In a rediscovered 2012 Twitter rant by Roberto Cavalli, one tweet hit hard: “Fashion...is a big machine of money !! no creativity anymore ! In 50 years the books of fashion ... THEY DONT HAVE NATHING [sic] TO SAY ABOUT US.” Fashion is all about the profits – collections have to sell, they have to be commercial as they cater to consumers, and runway shows have to be marketable and chase virality with gimmicks or getting celebrities to walk in shows.
Last year, for Balenciaga Winter ‘24, Demna accompanied his show with a voicemail where he said “creativity has secretly become the new form of luxury”. He added that “what seems to be truly rare and finite right now is, actually, creativity itself.” You need to allow time for it, something that not every designer or brand has the luxury of doing. Big houses pump out about four ready-to-wear collections (men’s and women’s), two couture, and one resort per year –someone check on Jonathan Anderson, because that’s a lot. Even if a designer brings out the most perfect collection of 10/10 in craft and artistry, the age of endless FYPs isn’t allowing us to sit back and properly enjoy it; we just scroll onto the next thing.
The endless game of creative director musical chairs in the fashion space also doesn’t help – as @itgirlenergy on X put it: “Everyday I wake up a creative director is leaving a high fashion brand”. Since the start of 2025, there’s been 13 changes in the industry; Glenn Martens moved Margiela, Demna to Gucci, Pierpaolo to Balenciaga, Jonathan Anderson to Dior, this week Meryll Rogge was appointed creative director at Marni. This structural change within a brand, and having to adapt to different CDs and their unique visions (like Helmut Lang’s quick CD turnover, for example), can disrupt the creative flow within a team, and its output.
But, it’s not just the big houses. In the UK, the young designers who still have the raw creative push that’s not influenced by commercial success (just yet) are not always given the support they need. Last month, recent CSM grad Seoyoun Shin spoke to us about the hardships of starting out as a designer: “Tuition fees keep rising, yet the ways to get financial support remain limited. If you’re not enrolled in a fashion school, it becomes so much harder to build the kind of connections that are often essential for working in the industry.”
Shin added that “it just becomes more difficult to access opportunities. Considering that most people in the fashion industry are graduates of fashion schools, there’s a growing perception that fashion is only for those who can afford it – especially because of the high cost of education.”
But, even if you do get your foot through that door, it’s still so much work. Myah Hasbany, who also just graduated from CSM, told us in a recent interview: “It’s just me here, just me guys, so when you email me, it’s just me, there’s no one else here.” Independent designers have to be in a constant flow of survival mode to make ends meet, balancing it all by themselves or with a small team, and with limited budgets. It’s no surprise that the London Fashion Week schedule was emptier than usual last season, and Men’s LFW was cancelled for the first time since 2012.
However, there is some hope on the horizon, at least in London. The British Fashion Council’s freshly appointed CEO Laura Weir, just announced the BFC’s new strategy. Weir wants to “put designers at the heart, make mentoring and business skills central to our offer, and ensure our funding models result in long-term impact for the British creative economy.” The BFC is also going to get rid of the hefty LFW fees for designers that want to have a physical show on the schedule.
In a wider sense, designers keep on trying their best, no matter the huge workloads and hurdles, designing beautiful collections that incorporate excellent artisanal skills and bring innovation (see Myah Hasbany’s insane work, Glenn Martens at Maison Margiela or Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli), or bring out the most genius campaigns (shoutout Jacquemus). Creatives keep on creating because they love what they do.
Featured image Maison Margiela©
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