Please refrain.
This is the instruction communicated by the brand The Row to the guests who aimed to immortalize its last fashion show.
The lucky few who had the opportunity to attend this one, presented on Wednesday in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, reported the clear instructions given to them: not to film or broadcast images of the show or the collection.
Drawing a cell phone being prohibited, the brand distributed a paper notebook to guests so that they could take notes during the parade, like in the days when cell phones and social networks did not exist.
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If platforms like Instagram are devices that allow us to share what we experience in real time, they sometimes sacrifice the real experience.
Without images in the photo library and without publications on the networks, no proof of presence.
Almost an obligation, which for some represents a pressure: today, going to a fashion show sometimes responds more to worldly than creative requirements.
In this vein, eyes, distracted, easily detach themselves from the podium to reach the screen of a smartphone.
Reason why The Row ordered its guests to fully experience the moment, and consider the collection as a whole.
Quiet luxury
Of course, beyond the good intentions of the approach, The Row benefits from it.
Luxury is nothing without exclusivity, and what could be more exclusive than a fashion show to which only one guest will be entitled to view it?
A prohibition which also allows The Row to control its image, to prevent users from seizing or misappropriating it.
As one of the emblematic brands of the “
quiet luxury
” trend, The Row sticks to being just
quiet
.
For several years now, she has proven that her popularity does not depend on the content of her social networks, or in any case, not on that posted on her own account, since the
hashtags
that concern her bring together nearly 200 million views on TikTok.
On social networks, the ban divides.
Accessibility and ownership
On the one hand, there are those who approve.
“If we banned phones in fashion shows, most of you would have nothing to say, no content and no platform because you're not in the room but using other people's mobile content to develop your own platforms,” says a user on X (formerly Twitter), for example.
On the other, there are those who invoke the right of access to art and culture, and who decry the “paternalism” of the approach.
Vanessa Friedmann, fashion critic at the
New York Times
, writes: “The method?
Frustration.
I don't feel like taking photos stops me from fully thinking about what I'm seeing.
And I think I’m adult enough to decide that for myself.”
A decision which will at least have the merit of getting people talking, of starting the debate on the spectacular turn that the world of Fashion Weeks is currently taking, where we sometimes talk more about the front row than the clothes, where digital takes precedence on reality.
However, there was no question of depriving the outside world of the collection; The Row published a preview of it on its networks at the end of its show.
And that's all Folks!