For years, the fashion industry has operated with a clear hierarchy, from haute fashion brands like Christian Dior and Valentino to economy brands like TU at Sainsbury's and George at Asda, but in recent years, more people have turned to fast fashion labels, which provide cheap prices as well as in trend clothing.
With current economic pressures, less people can afford to buy high end clothing which is causing a decline in interest and purchases of haute couture, and in addition to this, the high fashion industry is a breeding ground for nepotism, sexism and racism. More and more models and other members of the high fashion community are coming out with exposes and stories of toxicity and harassment of the industry, causing people to be more weary of becoming involved and buying from companies involved.
When you think about places to buy clothes from, hardly anyone thinks of haute couture brands, they're excrutiatingly expensive and most of the time the clothes they make don't appeal to the average consumer anyway. There are only a dwindling number of people who are keeping up to date with the fashion that Vogue forcasts every season, and instead are following the trends created on Tik Tok and Instagram. The need for high fashion houses has been quashed by these fast fashion labels who are cheaper, more suitable and sometimes even more 'fashionable'
The haute couture industry was built on envy; after all, only about a handful people can actually afford to keep in trend, and so the industry relies on the ultra rich buying their garments and everyone else who can't afford to buy their clothes being jealous of them, which creates a society which almost idolises high fashion brands. The less accessible and more exclusive something is, the more covatable it gets . But as of recent, people just wear what they like, not what the fashion industry is manipulatively persuading them to wear. The amount of shows in fashion week is on a continuous decrease and with people spending less money on high fashion and more money on sustainable fashion, but how long can the high fashion industry keep struggling on?
The problem starts with the prices, the shows and pieces are only aimed at the ultra rich, who can afford to throw away £10,000 on a coat? Understandably, the whole purpose of high fashion is to be larger than life and hopelessly unaffordable but with England’s economy crumbling and people willing to dish out less and less money each year, do fashion houses need to get with the times and target their clothes to the larger demographic too? It is likely that if this idea was pitched to the directors of famous fashion maisons, they’d most definitely say no, but a thought worth considering is, if designer clothes were more reasonably priced, how many more people would be willing to spend their money there?
Back to the underlying question, is fashion dying? Technically, no. In fact the industry is growing at 3.5-4.5% per year, and is worth almost $300 billion. What’s worth noting is that, the majority of the revenue is coming from high street retailers, 40 years ago, this would not have been the case. Even if you don’t believe that the industry itself is dying, without a doubt, fashion month is. Fashion month is consists of 4 weeks of consecutive fashion shows, one in September and one in February, and its sole purpose is to show all the new autumn/winter and spring/summer collections of the year; but now, how necessary is it? Everything nowadays is digital, we can see all the latest collections, read all the latest articles online, so really what is fashion week, besides from a gathering of models, influencers and designers? A marketing stunt? A way to increase public speculation? One of the biggest events of the world, has been reduced to nothing. As the industry is striving to be more inclusive, there are a few factors holding it back, many of which, stemming from the youth.
When you think about it, fashion originated as a way to show personal identity, to show our personalities in what we wear, and now look where we are. We wear Louis Vuitton, but do we even like Louis Vuitton or do we only do it because we think other people do? Would people like Dior if it didn’t say Dior on it? Would people like Chanel No.5 if it didn’t say Chanel on it? Is fashion just a trend to flaunt how rich a person is? I think there are only a select few outside of the fashion industry who actually like clothes for clothes and not for how much they cost. Is the way we present ourselves nowadays based off how we want other people to think of us? Have we completely destroyed the meaning of fashion, and replaced it with a new social pressure? Has fashion become less what we want to wear and more what we feel safe wearing? Very few non-famous people use fashion to express themselves; the natural urge of humans to stand out has diminished and been replaced with the need to fit in.
Circling back to the beginning, why do people wear clothes from high street retailers? My best guess is that they provide a sense of security; everybody wearing the same thing. Influencers have become the Claudia Schiffers and Naomi Campbells of our generation, social media is the only way to get through to the public. The popularity of a celebrity is solely based off how large their social media following is. With Mango and Zara, their clothes are chic and look ‘adult-like’, providing suitable attire for the work enviroment and for people to wear casually which meets the needs of many women, and squashes their need for high fashion. To be fair, Zara does try to keep up to date with the trends, and succeeds, which creates a cheaper version of runway looks, quashing the need for designer.
Unlike these high street retailers, haute couture hasn’t created any sweeping trends or any products that consumers feel obligated to buy, and after all the entire industry is built on being influenced. Fast fashion retailers are appealing to the public, creating clothes which aren’t outlandish and that people actually want to spend their hard earned money on. Fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar just don’t supply the content that people find interesting anymore, the name ‘Anna Wintour’ is foreign to some people. The public don’t need magazines to tell them what to wear, they have influencers, celebrities and society overall. The last Vogue issue which actually made the headlines was Kim and Kanye in 2014, and since then, they’ve just been filled with nameless supermodels; even ex- British Vogue fashion director, Lucinda Chambers said that “It’s a shame that magazines have lost the authority they once had,”.
Overall, I think that the High Fashion industry is losing its importance and relevance with society, I think that by trying to create a divide and atmosphere of jealousy, the industry has instead alienated the demographic who used to be supporters of their clothing and lost them to lower down retailers. With the current political climate, of more people realising that the wealth gap in our world is unacceptable, inaccessible concepts such as Haute Fashion are being thrown out the window.
