Walter Van Beirendonck(Fashion Designer, Educator): People are buying now a lot of vintage clothing, which is a good thing for the sustainability, but we are losing a little bit the look of the time, so we don’t have on the streets anymore this typical - when we look back to the 70s, 80s, 90s, we have the typical thing that you recognize immediately and this we lost the last ten years I think. Bliss Foster(Fashion Critic): How do you pull people out of nostalgia because you’ve seen multiple waves come and go at this point? How can you convince a high schooler to pull out of the nostalgia and embrace where they are right now and in their time?¹ ©Marleine van der Werf / Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg Whom might the conversation on Bliss’s Reels be addressing? It could be a concern about consumers fixated on the past who ignore contemporary designers. Or it could be a call to wake up for the current generation failing to match the designers who defined their era. Or possibly, both. Whichever it is, if you agree with their conversation, it suggests you can relate to the view that contemporary fashion is, compared to the past, rather dull and lacking in energy. Indeed, when you recall Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking in the 1960s², Giorgio Armani’s Power Suit from the 1980s³, and the heyday of Western minimalism and avant-garde designers like Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, and Martin Margiela from the 1990s through the early 2000s, it’s not unreasonable to question whether a distinctive style unique to the present is being formed. The nostalgia for the past, which Bliss and Walter point out, meaning consumers are increasingly drawn to the archives of previous generations of designers, while designers themselves seem to take it for granted that they cannot create without using past designs as a ‘crutch’⁴, appears to be the prevailing trend. Run 11 fashion show, 2000. Photo: Antoinette Aurell. Courtesy Susan Cianciolo and Bridget Donahue, NYC The names of the designers mentioned above already suggest that both designers and consumers, whether in terms of design sources or archive collecting, are drawn to a past era when designers were entrepreneurs themselves and their own names were their brand names. That era was not quite as romantic or sustained solely by artistic passion as it appears compared to today's fashion industry⁵, but the market was nonetheless experimental and seeking novelty. Under the assumption of good fortune, if a designer emerged with an unprecedented vision, the market would be willing to embrace it. In other words, for designers of that period, working under someone else was a time to build their careers and ultimately hone their craft, proving their design philosophy through a brand bearing their own name⁶. ©Muyo Park Now, let us look back on the 2020s. The capital supporting the fashion industry, seemingly unsatisfied with merely co-opting subcultural resistance into new marketability and enclosing their names within its fences, now aims to preempt all emerging talent. The most celebrated designers of our time devote their passion not to growing their eponymous brands into ‘houses’, but to reinterpreting the histories of established luxury houses. A designer’s independent brand has become a stepping stone to becoming a creative director, as their portfolio and CV. Virgil Abloh did so, Jonathan Anderson is doing so, and Demna has long since separated from his Vetements (now VTMTS)⁷. Particularly, the trajectory of Raf Simons, positioned somewhere between these two groups, having experienced and survived both eras, best illustrates this shift: from the era of independent designers to the era of creative directors. Having gained renown through his early work at his own brand in the early 2000s (one of the collections coveted by collectors), Raf Simons has since juggled roles as creative director at Jil Sander, Dior, and Calvin Klein alongside his own label. And while serving as co-creative director of Prada alongside Miuccia Prada, he unveiled the final collection of his brand, Raf Simons, in 2023⁸. Under this precedent, young designers no longer aspire to run their own brand for decades, as Yohji Yamamoto did, anxiously upholding their philosophy while weathering crises such as bankruptcy. For those who aspire to be recruited as a director somewhere, with good treatment and stability guaranteed, the most valued virtue is not novelty, but rather the ability to interpret someone else’s archives well⁹. ©Patrick Kovarik / AFP / Getty Images In summary, today's situation is one in which individual designers have become brands and corporate entities, and large conglomerates employ acquisition strategies that treat designers as assets—acquiring not just brand intellectual property but also the value and fandom that come with a human figure branded as such. While Bliss and Walter’s conversation can be read within this context, their dialogue about the current state of affairs, as evident in their expressions, is no different from critique or disappointment directed at individuals. However, if there are cutting-edge designers who continue their own experimentation and if their supporters have not disappeared, then the critique should target the industry-wide structural shift in which designers become derivative product designers¹⁰. That is, if both designers and consumers are fixated on the past, the responsibility does not lie with producers’ discourse on sustainability or consumers’ enthusiasm for archiving. Rather, responsibility lies with the large conglomerates that have transformed fashion design into a derivative product structure, one that generates value through the volatility of ‘director replacement,’ treating past ‘originals’ or ‘heritage’ as foundational assets, and with the high fashion market that accepts this structure. Within this, failed designers and their fanbases disappear, while the portfolio of the conglomerate monopolising the foundational assets continues to rise, enabling it to endlessly issue new derivative products¹¹. Demands that consumers refrain from indulging in nostalgia under the guise of sustainability or that designers cease using archives as crutches, without acknowledging this ecosystem, are as problematic as the ‘crutch’ metaphor itself. Bill Cunningham Even if individuals endure this process, another problem is that what is recorded in history as the ‘zeitgeist style’ is determined by the tastes of an extremely small minority, divorced from the masses. Pointing out the present absence while comparing past and present generations presupposes a sanctification or romanticisation of the past generation. This is no different from what houses do when they mythologise their founders. Underlying this is an obsession with the notion that the future must always be distinct from and newer than the past. This obsession has not only reduced fashion to a chronicle of Western dress history but has also enabled long-standing industry propaganda claiming that trends become outdated as soon as they arrive. This propaganda has reframed the creative output of the vast majority of independent designers and the act of wearing clothes by consumers outside of their sphere as lagging behind. The capacity for individuals to undertake independent experimentation, amateurism, and trial-and-error is steadily diminishing. What matters is not pointing out the absence of a style that represents an era. Rather, it is asking and revealing what the characteristics of contemporary streets are within this absence, and how creative practices like designing and wearing among the majority are actually taking place. ¹ Bliss Foster (2025.05.29.) Available at here² In the 1966 AW collection, Yves Saint Laurent introduced the first women's tuxedo, ‘Le Smoking’. ³ Giorgio Armani's iconic design applied the tailoring and materials of men's suits to womenswear.⁴ In the same post as Footnote 1, Bliss Foster left the following comment: “The current situation where we’re all needlessly using the past as a design crutch.”⁵ The majority of the designers mentioned above either sold their brands or left the fashion industry. Except those who built their own “empires” over decades, such as Giorgio Armani or Comme des Garçons, only the designers who sold their brands are remembered by us today.⁶ For instance, Yves Saint Laurent worked at Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier at Pierre Cardin, Martin Margiela at Jean Paul Gaultier, and Raf Simons at Walter Van Beirendonck.⁷ In September 2019, Demna Gvasalia departed entirely from Vetements (now VTMTS), the brand he had co-founded with his brother Guram Gvasalia.⁸ Industry insiders speculated that this was due to the unstable finance and to allow him to focus on his role as Creative Director at Prada. Chloe Mac Donnell (22 November 2022) ‘Raf Simons to close fashion label after nearly three decades’, Guardian, Available at here⁹ In another post by Bliss Foster, many fashion design students mention “creative director” as their favourite designer, names like Jonathan Anderson. Bliss Foster (2025.07.21) Available at here¹⁰ Younger designers in particular will already be familiar with the criticisms invariably levelled by the media at newly appointed creative directors – doubts about their ability to interpret the house, and a perceived lack of respect for its heritage.¹¹ See the case of Phoebe Philo. Her Celine, derived from the archives of the Celine house itself, is now called “Old Celine”, leading the current eponymous brand “Phoebe Philo”. BY MUYO PARKMARCH 16, 2026 >READ THE KOREAN VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE> READ OTHER ARTICLES