This is going to be another short and sweet article, because to be honest, fashion month hasn’t been wow-ing me as it usually does. Some quick highlights are Bottega Veneta showing their FW26 show with some spectacular woven leather clothes, and Gucci’s Fall 2026 collection by Demna Gvasalia that really took looks-maxxing to a whole new level. The collection was fine, but kind of just Demna being Demna, heavily mirroring his time at Vetements and Balenciaga.
Anyways, it used to be a rarity 10 to 15 years ago for a celebrity to break into a designer’s archive from years prior. However, there seemed to be a pivot post-2020 at the height of the thrifting and sustainability movement. As stated in Elle, “the 2020s have seen fashion hit rewind. In an industry where innovation was once synonymous with modernity, the most compelling statement a designer, stylist, or celebrity can make today is one of reverent restoration.”
It felt like in order for you to make a statement, you needed to pull out a piece from an iconic collection from the ‘80s or ‘90s. Celebrities like Cardi B, Kim Kardashian, Zendaya, and Margot Robbie partially spearheaded this movement, showing that you can go back to the past to show that you are an avid listener to fashion.
This isn’t to denounce the pieces they wore — they looked good, and if anything, it imprinted them into the lexicon of celebrities that actually care about fashion.
However, when every single celebrity, including the C-list influencers are partaking in this movement, it feels stale after a while. How many more times do I need to see the same Versace or Chanel piece from the ‘90s until you beat a dead horse into the ground?
In a world where there is still so much innovation and creativity, you don’t always need to be jumping into the archives to make the statement that you are trying to make, when also a lot of these pieces physically cannot be worn without damage.
Smaller designers are paving the way for the future, and if we keep trying to instill this idea that archival is the way, we’re only making those larger fashion houses richer than they already are. We can’t keep diluting and pushing these smaller designers away when in reality, they’re pumping out more avant-garde and interesting pieces at their haute couture shows or ready-to-wear collections.
Overall, I am tired of archival fashion. It used to mean something, but now, it’s just oversaturated. For this coming season, hopefully, we begin slowly moving away from the archives as the statement, but moving towards the innovation that we used to see.
