Last Saturday night (August 7) in Montreal, thousands filled McGill College Avenue for the finale of the four-day Festival Mode & Design. On a U-shaped runway that stretched a city block, independent designers and the big brands that still manufacture in the city’s garment factories presented fall collections with style and spectacle.
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Models in multicoloured body stockings layered with Denis Gagnon’s impossibly intricate fringe cocktail dresses took their turn on the catwalk pushing shopping carts. Renata Morales’s jewel-toned frocks, dripping with icicle-like sequin embroidery, didn’t need a single prop to make their statement.
The fashion media were there, too, gossiping and sipping cocktails in a double-decker press tent at the end of the runway, but getting our attention wasn’t the point. This festival is focused on the consumer, an idea that was ahead of its time when organizers Sensation Mode launched it 10 years ago but today is perfectly on trend.
The traditional catwalk show, where a label presents a collection to media and buyers six to nine months before it hits stores, is at a crossroads. Editors and retailers are bored by the format and overwhelmed by the number of presentations. Designers, sensing the “I’m so over it” fickleness that inevitably affects every aspect of the fashion industry, are looking for alternative ways to market their brands.
Many have turned to film. Toronto’s Nada Shepherd handed out 3-D glasses and filled a hall at the Scotiabank Theatre to unveil her latest collection last March. Others are focusing on an installation format where a smaller group of style tastemakers get up close and personal with static models wearing the collection. Tonight (Thursday, August 12), Stephen Wong and Kirk Pickersgill of Greta Constantine are using that set-up to unveil their newest Ezra Constantine collection for men at a private Yorkville mansion that used to be the German Consulate.
But while the platforms may be different, they don’t deal with the catwalk show’s primary shortcoming. When editors tweet their favourite look or bloggers upload video of the presentation, consumers can’t do anything with the information.
Montreal’s fashion festival and similar events like Fashion’s Night Out in New York deliver immediate shopping gratification. Like that Harricana trapper hat you saw in the Bay show? Buy it now at the store down the street.
Fashion shows aren’t going away. Their audience has become too lucrative for sponsors, and their pizzazz too addictive for fragile designer egos. Their timing is just way off, and in fashion, timing is everything.
Visit nowtoronto.com/daily for more on Montreal’s Festival Mode & Design.
