VOGUE: Inventing the Runway Gallery Guide
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
Vogue unveils the historic intimacy of the fashion show, from the revered salons of 19th Century Paris — enshrouded in exclusivity, designed for only the most devoted clientele — to the contemporary designers inviting audiences into their homes to showcase their latest work.
STORY & SPECTACLE
Fashion shows regularly have a penchant for the dramatic. Whether it’s through elaborate settings, theatrical performances, or fantastical storytelling, the line has often been deliberately blurred between runway and stage to explicitly explore the world we dress for, and the context we dress within.
DISRUPTORS
The fashion industry has long been home to renegades – and nowhere has the been more apparent than on the runways, where these six designers disrupted catwalk conventions to address and amplify their personal perspectives on everything from gender to sexuality and race.
ON LOCATION
While the fashion show was once strictly the preserve of a single Parisian postcode, in the 20th century, its boundaries expanded. From designers breaking out of gilded salons and into after-hours restaurants, to the houses who took their audiences around the world – the industry evolved into charting new terrain.
THE AUDIENCE
Before the internet, before TV, before widespread photography, magazine coverage was the only way for people to experience fashion shows. But if the first look at a fashion show once depended on those sketching in the front row, today it appears streamed live across social media through infinite perspectives to an audience more engaged and expansive than ever before.