The utopia of The Row's Resort 2026 collection How the brand is rethinking the insta-show system
Whether you like it or not—and we're not talking about trends or quiet luxury—the choice of The Row to ban photos for guests during the shows, providing them only with a notebook to take notes on details and the numbers of the looks, is indeed a strategy but, at the same time, an invitation to reflect on what fashion weeks have become and how much we really care about the garments. In the age of Instagram brands, The Row raises a crucial question: how should we experience fashion weeks? The answer is not only as social events — a key element in the conventions of the creative industry — but, above all, as moments when the clothes return to the center of the conversation. We’ve already discussed, on several occasions, both the iconic elements that positioned the New York-based brand, founded in 2006 by twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, which quickly flew into the Olympus of the most talked-about brands of the past decade, and the contrasting opinions generated by their radical choices of presentation. Before focusing on the latest Resort 2026 show, it is useful to highlight some elements that show how these choices are a re-proposition of dynamics typical of the early days of the French haute couture system, both in terms of presentations and sales spaces.
But the one thing that deserves the most reflection is the choice to erase the typical seating hierarchies for presentations, which have always symbolized how power is managed and displayed within the fashion world. In this show, if you arrived late, you were forced to stand, sit on the floor, or find a space between people to watch. By canceling the convention that places figures with important positions and wide communicative relevance in the front row on comfortable chairs with great visibility, while others are in the second row or even standing. This is one of those gestures that makes you think and emphasizes the intelligence and irony hidden behind this reality. Glancing through the blurred faces seen in the background of the photos released by the house, even Imran Amed, CEO and founder of Business of Fashion, is seen standing with his back against the wall, probably late, and Cathy Horyn sitting with her arms crossed, tightly held to herself, surrounded by people sitting on the floor and others almost lying on a couch. The message that emerges is one of a return to a focus on objects. Even the twins' Instagram channel does not conform to the rhetoric of a traditional fashion brand. Here, more than promises of visibility and fame, there is a sense of substance: intelligence, materials, silhouettes. Communication becomes a project, intertwining with the very form of the clothes, and although we are aware that this is a strategic choice, there is something precious in this activism, and paradoxically, it is precisely because of two celebrities that we are invited to reflect on these issues.
