On the CATWALK, Yeah!

The SECRET behind a good RUNWAY STRUT? The MOVEMENT DIRECTOR, an increasingly ESSENTIAL component to CREATING a viral FASHION SHOW.

- ALISON S.COHN

“WORK IT, GIRL (Give a twirl!)/ Do your thing on the runway,” RuPaul famously exhorted in “Supermodel (You Better Work),” his hit 1992 ode to the coltish catwalk strides of Linda, Naomi, Christy, Cindy, and the rest of the mononymous wonder women of the ’90s. But by the early aughts, much of that singularity and originality had disappeared. It was supplanted by the militaristic stomp of processions of stern-looking young models who didn’t pose as much as pause (quickly) at the end of the runway so the camera pit could snap the kind of flat, standardized slideshow imagery that the dawn of digital media demanded.

Now, though, the pendulum appears to have swung back. Personality, performance, and theatricality are once again being celebrated at fashion shows—and “working it” is experiencing a renaissance too. TikTok has something to do with that: The social-media platform du jour has built an entire memetic universe around movement— in particular, dance—and fashion shows have the potential to reach a much wider audience if they go viral there. Plus, those ’90s runway walks have been rediscovered by Gen Z stans who memorialise them in carefully curated montages. And even runway photographers are mixing it up, supplementing traditional straight-on shots by capturing the way clothes move from a variety of angles and perspectives.