We Are The Streets

“Ah Paris… It is ours, we have only to seize it. (…) And the cobblestone street seemed to belong to them, the entire street conquered for their soles, this old battle field where an intoxication took over which masked their weariness." (Émile Zola, L’Œuvre) Conquering all, fashion has come alive again, after many years of retirement in confined spaces. Last February, in New York, Marc Jacobs brought down the podiums and the walls, to rediscover the essence itself of the ready-to-wear, the street. This fire to live, wrapped up and hidden for many years: in 2014, Chanel showed on a boulevard (for freedom of expression), to better express their feminist fervour. Kenzo, the same year, walked about, in the rain, on the Alexander III Bridge. This season, the tendency is strengthening and spreading from New York to Paris: Ralph Lauren presented his spring-summer 2017 collection in front of his boutique on Madison Avenue, Paul & Joe invested in the quays of the Seine, freshly deserted of cars, Koché showed under the radiant new canopy of Les Halles, after having squatted, turn by turn through the Place Carrée and the Prado passage… Chanel, them again, was offered a few weeks prior the nocturnal vibrations of the Paseo del Prado, in Havana, Cuba, for its travel show.

Trample the street: As always, when fashion is attacked, we ask ourselves if the walk is necessary or free, just good for the click or aerating the brains of the huddled-up journalists, twice, for thirty days every year, in obscure halls? For Marc Jacobs, who orchestrated his autumn-winter 2017/18 show at the Seventh Regiment Armory and then on Park Avenue, one had to most definitely come and trample, that street. “it was during my time at the High School of Art and Design that I started to feel and understand the influence of Hip Hop on other musical genres, on art and on fashion. This collection is a witness to my respect for a generation that will always remain at the beginnings of the youth culture.” Quintessence of streetwear, Hip Hop wasn’t born from the side of Kanye West: it saw its day in the Bronx, back in the 70s, carried by the break dancers of the streets, magnates of the tag and the beatbox. It isn’t only in New York that the streets have fashioned fashion: the kawaii style was born in the Tokyo neighbourhood of Shibuya; the hippie on the grass of Woodstock, the punk at Hampstead. Therefore, what could make more sense than showing in open air? “It is a fair and full circle, there is nothing more honest as a point of view than us paying homage to spaces where fashion was born. It is a little first degree at the same time to say we pay homage to street culture while leaving a street,” analyses Pascal Monfort, who heads the REC, Trends Marketing Office.

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A creative and militant action: Sincere homage to the past and praise of street culture, the street catwalk is also an occasion, for luxury houses, to step down from their pedestals and conquer the voices again. This demystification falls from the skies when fashion is lost from sight, these last years, that is what had to happen to exist: “there isn’t any fashion if it isn’t seen on the streets,” if you recall Gabrielle Chanel. While dusting up their ceremonies, designers imitated the François Truffauts, the Jacques Rivettes and the others. Jean-Luc Godard had, in the 50s, left the studios to conquer the Parisian streets. This Nouvelle Vague is even more important, now, with the advent of social media, the confining of certain privileges, of the press and the buyers to not have a place to be: “A show in the streets, has demonstrated, in a way, how the walls offered nothing anymore because, in any case, the images would be diffused in real time through social media. Like a sort of secret screen with virtual podiums to smash, as much as those in the real world. The show is no longer for just the happy few. The era of secrecy has ended,” continues Pascal Monfort. It is therefore impossible to remove the political context. By going out onto the streets, we imitate its emulation, certain designers are allies to creative and militant action. For their New York shows of 13th February, creative directors of Proenza Schouler openly expressed their opposition to the Trump administration. And, yet again, it’s the streets that return to the carpet: “It is not the time to stay at home in your dressing gowns and slippers. It’s time to take your shoes, your leather jacket and go and defend just causes.” The message has been passed on.

Marc Jacobs show autumn-winter 2017/18

Koché spring-summer 2017.

Paul & Joe spring-summer 2017.

Photos Marc Jacobs, Marcio Madeira