo what the designer is attempting to communicate. Spectacle must be in communion with the world outside of fashion, and all that passes through it. And it is this world that must be communicated.
