To find out, we decided to dig a little deeper into some of our favourite shows by emerging designers at London Fashion Week SS20, starting with Paula Canovas del Vas. It’s now a known fact that fashion weeks are increasingly being called into question, whether for the woeful extent of their environmental impact or for their relevance as a presentational format in the broadest sense. In fact, in the wake of London Fashion Week back in September, we surveyed how altering fashion week as it currently stands could affect the city’s fashion design ecosystem, and speculated on solutions that could be implemented. The potential futures we have in mind are not, however, as far off as they may seem. Proving themselves the protagonists in the fight for systemic change, young designers are trying their hands at innovative solutions to the issues that physical presentations and shows pose.
For her SS20 presentation at London Fashion Week, Paula broached the field of virtual reality. Working in collaboration with creative animation studio NoGhost, the Central Saint Martins MA class of 2017 graduate staged a digital presentation that diverged from the typical understandings of how clothing ought to be presented and questioned the observer-observed paradigm we expect of a ‘traditional’ fashion show. Eager to learn more about the ups, downs and lessons learned, we caught up with Paula to fill us in on her experience of staging a virtual reality presentation during fashion week.