In a letter today to Fashion News, Giorgio Armani explains why he's changing direction. It's good news for the planet and, hopefully, where the great designer leads, others will follow.
"The decline of the fashion system, as we know it, began when the luxury sector adopted the fast fashion operating mode with the continuous delivery cycle, in the hope of selling more...
I don't want to work like this anymore, it's immoral.
It makes no sense for a jacket or suit of mine to live in the shop for three weeks, become immediately obsolete, and be replaced by new merchandise, which is not too different from its predecessor. I don't work like that, I find it immoral to do so. I've always believed in an idea of timeless elegance, in making clothes that suggest only one way to buy them: that they last over time.
For the same reason I find it absurd that in the middle of winter, in boutiques, there are linen dresses and in summer there are alpaca coats, for the simple reason that the desire to buy must be satisfied immediately. Who buys clothes to put them in a closet waiting for the right season to wear them? No one, or a few, I think. But this system, driven by department stores, has become the dominant mentality. Wrong, we must change, this story must end.
This crisis is a wonderful opportunity to slow everything down, to realign everything, to draw a more authentic and true horizon.
No more spectacularization, no more waste.
For three weeks I've been working with my teams to ensure that, after the lockdown, the summer collections remain in the boutique at least until the beginning of September, as is natural. And that's how we're going to do it from now on. This crisis is also a wonderful opportunity to restore the value of authenticity: no more fashion as a communication game, no more fashion shows around the world, just to present bland ideas. No more entertaining with great shows that today reveal themselves for what they are: inappropriate, and I mean vulgar.
No more parades all over the world, made through trips that pollute. No more wasting money on shows, they're just brushstrokes of enamel on top of nowhere.
The moment we are going through is turbulent, but it offers us the unique opportunity to fix what is wrong, to remove the superfluous, to find a more human dimension...
This is perhaps the most important lesson of this crisis."
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