Chewing The Scenery? The Scenography In High Fashion Runways
At the crossroads of so many art forms, there’s set design.
It doesn’t confine itself to theatre stages and movie sets. Since the birth of haute couture, creators would use their salons to present their collections. These places could make or break a brand as they were seen as a social hub where customers could see and be seen. Initially pure marketing techniques, creative teams soon saw the artistic potential of runway shows and by the 1960s they started experimenting with alternative locations and being inventive with the staging of their collections.
But a change in the location for every show must be accompanied by a constant reinvention of the brand: not only do the collections need to evolve, so do the setting, music, choreography, and lighting. Runway shows have become complete sensory spectacles.
Now, brands can only attempt to control every visual aspect of a fashion show since each guest’s smartphone can tell its own story, thus creating a shift in the final medium of fashion shows and leading to even more frenzy around set design. Sometimes this agitation feels justified as it allows for a full artistic immersion with meticulous attention to detail, reinforcing the message of the show. Other times, it transforms into the apogee of futility.
Jacquemus, like any modern-day designer, owes most of his fame to the virality of his shows. Other than the extreme wearability and accessibility of his pieces, his success is due in large part to the sets and locations of his shows. Who can pretend to never have seen or even heard of the Jacquemus lavender or wheat fields, the Burano set, or Arles’ salt mines?
These set designs are excellent at what they aim for: letting the grandeur of nature speak for itself, something so pure and most importantly universally admired. It compliments - and sometimes compensates for - the brand’s clothes, characterised by its accessibility - both in terms of cost and style - , and by a certain naivete, playfulness. Or even whimsiness.
The landscapes evoke carefree memories and references from childhood, reinforcing the brand’s overarching sense of familiarity. Oversaturated and brightly coloured clothes and sets at his shows perfectly reflect the need for escapism but like the clothes, these sets are not particularly experimental, something that it not per se negative since it allows instead to focus on the hyper-wearability and aspirations of luxury for the modern clientele.
Cruise shows and their own set design sum up the marketing and commercial stakes of runways. They were initiated by Coco Chanel and destined solely for the super-rich elite and their trips to the tropics. These interim shows focus on the wearability and inject a must-have feeling, with collections featuring breezy fabrics and fluid shapes.
Shows for cruise collection are generally a race for the most outlandish and unusual destination, from Cuba to Marrakech through the Great Wall of China. Commercially, these mid-season collections are also the longest ones to stay in stores since they represent much larger sales targets. Hence, the enormous attention given to the scenography of these collections.
Set designer Alexandre de Betak is king of marketing coups and responsible for every other show on the fashion calendar these days. His agency’s works include Jacquemus’ which we just addressed, Gucci on Hollywood Boulevard, and the Chanel shows among many others. The latter’s intricate scenography invents whole new places and strategically, it works: the Chanel supermarket, launch of the rocket adorned with interlaced Cs, and reconstruction of Paris’ roofs are easily remembered.
His office gets the bookings with the biggest budget and has several hundred shows on his portfolio. “I proposed the antithesis of what people were used to seeing. I went in and tried to make [shows] very fast, very compact, very energetic and very minimal in the sense of how many messages you put into one”.
Minimalism in the message expressed, I’ll agree. But it surely isn’t coordinated with a minimalistic style. His shows seem like a one-upmanship of the biggest. Whether or not you like his megalo-shows, there is no doubting his impact. Initially, set design was only done in-house, de Betak’s job did not actually exist 30 or so years ago.
