Throughout the month of February, there are Fashion weeks in major cities around the world. Runways are flooded with new collections. Large audiences are hoping for an answer to the eternal question of how clothes will look in the future.
But I don’t think there will be an answer. The sad truth is that, despite some incredible scientific discoveries in the last 100 years, fashion has made very little progress.
Even though the fashion industry is built on renewal, it lacks vitality.
Fashion seems stuck, regarding trends as well as innovation, and there is little hope that the fashion weeks in Milan, Paris, New York or London will bring anything new. Just like in previous seasons.
The strongest argument for change is that the clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world, after the oil sector. Maybe we should start growing our own clothing materials from tea, sugar and bacteria, as some designers suggest? Or replace human labor with robots that store information about the customer, so that garments can be created upon request?
Fashion is definitely experiencing a kind of inflation.
Even fashion magazines are pointing out that the whole structure of fashion is outdated. So, why is there so little change even though we know it’s malfunctioning on so many levels? Do the hundreds of billions of invested dollars stop the process?
Interestingly enough there is much more eagerness to adopt new materials, processes or art, and to playfully exploit every new technology, in the area of product design. Product and clothing design are both about finding innovative solutions to practical issues. Both fields are also about the expression of beauty. But with clothing design a deeper dimension is added…
Clothes are about identity, about who we are.
Could it be that we need to take a deeper look at what clothes mean to us as developing human beings, in order to get an accurate future prediction? Maybe the reason for lack of innovation in the world of clothes is due to the ordinary designer’s limited knowledge about human identity? Maybe we are beginning to care less about a perfect facade than who we really are? Seeking attention from the outer world through dressing codes might be replaced by directing our own attention inwards?
What will our clothes represent to us when we stop identifying with our personality, with the dressing codes of a specific group? What will we need from our second skin?
What do you think? Please comment below…
Are you interested in conscious clothing and the future of clothes?
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