October 2020: the "ghost" fashion month It's there but you can't see it

Fashion week is not only a cultural and commercial institution of the fashion world, but responds to logistical and organizational needs. Bringing together all the shows of the main fashion brands under the banner of a single event responds to a practical need. But when, as this year has happened, many of the fashion events and fashion shows exist only in digital form, this principle of practicality falls and everyone dances to the rhythm of their own music. During this month of October there were in fact many high-profile events: the video shows for Celine's SS21 collection, Maison Margiela, Lanvin and Balmain, Raf Simons' womenswear debut, Comme des Garçons mini-show in Tokyo, the releases of Dior Homme's 2021 Resort lookbook, Givenchy's SS21 and Dries Van Noten, Craig Green, Lacoste, Miu Miu, Ambush and Thom Browne's lookbooks. At the end of September, however, the collections of Undercover, Marine Serre and Heron Preston had arrived in scattered order, while next November it will be gucci's turn with its SS21 collection.  

The cultural cohesion of fashion week, in short, can exist only in the presence of physical events, it also acts a kind of anchor, which contextualizes the fashion show and brings all the brands together in the same cultural habitat. In the freedom of digital, everyone works alone. If tomorrow it were the phygital format that prevailed, with physical catwalks taken from the cameras, nothing would distinguish the classic fashion show from a normal video catalog, depriving the very concept of show of relevance, net of production values. It remains only to be seen, depending on the course of the pandemic, whether the number of these "ghost" fashion months will increase, whether these will ever materialize in an organization in their own right or whether, after this short interlude of semi-anarchy, they will be absorbed by the usual calendar.