SSENSE: Post-Arcade?
Who is leading the fashion industry in the 21st century? It is clear that couturiers have lost their former positions of power. They are no longer at the centre of fashion and do not lead trends. Instead, it seems that they are eager to accept suggestions. Catwalks are no longer just stages for models to walk down on the backstages of major brands. On the contrary, the public on the streets may be entering the designers’ studios. The top-down approach has become an unsuccessful concept in fashion.
Is fashion, therefore, a bottom-up system? In fact, fashion is no longer a one-way system of dissemination. To borrow the words of Peter Braham, we have multiple fashion systems. (Braham, P. 2017. Fashion: Unpacking A cultural production. Fashion Theory, 351–372.) This means that while couturiers may not lead trends, it does not mean that they have lost their influence. Couturiers are still the “houses” and key players in the ready-to-wear market, and I believe that their influence on the French fashion industry is more significant than I think. It could be argued that numerous creative directors who have shaped the current rank of fashion education in the UK have infiltrated the French industry, but it could also be argued that the French industry has absorbed the talent of the entire fashion industry.
No matter how diversified fashion is, it is hard to deny that British education and the French industry are two giant axes within the fashion system. History proves this fact from when Charles Frederick Worth, a British designer, founded French couture. Interestingly, however, several fashion systems are shaking not only the status between ‘High’ and ‘Sub’ but also the geopolitical status centred on the UK and France. Before SSENSE, compared to Europe and the US, has Canada ever been in the spotlight in the fashion industry? Has a system or organisation been spotlighted, not some exceptional designers, outside Europe/America? However, in the future, it will definitely be different. This is because Montreal’s SSENSE occupies an axis in many fashion systems through retail. In that all fashion products require a retail system regardless of noble modifiers such as legitimacy and heritage, they are cleverly building their heritage in the retail business without confronting European design heritage.
The designer’s ready-to-wear, Savile Row’s tailoring, the house’s couture, and even the indiscriminate copy products that spill onto the streets. In the end, as much as it is a manufacturing industry, all clothing is a matter of sales. While the concept of made-to-order may have a distance from the retail concept that we easily imagine, if we consider that within couture, “Vendeuse” connects customers to couture and tailors are located near the centre of the city’s upscale stores, it is clear that retail is essential, despite the difference in methods and forms.
However, as fashion has worked hard to adapt to digital, new ways of fashion retail have also emerged. While in the past, consumption spaces gathered in the centre of the city to form “arcades” and there were “flâneurs” wandering around there, now some internet platforms have brands joining them, and it can be seen as “browsers” exploring those places.
In the past, arcades were a significant space that formed the “spectacle” of the city, and in fashion, they were spaces that activated consumption. In the fashion industry, transactions within arcades are the beginning of modern transactions. Thanks to the arcade space, the consumer did not have to face the producer and could make immediate transactions through intermediaries, not as clients but as consumers. In addition, arcades and department stores became places where people mixed, and fashion consumption meant more than just payment. (Is fashion consumption not also included in image consumption?) Joanne Entwistle goes further to say that the items consumed are not objects but the spectacle of the store itself.
The Internet has created a new form of consumption. Nevertheless, can we experience the “spectacle” on a website-based consumption that we can only walk through with our eyes? We cannot experience; the entrance to the central area, the welcome of the staff, the interior of the store, and even the name of the famous department store. The Internet has transformed fashion consumption into a simple transaction, but more is needed to buy an item. It is crucial to experience the brand’s identity and story and be recognised as a consumer of that brand.
SSENSE cleverly mixes ready-to-wear retail and custom-made retail psychologically, making the virtual space of a website appear as an intermediary. Their own display method proves the realisation of spectacle on the web. Their website provides a differentiated experience just by browsing, without needing a walking space. The standardised display highlights clothes as images, eliminating the limitations of the place called the web and inducing consumption only with images. Alternatively, their display method, which seems to emphasise ‘uniformity’, builds the unity of the body despite the mix of clothes of numerous designers, making it look like a single body, like a customer mannequin in couture or Measurement in tailoring. They are specialist retailers of ready-to-wear, more than anyone else, and act like customer communicators within the made-to-order industry.
However, it seems that SSENSE does not intend to stop at securing an independent position within Fashion Retail. Their ultimate goal within the fashion industry is to have the three axes that impact fashion most: designers, buyers, and journalists. As mentioned, no one, including high fashion, can determine trends anymore. Until a trend is formed, the dissemination of taste is complex, and it is difficult to capture the flow and origin. Nevertheless, it is clear that the designers who compose the collection, the journalists who judge whether the collection is timely, and the buyers who make actual purchases based on trend predictions still play a decisive role. SSENSE is already a buyer and a journalist, and is preparing the brand to take on the role of a designer*, so it wants to occupy all three areas above.
*Can’t Farfetch’s investment in Off-White be viewed in this context?
If this fiction becomes a reality, companies like SSENSE could soon be building digital arcades. Just as arcades in the 20th century were not just a place for purchasing goods but for interaction and a place to check trends, these platforms will also become a starting point for trends to form in the future, not a place for consumption. This remarkable shift seems evident in that they handle all everyday objects and devices, not limited to dresses, and produce new fashion content through the text like magazines. Furthermore, given that the nature of the Internet guarantees more anonymity and free consumption than substantial shopping centres and department stores, and there are fewer physical restrictions, such a diagnosis should not be dismissed simply as a leap forward.
To add a last personal opinion before concluding the writing, personally, their movement is like seeing the beginning of a new Parisian costume association beyond the arcade. A new association of ready-to-wear next to couture that is not localised like “Paris”. Even though SSENSE handles a wide range of items and brands, considering the fact that entering SSENSE is becoming a gateway to new designers and the possibility of leading trends in the future, their handling standards may become a symbol of special status in the future. In the future, if we can even implement a Made-To-Order system within the digital world, a genuinely new association of couture might come from them.
