Fashion is ostensibly such an important part of every fashion week that it’s right in the name. And, yet, during the month-long festivities of Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2024, the clothing came last.
That’s not to say that the clothes were all bad or even bad at all. It’s merely that the Fashion Week SS24 clothes were uniquely outmatched, partially because they were largely quite tame and, primarily, couldn’t hold a candle to the typical fashion week spectacles.
Take Balenciaga as an example. Now, I enjoyed the collection just fine and there’s plenty of quality Demna quirk throughout.
But the house used consistently to balance wow factor and wow clothes, like with that mud-caked Spring/Summer 2023 collection where excellent outerwear, funky footwear, and a freaky set met in perfect harmony. The stunt-casting of a certain troubled rapper didn’t hurt.
Balenciaga SS24, though, offers familiar Demna fare and unexpectedly normal looks alike, stuff that’s easily washed away by the eye-popping guest list, which encompassed Balenciaga fanboys, fashion critic Cathy Horyn, and Demna’s mother.
Brother Guram, who was not invited, was amusingly salty.
In fact, the who’s-who guestlists were often the main event at Fashion Week SS24.
That’s hardly an aberration, admittedly — is Twitter gonna get excited about Anthony Vaccarello’s subdued Saint Laurent collection or Rosé sitting front row? If Martha Stewart is at Hermès and Paris Hilton is walking Mugler, who’s looking at the clothes? — but it does highlight an issue plaguing the season.
Namely, the presentations were nearly all so consistently conventional that they were unable to pop as hard as the people they invited.
Let’s look at Acne Studios.
For Spring/Summer 2024, the Swedish fashion label presented one of its most pared-back collections in years. Compared to the very capital-F Fashion that Acne’s showed in recent seasons, the latest offering was surprisingly straightforward.
There was a contemporary edge throughout, what…
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