Space, Time and Catwalks: Fashion Shows as a Multilayered Communication Channel

Fashion shows — the key moment in the fashion communication system — have become a privileged setting for experimenting with new communication languages that implement multifaceted and multi-channel strategies, poised between innovation and tradition. Fashion shows always could read and interpret the spirit of the times in different eras, transforming and shaping themselves into different formats each time while always remaining true to themselves. The article investigates the different contemporary forms of the catwalks, whether real or virtual, implemented due to the digital acceleration witnessed during the Covid-19 social distancing period. In this context, the fashion shows define new communication forms and strategies that are no longer limited to the “here and now” but expand space, thanks to the possibility of remote participation and time, by amplifying the whole concept: the catwalk-event become amplified with the inclusion of a pre, a during and a post. The time expands thanks to communication strategies that increasingly stage the phases that precede the fashion show (the creative process, the backstage, the work in progress), but also the subsequent phases, those of storytelling and narration, formerly the prerogative of a few privileged journalists, now shared storytelling, in which designers directly tell and explain their point of view, both through traditional narrative forms (such as interviews) and through forms of interaction typical of digital (such as gaming, sharing and Instagram live).