With ever-increasing mentions of the burgeoning metaverse flooding our screens, fashion has embraced NFTs and given rise to digital influencers. Yet some brands are betting on a retreat from or reversion to web 3.0 among their public. The question is: do you enter the metaverse, or double down on our humanity?
Launched recently, the spring/summer 2022 campaigns by Miu Miu, Prada, Jil Sander and Lanvin all have one thing in common: an unapologetic nod towards individuality, and an embrace of the unpolished and the natural. The aesthetic, reflected in the campaigns of a number of other brands this season, feels like a conscious riposte to the increasingly dominant discussion of digitalisation, NFTs and the metaverse.
On the other side of a developing dichotomy, some high profile campaigns and runways have embraced the new digital age in earnest. In December, Korean fashion house Ader Error debuted a collection in collaboration with Zara built for a generation increasingly living and engaging in the virtual world. Modelled by avatars and humans alike, the collaboration was one of many that took virtual reality (and the uncanny valley) in fashion to a new level.
Is this divide the inevitable response to the growing pains of our digital-heavy era? Will brands diverge further as excitement for (or disillusionment with) the metaverse grows? Or are these simply the death throes of a human-focused approach ahead of the inevitable digitalisation of everything?
It's likely too soon to answer these questions. But watching brands explore the possibilities in front of them is making for some intriguing campaigns.
In response to a world increasingly dictated by the screens in the palm of our hands and the worlds we enter within them, some brands have come to challenge the ecosystems of social media filters, digital avatars, and hyper-curated online worlds. Stripped down campaigns, natural makeup, urban landscapes and nostalgia underpins this movement, where a celebration of the imperfect and the natural works as an extension of the collections made to be worn and enjoyed in real life.
Featuring prominent pop-culture icons, Miu Miu’s SS22 campaign - entitled 'Basic Instincts' - steps fully into this concept citing “the instinctive, and above all the real” as inspirations. Captured by Tyrone Lebon, the campaign stars faces such as English actor Emma Corrin, known for The Crown, South Korean actor Lee You-mi of Squid Game, and model Hailey Bieber. The campaign captures them in unrehearsed and unaffected poses, with minimal makeup.
Prada’s SS22 campaign, shot by photographer David Sims, features Hunter Schafer and Selena Forrest in similarly direct, natural portraits. Celebrating a quiet rebellion in the embrace of a stripped-back visual, the campaigns both cite the exploration of fantasy versus real as key aspects in their creative vision.
Brands have come to challenge the ecosystems of social media filters, digital avatars and hyper-curated online worlds
By placing these pop-culture phenoms in intimate, laid back settings, the campaigns divorces them from the fantasy of their day jobs, rather honing in on the emotional and personal. Important here is the emphasis on the personal connection - each celebrity is showcased as their authentic, real selves, someone non-reproducible in an age of copy + paste.
A similar authenticity is showcased in Jil Sander's SS22 campaign, documented by Chris Rhodes. Elevating the urban and natural spaces of Paris, the city and its community provides the backdrop for the campaign's homage to city life and the connections made there, citing the values of “touch, intimacy, honesty, trust, curiosity, and carefulness” as key ideas. This nostalgia for a world we’ve left behind is a prominent thread throughout these campaigns, perhaps most notably present in Lanvin’s dreamy SS22 campaign film by director Helmi. Rich in its enthusiastic glance towards the past, the film journeys into the archives of the house, drawing on 1990s/2000s aesthetics combined with several nods to the house’s mid-century silhouettes. The film is an homage to the tangible, visceral experiences of travel, parties, and the real life we’ve so long yearned to return to.
Acne Studios’ SS22 'The Face' campaign strikes a similar tone, evoking nostalgia through retro-inspired staple pieces styled by teenagers longing for an era they didn’t experience. Lensed by Harley Weir, the imagery is raw, unfiltered and personal.
With the rise of digital influencers, digitally-exclusive collections, and entire campaigns built around them, it is not surprising that fashion houses have their own contemplations on how we (and the industry) will come to terms with a world increasingly lived online - a space where reality and fantasy combine.
No recent show illustrated this as sharply as Japanese designer Masayuki Ino’s Doublet FW22/23 collection titled 'This is Me', which explored topics of diversity, inclusion, and individuality in a digital age. The runway was taken over by a diverse cast of models all wearing digital influencer Imma’s reproduced face. Questioning the notion of uniqueness in a digital world, the designer aptly addresses the opposing worlds of the material and the immaterial - can we truly find the same charm and experience in something artificial like we would in the natural world?
As the fashion world (and the rest of us) prepares for the inevitable coming of the metaverse, we’ll be sure to see further explorations of nostalgia and an embrace of the human - perhaps a knowing acknowledgement of the industry moving towards the world of virtual perfection it has helped build through decades of careful image-making. In a world consumed by rapid digitalisation, this embrace feels like a welcome break in our pursuit of the future. Whether it lasts, remains to be seen.