I recently watched the ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ mini series on NOW streaming TV. The series covers how fashion houses were in a bit of a slump around the 1980’s but were revived by very wealthy business men creating consortia of multiple luxury brands who hired talented, young designers for these brands. This modernised luxury fashion as well as increased the appeal of luxury goods to larger audiences including in Asia.
The designers that are covered are John Galliano who first worked for Givenchy and then Dior, Marc Jacobs who worked for Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford who worked for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, and Lee Alexander McQueen who worked for Givenchy and his own brand of which he sold a majority share to the Gucci Group.
What I took away from this mini series is that luxury fashion changed massively from what it was in the 1940’s to what it had become around the turn of the millennium. I also learned that luxury fashion was no longer only for the very wealthy but the average person could also save up for a luxury handbag, Western brands penetrated markets in Asia, and that the top designers were worked to the bone to create many, many collections per year when in the past they would have designed perhaps just two to four collections.
I didn’t follow trends when I studied fashion design or really at any other point in my life, but I was really into Galliano’s designs because they were so detailed, so vivid, so opulent. I still really enjoy watching videos of his shows and the same goes for McQueen’s work.
What I admire most in fashion designers is their vision, skill and perseverance to create a whole collection and show that is coherent, hopefully new, and that has some kind of message. In that sense I do think fashion can be an art.
Do check out ‘Kingdom of Dreams’ if you are interested in luxury fashion design or even if you are only interested in the business side of luxury fashion.
If you are keen to see some of the designers’ work, I would start here:
