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The Aristocrat

I can empathise with my boyfriend now. He would get so worked up ranting about some footballer getting transferred from his beloved home team to a hated rival, while I’d roll my eyes and dismiss him with my signature ‘I don’t give a damn’ look.
But now, I find some of my society BFFs shooting me this same blank face when I wax lyrical on a favourite designer leaving a label or quitting a brand.
I thought my boyfriend was an obsessive sports geek when he went on his football screeds. These days, my friends think I am the same way. In their eyes, I’m la nerd de couture.
Clearly, they don’t follow fashion with the same passion and interest. They’ll pay attention to what walks down the runway, not who’s behind the curtain.
They’re a bit shallow this way. They don’t actually care who made it as long as they can buy it. Similarly, they’ll go see a film with Channing Tatum and couldn’t care less it’s directed by the Coen brothers.
In a way, I don’t blame them. Lately, it’s quite difficult keeping track of moving creative directors.
More than ever, the chairs at fashion houses seem to be musical. It was a shock last year when Alexander Wang bid farewell to Balenciaga and Alber Elbaz waved adios to Lanvin. By the time Raf Simons left Dior and Stefano Pilati split from Ermenegildo Zegna, it seemed labels were changing designers by the day.
At a glance: fashion designer musical chairs
Incidentally, Simons is now in charge at Calvin Klein which will be interesting but it’s also too bad because I liked Francisco Costa and Italo Zucchelli. And isn’t it crazy Justin O’Shea quit Brioni after only seven months after they decided not to renew Brendan Mullane’s contract … oh sorry. Went all geek girl again.
It’s understandable that all this designer talk becomes a blur of names. Like sports, it’s tough to keep up with the players without a programme. Brands are gradually becoming interchangeable as designers come and go and the idea of a singular consistent vision gets lost in fashion free agency. I bet you can’t even name who heads Louis Vuitton and Gucci now?
Believe it or not, many in the society crowd don’t stay abreast of fashion industry news neither.
They like the idea of being fashionistas and snapping up whatever the fash hags say is the newest look. But I am also quite sure they’d never heard of Demna Gvasalia before he became Balenciaga’s new guy in charge.
Far more likely I’ll end up in a fashion chit chat with some monogram-drenched tai-tai who thinks Gigi Hadid is the new designer at Tommy Hilfiger. Why else would her face and name be on all the billboards?
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It’s a game of musical chairs in the high-end fashion world and it’s kind off hard to keep up with whose going where


Transfer spree: leading designers are switching labels like it’s going out of fashion

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}It’s a game of musical chairs in the high-end fashion world and it’s kind off hard to keep up with whose going where

It’s a game of musical chairs in the high-end fashion world and it’s kind off hard to keep up with whose going where