the most important issue, for it allows creating the necessary context for the
demonstration and perception of collections.
Over the past one hundred and fifty years, fashion shows have evolved along with
the public from closed salon demonstrations to massively accessible and democratic
culturally determined events that actively use all the latest technology. Modern shows
last no more than ten or fifteen minutes, and this is enough for the fashion show
(because of its design, décor, the theatricality of the action as a whole) to create all the
necessary conditions for the deployment of the narrative of the collection within the
framework of the representation as a cultural animation. The restrained and minimalist,
almost intimate shows in the fashion studio salons gave way to grand spectacular shows
with live broadcasts and virtual involvement for millions of viewers. Consequently, the
scale is the main and significant change that has taken place. In its turn, it influenced
the budget of the event, the choice of the venue. For all, without exception, location is
the most important issue, for it allows creating the necessary context for the
demonstration and perception of collections.
In the 1970s pret-a-porter collections caused much more consumer interest than
haute couture collections. Fashion runway has become the main place for the
expression of creative vision by a designer of fashion, social problems, and industry
achievements. Young, active, and sometimes aggressive in their innovations, designers
competed for the right to be recognized. For this time of democratization of fashionable
innovations, an important event was the introduction of the new generation designers
– Kenzō Takada, Sonia Rykiel, the Chloe brand under the leadership of Karl Lagerfeld
– to the fashion world.
In the 1980s innovation can be associated with the emergence on the catwalks of
the Vivienne Westwood collections with the synthesis of elements of historical
costume, anarchistic sentiment and frank sexuality, typical for her creativity. Vivienne
Westwood shows destroyed all possible traditions, based on chaos, protests against
social dogmas and demonstrative rebellion. However, because of this London has
become the Centre of creativity in the field of fashion innovations. Non-standard
approaches to the creation of clothing, bold experiments with gender, race, and age of
models not only diversified the shows but opened new dimensions of representations.
Today’s fashion shows are spectacular theatrical displays, a real performance,
where a costume is just one of many elements of the thought out staging. The purpose
of such acts of a designer or a brand he/she represents is to demonstrate his/her/its own
exclusivity in such a way as to impress everyone and not to repeat him/her/itself. This
has become evident ever since the first Fashion Week in Paris in 1973, organized by
Eleanor Lambert and the curator of the Versailles Gerald Van der Kemp. Their noble
goal of raising funds for the restoration of the famous royal palace and adjoining parks
got a provocative metaphorical form of expression in the title “The Battle of
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