O editor chefe da Style.com, Dirk Stande, está fazendo uma série de entrevista com grandes nomes da moda a respeito do futuro da indústria. Ele já conversou com Robert Duffy, o presidente da Marc Jacobs; a crítica de moda do NY Times Cathy Horyn (runaway blog) e designer/fotógrafo Hedi Slimane ( hedislimane.com). Muitas questões importantes foram levantadas sobre avanços tecnológicos, o futuro (ou não) da mídia impressa, a onda “fastfashion”,  o número cada vez mais absurdo de coleções ao ano, a avalanche de desfiles de moda e sua relevância, etc.

Achei particularmente curioso Cathy Horyn falando sobre a manufatura das roupas como um processo poluente e insustentável (e como isto ainda é pouco discutido):

Fashion is a huge polluter. All the treatment of stuff, all these fabrics with different [materials] to make them stretch, smell good, to make them warm—all of that pressure is very hard on the environment and potentially hard on your body. We’re talking about plastic bottles and being concerned about that, but what about all these fabrics with chemicals in them to make you feel cooler or warmer? Your body is absorbing those chemicals. I don’t think we’ve read about that yet. I think you have to weigh the availability of fashion, so you can participate in it at all levels, against the horrible consumption aspects of it.

Em resposta à importância dos desfiles de moda, Cathy Horyn citou um belo exemplo de como fugir do óbvio e fazer algo exclusivo para a web feito por McQueen na coleção Primavera-Verão 2010:

Do what McQueen did [at his Spring 2010 ready-to-wear show], which is create something truly special for the Internet. So you can have this really incredible thing, something that feels that it’s just for people on the Web, and it kind of bypasses the professionals.

A melhor entrevista, na minha opinião, ainda é a de Hedi Slimane. Com perguntas mais focadas no futuro e respostas menos óbvias, ele tira os panos quentes de questões como, por exemplo, o fim da revista impressa:

• Can you envision a day when digital media will replace magazines?
- I totally do, and I don’t see it as a bad thing. You don’t fight but embrace a natural evolution, really, and try to figure out how it would reveal new creative fields within global access, and multimedia features. That said, fashion magazines, glossy magazines still use their Web sites for daily news and information only. I trust it might be interesting to invest strongly in art direction, besides hiring top editors, top photographers, and top models, which is hardly enough for Internet pages. I hear one of the reasons for the lack of investment is advertising, although I trust advertising would follow immediately, if provided a reassuring image template for their costly ads. I finally believe the printed magazine will then become a collector’s item, and hopefully a reference to be kept preciously.

Leia todas as entrevistas no style.com. Vale a pena!