Welcome back and thanks for tapping into my second journal post.
Today I want to talk about authenticity in the world of luxury fashion.
There was a point in time where I grew tired of fashion because of the luxury fashion houses that were inclined to take advantage of every trend cycle within the market. Exclusivity in luxury didn't feel exclusive, quality didn't feel like high quality, craftsmanship was being lost, and brands looked to cut corners to increase margins. In the midst of all those factors, brands started to jump on the trend cycles as styles started looking similar with different brand name logos on the tags. Especially in the menswear category, the meteoric rise of streetwear bridging the gap with luxury showed the luxury fashion houses how simple and easy it was to commercialize menswear. As a sneaker enthusiast myself who looked to pair sneakers with streetwear styled clothing such as screen-printed t-shirts and hoodies with a pair of high quality denim from Saint Laurent or Balmain, I was engaging in two different worlds that eventually merged into one. When the brands noticed these trends and hired the next wave of designers and creatives to run their fashion houses, we saw an even closer bridging of the gaps between the two worlds.
As brands looked to find commercial success in the very styles that helped me build my community and the networks within the fashion industry, I was slowly losing interest in fashion. I was trying to ask myself why I was not feeling the same passion that had me engaged in product, and I noticed that there was a key component to design that these brands were missing: authenticity.
Many times I have justified the high sticker prices and the subpar quality in manufacturing, but the feeling of whether or not the design felt authentic to the brand, the designer, and down to the consumer is something I could never ignore. So you might ask, well how are you defining what is authentic and what is inauthentic?
Throughout my time at Parsons, my research was at the cross intersection of this exact question. What is authentic? And it has led me to define authenticity in four different categories that encompasses the word.
The four categories are naturalness, originality, continuity, and reliability.
Naturalness meaning ideas emerge from lived experiences, cultural memory, context, and community.
Originality meaning novelty that arises from mindful awareness, reflection, and engagement with lived experiences.
Continuity meaning design that evolves coherently over time, building and committing to a long term narrative, cultural integrity, and consistency in aesthetic.
And lastly, reliability meaning creative decisions that are aligned with intentions, cultural accountability, genuine interests, and ethical standards.
With these four pillars of authenticity, we can begin to feel what feels authentic and what doesn't.
It is quite challenging to see these four pillars checked off at a commercial level across all sectors of the fashion industry. So to narrow it down, I want to focus the context of authenticity in the luxury world and the emerging contemporary designer world as these brands look to scale because scaling usually comes at the cost of being authentic.
On my next journal post, I want to provide examples of brands and creatives that are engaging in creation authentically while having commercial success, so please stay tuned and as always feel free to leave your thoughts on the post.
BK