Welcome to life Through the Looking Glass, a world strangely familiar yet utterly peculiar. Endless video conferencing but with a dress code that’s gone out the window. An immediate threat to life yet the internet’s never been funnier. And who knew we’d miss boring old handshakes?

When our former daily routine feels like a treasured memory it seems irrational to expect anyone to cheerlead change. But as contrary as it sounds, and as uncomfortable it feels, this is exactly when we need to be bold. Welcoming new perspectives on what we considered unshakeable opens us to a future ripe with possibility.

Since we started The Fabricant we’ve been outliers committed to challenging the norms that the fashion ecosystem holds dear. This isn’t a desire to be unconventional, but a dedication to provoking the industry to question the behaviours that it clings to so tightly. It’s hundreds of years since many of its traditions were established - do they really continue to serve the industry and consumers well?

A question we’ve asked for a while is:

Can the fashion industry allow itself to reimagine seasonal runway shows as an entirely non-physical 3D experience?

video from our LEELA platform on digital.fashion

This was generally met with a torrent of ‘oh buts’. Oh but we need to be there in-person. Oh but nothing could match the drama of a fashion show. Oh but we must know how the fabric feels…and so on.

We empathise with some of the points - building tangible, sensorial and emotional 3D fashion narratives is what we strive for in all our work. But we also know that inspiring, sustainable, brand-elevating, visually premium runway shows are possible to spectacular effect in the 3D environment, and we’ve formulated solutions to make them happen.

Here are some of the questions that have informed our conceptual approach:

If flying to fashion weeks and attending catwalk shows en-masse is physically prohibitive, if not irresponsible, where can the industry go from here?
What kind of models walk a 3D catwalk? What do they look like? Are they even needed?
What can a fashion show look like in a 3D environment where there are no physical boundaries to creativity, not even gravity?
How can we exploit all of 3D’s capabilities to give a better than real life showcase to garments in a new collection?
Where can we go beyond physical limitations to give extraordinary insight into fabrics and garments?

What ideas can we explore to illuminate and strengthen a brand’s values?
How can we create emotional and beautiful 3D fashion moments that crystallise a designer’s vision?
In what ways can we bring added value to the entire 3D experience so it continues far beyond the duration of the show itself?

Video from our DEEP digital-only fashion collection

These peculiar times may have recalibrated the world towards our thinking, but there are still some holding on to the idea that post-pandemic we can return to ‘business as usual’.

The future is unwritten, but there should be no doubt that the status quo has changed. For all of fashion’s players, it is not a moment to debate ‘Will 3D live up to what we can create in real life?’ Now more than ever it’s a question of will our new daily reality match up to the extraordinary capacity of 3D?

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HERE COMES YOUR POST-PANDEMIC FUTURE

Can the fashion industry allow itself to reimagine seasonal runway shows as an entirely non-physical 3D experience?

The Fabricant