Versace joins fashion brands boycotting live shows

By

Dominique Muret

Translated by
Roberta HERRERA

Published
Feb 2, 2022

The last few Men's Fashion Weeks proved fashion brands' ongoing difficulties of getting back on track to pre-pandemic days. Physical runway shows have partially returned but fashion brands continue to rely heavily on digital presentations. Several brands, such as Giorgio Armani, that had planned to return to the physical catwalk have abstained due to the resurgence of Covid cases. This uncertainty has led some fashion houses to change their plans altogether this season, as was the case with Versace.

While the onslaught of women's fashion shows is scheduled to start soon, the Italian house, owned by the American Capri Holdings group, has just announced at the last minute that it will unveil its men's collection digitally this Wednesday, February 2 at 2 pm (CET) in the form of a video and not as an in-person runway show. The brand has chosen to stay in the sidelines for this season’s menswear weeks, which ended in Paris on January 23. Versace has also decided to forego a co-ed fashion show this year, an abrupt change to its strategy since as of February 2020, the brand’s menswear and womenswear collections were being presented together on the runway.    

The fashion house’s objective is to give greater visibility to its menswear collection, which have taken a back seat in recent years. Canadian born designers Dean and Dan Caten, owners of Dsquared2, have followed this same strategy as they have also given up mixed gender shows this year and have instead presented their menswear collection on the Milanese catwalks in January while its women's collection will be shown in February, as will Versace’s. 

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Just a few weeks before the start of the Women’s Fashion Weeks, Tom Ford, who was supposed to close New York Fashion Week on February 16, had to cancel his show due to multiple cases of Covid in the brand’s studio and factories. The collection will not be ready for the scheduled date and will instead be presented digitally at a later date.
 
Other brands have preferred to postpone their show to another date outside the traditional fashion calendar in the hopes of finding a more serene health situation. Thom Browne, for instance, decided to abandon the February New York Fashion Week schedule and will instead hold a grand Fall/Winter 2022-23 co-ed runway show in the Big Apple on April 29, a few days before the Met Gala.
 
This coming spring will be especially busy, as many fashion houses felt inclined to schedule runway shows during this time period. On April 29, Emilio Pucci will unveil the first capsule collection of its new creative director, Camille Miceli, in Capri.
 
Gucci, which will showcase its men's and women's collection in Milan in February as per usual, has just announced that it will hold another co-ed fashion show in a yet unknown European destination on May 16, while Max Mara has scheduled its Cruise show for June 28 in Lisbon, Portugal.