Fashion is on the last legs of the marathon with much of Paris having shown their collections this week. Of course we have next week as well before everything draws to a close until the end of the year when the flurry of fashion starts over again. But the volume to date and the caliber of the ones who do show in Paris warrants attention. Although America is king of sportswear, Milan the leader of craftsmanship and creative epicenter that is London has attracted attention with some very serious participants joining the week, Paris is still the seat of fashion. Showing there is for the international stars and expectations are high here.

The excitement of fashion has multiplied as we have grown more technically connected. The accessibility of the collections through social media has exploded as designers recognize the power of connecting with a larger audience, something every business salivates over. With tenuous economics floating through and recoveries modest, money still matters in this game. Stakes are high yet the energy has shifted. Yes, there is still caution in the air for many. Practicality has been firmly established in many collections with the minimalism incorporated and streamlined concepts and separates in solids are a feature of nearly every collection. But just as before, we knew this couldn’t last. Fashion has to maintain interest and utilitarian fare doesn’t always excite. Fashion needs a jolt of creativity to keep it alive and its customer base engaged.

Fashion lives on injecting fantasy into a necessity. We feed off its potential to take us places, even vicariously. There are enough in the world who aspire to live the visions laid out by designers that keep the industry going by spending to own a piece of the lifestyle projected. And while it isn’t uniform, there are gains and thus a bump in confidence. Designers are only to happy to oblige.

The issue is where to look for inspiration. In less secure times we were wistful and so nostalgia was the go-to for design. It was familiar, it was safe, it already had established connotation in which to fall back on. The future just looked too bleak. But the slightest change of course and now we are more open to positivity.  We want the future. The gadgets and technology are amazing. The innovations are spilling forth, showing us a world we hardly knew was within our grasp. We’re actually incorporating these things into our daily lives. And technological innovation isn’t just about including tech into clothes but by using tech to create new materials to express a designers’ creative side.  

And so we read and hear about the materials that are being churned out. New materials with new properties and finishes, just as when we had innovation explosion in these areas in the 80s and in the latter half of the 90s, are increasingly being featured in collections of recent. Fashion became amazing and wondrous back then partially due to materials never before seen, including the initial appearance of microfibers. And with these materials designers felt more inspired to move forward in design, much as they do now.

Those same decades, of course, allowed for more interesting concepts to break from tradition. The Japanese in the 80s rocketed forth, defying their traditional cultural approach as they forged ahead into new fashion territory, allowing any new shape and silhouette to spill forth. And for those paying attention, the revolutionary approaches screamed a future we wanted to be part of. The fruit of all this creativity reverberated tremendous influence, constantly finding expression as we, over time, have grown accustomed to what we once deemed strange in the same way that techno in the 80s, once viewed as unusual and Avant Garde, is now hopelessly mainstream.

But there needs to be more than just materials for inspiration. Fashion needs visual cues to draw upon. And while technology was giving new materials and technological access to new ways to finish and assemble garments back then, it was also affording this to other areas, the most accessible being architecture.

Like fashion, architecture reflects the disposition of the public as visionaries translate the mood of the times with the newest materials and techniques to express those prevailing inspirations and visualizations. Architecture aims for merging the monolithic with the utilitarian, the statement of who we are on a powerful scale as it aims for permanence with an eye on connecting with not just where we are but where we’ll be. The inspiration and translation process that fuels creativity and, in turn the vision while balancing the need to serve utilitarian objectives is similar to higher aspirations of fashion.

So when we look to the future within a context of familiarity, architecture is a balanced reference point. And so fashion-forward design approaches take on a more architectural approach, especially when we’re looking towards the future. The visionary deigns from architects such as Frank Ghery and Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid or firms such as ARMArchitecture, Nikkei Sekkei, Studio MK27, 3XN, Leigh Orange, UNStudio, Studio Peh-Zhu, Coop Himmelblau, and Safdie Architects provide rich sources in which to anchor a progressive design view.

As such, we see this translated in sweeping structure, folds and cuts in various proportions within the collections from Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta , Calvin Klein Collection, Cedric Charlier, Chalayan, Christian Dior , Co, Costume National , Damir Donna, David Koma , Dion Lee , Felipe Oliveirs Baptista, Gareth Pugh, Guy Laroche , Helmut Lang, ICB, Issey Miyake , J.W. Anderson , Jay Ahr , Jean-Pierre Braganza , Jeremy Laing , Jill Sander , Kaufmanfranco, Louise Goldin, Maiyet , Manish Arora , Paco Rabanne , Rick Owens, Sally LaPointe,  Salvatore Ferragamo, Sharon Wauchob , Roland Mouret, Vera Wang , and Yohji Yamamoto.

These inspire being part of the landscape that becomes our view of the world of tomorrow, one that was once the domain of science fiction realized by the advancements that our technology brings forth. They shine with hope as aspirations with this level of technical awareness has before, such as in the 60s during the space age…and ironically what many of the hemlines are resembling for this season. But that is another conversation to take place in the future.