“It’s the upside of an economic-stimulus package,” writes Mark Holgate in Vogue’s September issue of tonight’s Fashion’s Night Out, a “global party” co-sponsored by Vogue to kick off New York Fashion Week. Spanning 13 fashion capitals from New York to Brazil, France to India, Italy to Japan, the event is intended as a catalyst to reinvigorate retail, fashion and consumer confidence.
With all the buzz here in New York, there’s no doubt FNO will attract droves of fashionistas, recessionistas and everyone in between, if only to see or take part in the spectacle: Oscar da la Renta singing, Mary-Kate and Ashley customizing clothes, Anna Wintour being Anna Wintour, etc. It is a global party, after all.
But will it achieve the higher goal?
Let’s face it: For the past year, shopping has been anything but a party. Any sort of indulgent spending has been guilt-ridden (and not in a guilty pleasure sort of way) or done on the down-low (brown-bag luxury, anyone?). Purchases have been very practical, driven by need or discounts, or justified as investments.
If anything, FNO may remind people that shopping can be much more than pure utility. It’s social. It’s fun. The brands you buy express your style and personality. And purchases can be true investments—not just justified as such—that may last generations.
Seems like a good reminder for fashion and retail brands as well, which have been appealing more to our rational side at the cost of the emotional and instinctual. A literal and figurative splash of color couldn’t hurt in what’s been a very subdued shopping year.
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