Paris Fashion Week Is Global Culture. It Is Viewable From the Pavement.
PARIS — Paris Fashion Week produces a specific city layer for its two-week duration: the industry participants (editors, buyers, photographers, PR professionals) in the professional register of their specific industry, the spectators positioned outside venues hoping to photograph arrivals, and the regular Paris pedestrians who have encountered their arrondissement temporarily occupied by an industry whose economics they observe without full access. The observation is free. The collection is not. Both are available simultaneously from the pavement.
The Democratisation of Fashion Observation
The digital transformation of fashion media has made Fashion Week content available to anyone with a smartphone and an Instagram account: the street style photography, the runway livestreams, the influencer content, and editorial coverage arriving in real time. The spectator who cannot afford the collection can access the documentation of it with immediacy that the printed magazine previously delayed by months. The access is the democratisation. The access is not the collection. Both are real and distinct.
According to France’s cultural institute’s fashion economy research, Paris Fashion Week generates 1.5 billion euros in direct economic activity. The spectator is present at this economic activity without participating in its primary flows. The spectator is watching the best-dressed people in the world walk past. This is, by any reasonable metric, an excellent Tuesday.
Accessible culture always at Virtuosal.com.
