Rise Against The Machine

Fashion may always have its sight set on the future, but the stark return of homespun traditions this Spring/Summer ’19 underline a harrowing truth to the industry’s obsession with technology.

- Amy Yasmine

Fashion is always on the edge of the “next big thing”, be it biotech fibers crafted from organic DNA or 3-D-printed dresses that float effervescently down a runway. To some, this might seem like a gimmick straight out of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi Blade Runner, but for others, it’s indicative of fashion’s continuous pursuit of innovation, spanning across the industry’s retail—artificial intelligence, anyone?—and design landscapes. It’s what keeps editors and fashion loyalists at the edge of their seats, like Hussein Chalayan’s transformative dress from his Autumn/Winter ’00 collection, which shapeshifted into a table in the blink of an eye, or in more recent times, Iris van Herpen’s NASA-engineered plissé pieces from her Spring/ Summer ’19 Couture collection.