Fashion designer musical chairs is a well known occurrence. Brand sales slump, "oh, there must be something wrong with the designs," the designer is fired, another is poached from somewhere else and the vacancies and hiring that follow them trickle down. That's pretty much how it goes, just like the coaching carousel in the NCAA and NFL. But as Sherman writes for Style Dot Com, aside from John Galliano taking the helm at Margiela, shit has not been very lit as of late. It used to be that young, surprising and interesting designers got their chance to make moves with the big fashion houses, but so far it's been a whole lot of blah and Sherman doesn't expect things to change anytime soon.
Sure, a lot of designers still float their own labels and collections based off their 9 to 5 work for the big brands, that hasn't changed. But now, there is no craziness. All the recent shifts and changes make too much sense. It's like fashion is becoming predictable or something. Raf to Dior? Sure. Wang to Balenciaga? Duh. Sherman posits that much of this is a direct result of the business side of fashion. I mean, that makes sense. Brands still need to make money at the end of the day and the execs at the top now know what the right creative director looks like and what traits they possess. Granted, what or who would shock you these days? I mean, it would have to be way out of left field, like Helmut Lang coming out of retirement (too late for that, it seems) or something along those lines, according to Sherman.
By the time Fashion Month winds down, everything will be even more stable and predictable and straight up fucking boring as designers will firmly have their seat warmers on a comfortable setting. I think we can all agree this is a trend we'd like to see less of.
