Slow Fashion

Dries van Noten's awesome Spring 2013 show

I have just watched another season of Project Runway. It's become a bit of an obsession lately - I have now watched seasons 1, 8, 9 and 10. After doing a "where are they now" sort of google search for the past winners, what strikes me most is that barely any of them have used their winnings to start producing clothing collections to be shown at New York Fashion Week. Quite a few winners and contestants, however, have done other shows on the reality circuit (read all about them HERE). Surprising, because all the finalists whose shows I watched, cried and prayed and promised that showing a collection of clothes at NYFW is all they ever wanted to do. So how come so few if any have gone that route?

Observations like this inevitably lead to comparisons with designers who have clawed their path to the top the slow conventional way. From Parsons (if they were lucky) or other fashions schools they would move on to internships, to lowly jobs as cutters, pattern makers, assistants, junior designers in big teams of many designers, and years after graduation possibly they become creative directors at a Seventh Avenue clothing company. Being discovered and funded and becoming a brand like the Marc Jacobses and Michael Korses of this world is of course extremely rare. Working in fashion is really like spending a long time in a slow pressure cooker. If you have just won $125,000 and achieved some moderate fame you may not want to go back to a dingy cutting room somewhere entirely devoid of glamour, and you may decide to ride the 15-minute money and endorsement train a bit longer before you go back to work.

And then of course, you spent the money you need to buy fabric and suddenly making a collection for NYFW is impossible and you are back to square one. Reality television is such an intriguing sign of our times. Our children think that this is how you become a fashion designer or a singer. The answer to my question above - how come so few of the winners have made twice yearly collections to be shown to buyers and editors - is simple enough of course. Reality shows are entertainment television, not a true search for talent or stamina or determination. All majorly successful fashion designers have a tremendous amount of personal style and charisma, from people as different as Dries van Noten to Valentino Garavani. So in that sense Project Runway separates the chaff from the wheat: the contestants who can't talk competently about their vision or their designs never even make it onto the show. But in order to make it to the very top in fashion, and I suppose showing collections at NYFW is pretty damn close, then you need to love clothing design so single-mindedly and intensely that nothing could possibly keep you away from your drawing pad, dress form or cutting table.

How do I convince my eight and ten-year olds that this is unfortunately how the real world works??? Or will it be different by the time they have grown up???