Opinion / Paris Couture Week 2020 goes digital, with inventive shows from Chanel, Dior, Valentino and an end – for now – to fake celebrity tickets and ego-driven front row politics

With the July 21 release of Valentino’s couture video, a collaboration between Pierpaolo Piccioli and British photographer Nick Knight, the 2020 Paris Couture Week drew to an official close. Well, if we can still call it Couture Week. This year’s calendar stretched over half a month, opening with Naomi Campbell’s introductory video on July 6. And instead of catwalk shows viewed in person, this year’s Couture Week – the holy grail of fashion – was forced into a video week, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Also on that opening day, Schiaparelli’s release reflected where we are at in the Covid-19 lockdown, with its new creative director Daniel Roseberry drawing the collection in his native New York, rather than in Paris. The brand launched 31 sketches rather than finished couture pieces.

Chanel released a trio of mini documentaries by Loïc Prigent, staged in its four haute couture ateliers and at the Creation studio at 31 rue Cambon, while Dior followed its usual schedule – 2:30pm Paris time on the first day of couture week – with a less-than-usual fantastical film Le Mythe Dior directed by Matteo Garrone. Beautifully done, the video was imbued with creativity, retelling the story of Théâtre de la Mode, a project started in 1945 to promote French couture around the world.

For most brands, the collections shrank to a much smaller number of looks. Chanel for example, usually presents 60-80 looks, a number squeezed down to 30 this season. Dior also downsized – not just in the way it presented them in its miniature-themed video – but from around 70 looks to 37.

There are other things missing too: the glamour of style hitting the street, the physical human interactions, of course, and the vibrant sense of creative energy at play – a fashion week’s impact goes well beyond the runways.

A fashion show is a holistic experience – an elaborate sensual collection of sights, sounds, smells, touches and much more. A spectator is immersed in a beautiful jigsaw – the venue, the clothes, the models, the runway, the movement and emotions all fit together to create the final telling picture. On this front, a digital fashion week has a long way to go.

On the positive side, autumn 2020, compared to previous seasons, lacked the stress of Parisian police supervising traffic jams of brand-logo’ed luxury vehicles transporting A-list celebrities to the venues, shoulder-rubbing fans queuing to get a glance of their idols, streets packed with photographers and well-heeled influencers competing for the spotlight.

I definitely didn’t miss the hustle, the mad dash from one show to the next, and the long waits as presentations are dragged into a cycle, all a minimum of 30 minutes late. Eating only one meal a day, at midnight, makes Paris no romance, but that’s a normal day for most fashion week goers.

Apart from eliminating such headaches, what live-streaming has cracked open are the intricate politics and hierarchy of fashion by democratising access to the shows. In the fashion world, as superficial and heartless as it sounds, where you sit is a manifestation of who you are. From the back to front, the benches signal the ascending echelons of money, fame and titles. And the first row is a cry of “I’ve made it”.