The Tokyo Fashion Week Did Not Take Place
We saw it coming, like a cloud looming above the city.
It's gonna rain... and then it happened. For everyone involved, it had to be "special," even more so now. In conversations, the self-fulfilling media prophecy was all too apparent, "we didn't cancel, we made it bigger!" and "this is precisely what is needed now." Vogue's Anna Wintour was expected any moment. The tension reached its peak and then...
Nothing.
It wasn't even bad.
Here, let us say it again: it wasn't bad.
What it was is beyond good and bad.
It just didn't matter at all.
The money and the energy, and the photographers and the live streaming, the parties and DJs and then, well, then nothing.
No impact. No inspiration. No emotions, no feelings, no love.
Perhaps just a touch of sadness, deep inside us, knowing that the real action, the meaningful conversation, was happening somewhere else, knowing that nothing that was shown during this week will ever have any impact on the way human beings dress, live and love.
What is was was life as usual: small town craftsmen talking to small town patrons, unaware of the larger environment, the outside world limited to the use of a few immigrants (the models) because "we've heard this is how it's done, back there," and a serious case of lost-in-translation-ness with one British designer showing "love" for Japan.
There were parties and there were shows and drinks were served, but the illusion was all too real and everyone was a bit embarrassed, like rabbits caught in headlights. The absentees were missed, but somehow excused, they got it. Meanwhile, elsewhere, unconcerned by a conflicting schedule, Seoul was showing clothes, a proposition of fashion, confident designers were giving interviews in English, and the models were mainly Korean and perhaps, by any chance, it was slightly more relevant. Back in Tokyo promises were made that maybe, just maybe, we could do it in a different way.
(originally published in De Rigueur 1)
