S1 E10

THURSDAY NEWSLETTER FROM ANDREA BATILLA

FRAGMENTATION AND ANXIETY

It’s very difficult, in this time of epochal transitions, to find understanding for those, like designers, who are expected to carry almost the entire weight of the business. People play the guessing game with names, harshly criticize decisions, and think they have a better solution. But the truth is, expressing well-founded, in-depth judgments is incredibly hard, because none of us has ever sat down to talk strategy with Alessandro Michele, Demna, or Sabato De Sarno. None of us really knows what they’ve been asked to do, what they’re capable of, or how far they can push themselves while maintaining that fragile balance between preserving personal identity and achieving financial results.

If we asked a mathematician to put these two factors into the same equation, they’d probably tell us they are incommensurable—that they can’t coexist within the same mathematical function.

And yet, every day, this is exactly what the world expects: a brilliant author who tells us an irresistible story that magically turns into millions in sales. Because one cannot exist without the other.

On one hand, the artistic side of fashion creators seems more necessary than ever for the survival of a brand. Chanel—who could keep selling even with its stores closed—has chosen to appoint Matthieu Blazy as creative director, and he’s certainly not someone known for quiet luxury.

On the other hand, it’s becoming harder and harder to evaluate someone’s work without seeing the sales numbers. And that applies not just to fashion, but to music, art, and design. Everything must now have a market response in order to even be considered worthy of judgment.

And today, data is more available than ever. There are rankings for everything: sales, markets, stock prices, social media, desirability. Every project must be obsessively reduced to a table of numbers.

When people talk about Miu Miu and its astronomical growth, there isn’t a single analyst or fashion critic asking what is actually working in the brand’s content. It’s just hype generating more hype, which in turn generates even more hype.