THE LOST SEASON

Fashion’s leading designers spent the past half-year reconsidering everything from the relentless pace of consumerism to their own relationships with creativity. What do they have to show for it?

- CATHY HORYN

Marc Jacobs’s fall show at Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory in February. IN THE DECADES I’VE BEEN WRITING ABOUT FASHION, I’ve always loved the contrast between certainty and surprise. Shows happen with an inevitable rhythm. I might travel to the same city to sit in the same seat, in the same building, for the same brand, year after year. Routine but rarely boring—in a good season, I am rejuvenated by the ideas behind a show or the smart use of double-faced wool. I find there’s always something to enjoy and hopefully that eureka of recognition for a truly modern garment.

Of course, never has there been a year like this: completely adrift, everything canceled, factories shuttered, no customers. For what few shows will go on this season, I will not be traveling. That doesn’t mean nothing has been happening. The people I most respect in the industry did not waste this spring and summer, even if their workflow was wildly disrupted. I wanted to survey them about the future of fashion but also its recent past—what works and what doesn’t.

Turns out they wanted to talk too. For a tight-lipped bunch of creative people, I found them uncharacteristically open to speaking freely. The first interview took place in mid-May and the last in mid-August. I checked back in with most of them multiple times.