Introduction by Danilo Venturi
14.02.2012, Odeon cinema, Florence
The movie we are going to watch this evening is a very direct and close up look at the editorial activity of fashion, which implies creativity, functionality and frivolity, and involves activities like writing, styling, trend forecasting, branding, managing and communicating.
Differently from “The Devil Wears Prada”, “The September Issue” is actually more a documentary than a movie because here the theatrical aspects of fiction leave space for the description of the reality. So, in its mix of brutal truth and fancy voyerism, “The September Issue” is also a kind of reality show, where the camera offers cross-sections of the current fashion system, of its addictions and contradictions.
It is interesting to see how fashion can be read in different and sometimes, in opposite ways according to the relationship between text and context. I’m quite sure the emotions and thoughts this movie raise are different if shown in New York or Florence. Maybe fashion, conceived as a kind of circus made of celebrities, tycoons, big directors and crazy stylists is normal overseas, however here is appears a bit excessive where focus is more on the roots, the creative process, the quality of the product, the refinement and more recently on the quest for innovation. Or maybe both aspects are part of this amazing world and at the end it’s only a matter of subjective points of view. There is a mixed audience this evening so we will live mixed emotions, not exactly like being in New York and not even totally in Florence, but I think it’s a good experiment. Real fashion must not need too many explanations because it is made out of a system of input and output between human, society and industry. When this machine is working properly, the garment or the accessory is self-communicating, coming from the inspiration of a designer, reflecting the spirit of the time and, because of this, anticipating the needs and desires of ‘clients’ so, basically a garment is already a media, in the way we use it to be part of a group and to distinguish ourselves among it, building up our identity. Following this path along time, generations and degenerations, leading or assuming changes in society, fashion creates icons like the little black dress, Grace Kelly and Alexander McQueen, something we can wear endlessly or somebody with whom we can identify, reflections and extensions of our bodies and souls, and, in some cases, fetish references in some others. In the last decades fashion conceived as an industry needed massive use of the media to be sustained, the self-communicating garment was not enough, and some magazines took its place, reaching the status of icon themselves. It’s more or less the same process that involved some major brands with their logolized products. It’s about the container becoming content, the communicator becoming communication and ultimately the object becoming subject. As a matter of fact, there must have been a shift in the fashion iconography: I imagine a young woman walking along the streets of New York holding her copy of Vogue Americas’ september issue, like holding her favourite bag, or like a priest holds his bible. The media that before talked about the garments and accessories that had already the media, became the garment and the accessory. I think the power of this magazine relies on this process of disjunction and fetishization. It’s all about consistency and symbology, values we find in The September Issue but unfortunately less and less in our garments and accessories.
There’s an episode I widely reported in my book Luxury Hackers that I want to mention also this evening. When Anna Wintour asked to reduce the italian fashion week to three days, Diego Della Valle, owner of Tod’s, wisely said: “It’s not about the arrogance of the question, but about the weakness of the answer”. Well, over the last years fashion felt the need to make itself understood using great monographic books and movies, as if willing to fix a truth that is slipping through its fingers. Is it because finally the system realised that there is a big misunderstanding? We live in the “I like” era where our extemporary opinions are forming continuous micro-majorities and macro-minorities. What was marginal before is suddenly central. Time and space are compressed and overlapped. Currency is the new currency but up-to-dateness is not as relevant as before because fastness makes the new look old in a few seconds. These are only some of the changes due to historical breaks like globalization, the internet and the downfall of big stories, both political and commercial. I think the fashion system has not understood this new spirit of time in its many facets and, not posing the right questions, it is not giving the right answers. As a consequence, the system of inputs and outputs between human, society and industry is in tilt, people live their styles alone or alternatively they gather around visible totems like great magazines or brands.
Apparently the press is able to impress and fashion is not. So, in my opinion it’s time for the fashion system to take a moment of reflection, of deep discussion, where error is granted as a possility for creating new patterns of innovation. Creativity in fashion has always been an erotic and errotic activity, coming from both huge passion and disruption. We need to make a new collage of the fragmented reality surrounding us. So, I welcome this movie as an opportunity to read all the hidden messages below the lines of its script, to become aware of the editorial activity, a portion of this sector that is not usually visible from the outside, and above all for you to make your own personal opinion on what fashion should or should not be.
Have a good ‘vision’…
POLIMODA FASHION WRITING CONTEST
The film is an absolute must for a host of good reasons! Besides being a stimulating occasion for reflecting on the fashion world, the film will be the protagonist of a Contest dedicated exclusively to students of Polimoda. The successful candidate will win a scholarship to attend the new Specialization Course in Fashion Writing to begin in April.
Full details regarding applications will shortly be published here.
