Change towards a sustainable system, the search for meaning in an AI-driven world, and fashion’s crucial role as a cultural expression. Fashion often leans towards escaping future pressures, choosing joy and novelty over the more challenging systemic changes that are necessary. What do clothes mean in a world seeking and needing inevitable change?
It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Fashion holds an essential place in our lives, shaping and reflecting who we are and where we’re headed. While fashion brings immense joy, the system itself is ready for change. A fresh perspective is to view clothing as a dynamic extension of identity. Garments become meaningful expressions of who we are, evolving as we continually redefine ourselves.
Like identity, fashion is never fixed; it’s in constant flux, evolving with every new insight, challenge, and breakthrough. Nothing is permanent. We live in an experiment, constantly adapting to the shifting landscapes of culture, technology, and society. In this fluidity, we find the freedom to redefine not only what we wear, but who we are and who we wish to become, liberated from constraints and unbound by conventional norms.
Once again, we see designers who are stepping outside of the normcore to create individual collection that have a distinctive point of view.
There is an assertiveness emerging this season, where women are increasingly taking ownership of how they are seen.
If you cannot climb the pyramid and move up into the luxury end of the market, then the answer is to design in a hard-headed way, to search for new formulae that suit these pragmatic times.
In today’s world, fashion is caught in a complex dance between the call for change towards a sustainable system, the search for meaning in an AI-driven world, and fashion’s crucial role as a cultural expression.
The rediscovery of nostalgia, of personal lessons learned from the past, is as strong as the drive for expressive modernity.
Once again, we see designers who are stepping outside of the normcore to create individual collection that have a distinctive point of view.
The focus is on a reimagined future, driven by new ideas and creativity. Inspired by the past, concepts are reinterpreted in designs that are personal and twisted.
Self-taught art, Amani Heywood and Kerr de Lanooi
