Theatre of Fashion: Scenographic Fashion Shows as Theatrical Practice in Design

Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine

Abstract

Contemporary fashion design is increasingly taking to the stage – in the figurative
sense, but also quite literally. Scenographic practices, familiar to us until now only
from the theatre, the concert stage and the opera, today are progressively turning
up in the conquest of consumption’s commercial spaces. However, here, too,
“scenography” does not just mean creating a visual background, a pretty décor or
striking set design for the presentation space and the staging of fashion and brands.
In the contemporary fashion context, scenography is much more of an aesthetic
activity that weaves together individual creative cross-media practices in a transdisciplinary
holistic work of art that speaks to the totality of audience senses and, via
the bodily sensations induced, conveys a certain type of knowledge. Simultaneously,
the scenographic practice in the design process induces a shift in the audience’s
focus to the overall atmospheric staging from the commercial promotion of the
individual designer collection. In an engaging manner, here the scenographer’s art
and story-telling generate for seasonal fashion an emotionalising spectacle that,
though transient and fast-paced, nevertheless through its unique imagery lays claim
to and promises a universal, enduring substance like the arts do. It furnishes a device
for generating significance by touching off sensory experiences and triggering
emotions. Thus, in today’s theatre of fashion, all are becoming equally entitled
actors and performing cast members: from the stylish product to the choice of the
model presenting it, to the choice of real location and participating audience that
instantly plays live via smartphone on the relevant social media platforms and in the
virtual Internet space.