Fashion critics urged to wake up to capsule collections and sportswear collaborations

Aldo Premoli, a veteran fashion journalist and former director of L'Uomo Vogue, issues a polemical call to his peers to pay attention to the massive phenomenon of capsule collections and collaborations between luxury designers and sportswear or fast-fashion brands. He argues that the fashion show season has lost its rhythm, with Pre-fall, Fall, Spring, Couture, Resort, and Capsule Collections creating a continuous procession. Premoli notes that the most powerful fashion brands today come from sport and fast fashion: Nike, H&M, Zara, and Adidas. He points out that Italian media ignore this, while luxury designers like Tomas Maier (Bottega Veneta), JW Anderson, Karl Lagerfeld (Chanel), Stella McCartney, Versace, Matthew Williamson, and Olivier Rousteing (Balmain) have designed for Uniqlo or H&M. More subtly, athleisure leaders Nike and Adidas have collaborated with top designers: Virgil Abloh (Louis Vuitton) and Kim Jones (Christian Dior) for Nike, and Alexander Wang for Adidas. For the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, Abloh created 'Football mon amour' and Jones 'Football Revisited'—soccer shoes, sneakers, and tech-sport-glamour apparel sold by Nike. Premoli criticizes older critics and new influencers for ignoring these mini-collections that generate enormous sales. He urges his colleagues to wake up and recognize this shift.