What lies Beyond Fashion? The digital cover, the award, a new way of understanding fashion
September is to fashion what January is to the rest of the world, a month of new beginnings, change, and Fashion Weeks. Hoping for a change in a time of year that symbolises the entire industry, nss' digital cover Beyond Fashion was born out of the desire to put the faces of new talents at the center of an ancient system, seeking a new paradigm and a different path from those already taken. An interview involving fifteen emerging brands paved the way for what would become a larger project, a manifestation in broad daylight of a research and reflection operation that nss has been quietly practicing on the sidelines for the past ten years among industry insiders.
The soft-toned garments and fluid aesthetics of Martin Gissi, a design student at the Marangoni Institute in Milan, won the first prize, representing a functional aesthetic vision ready for sale and consumer engagement. Leather jackets, polo shirts, prints, and preppy-style shorts gave way to the other finalists, representing very different design ideas, from the soft and delicate lines of Tomas Joel Lara Munoz from the Accademia Costume e Moda to the futurism of the duo composed of Anna and Silvia Cristofolini from the Istituto Secoli. Talents that demonstrate how fashion can maintain its creative foundation while remaining grounded, functional without getting lost in the frills and anachronisms of couture, in a compromise that allows room for their own narrative and individuality. Today, more than ever, fashion must be a manifesto for social change, and to do so, it must engage with a reality that, despite its complexity, must be embraced and understood without fear.
