Tyla Stevenson is a PhD student studying fashion studies (fashion history and theory) at Massey University. Their PhD is focused on the materiality of digital fashion as well as critiquing common discourses perpetuated by certain brands and platforms.
At the end of August, Helsinki Fashion Week (HFW) was hosted on the online world-building platform, VLGE. Accessed via an Instagram Linktree, I explored up to 40 different digital fashion exhibitions, which you can still access and continue to access for years to come. It was also the same month that New Zealand Fashion Week had been set to be held, before being cancelled and transitioning to a biennial calendar. In response to losses in our retail sector and announcements of retiring heritage brands, it makes sense to consolidate resources and return in 2025.
As HFW exemplifies, digital technologies can enable users to build alternative and (somewhat) immersive fashion experiences. Is it time for New Zealand brands to explore alternatives for future fashion presentations and events? I was intrigued to see HFW’s approach and how that might work for others, so I logged in from my bed in Wellington.
When you enter into each brand presentation, you can personalise your avatar from the default – a man in a holographic puffer jacket – to a range of expressions, from wearing sensible separates to entire outfits or costumes. You could present as a high school cheerleader, a medical practitioner or even the metaverse resident furry.
Of course, there’s an abundance of holographic, high-gloss styles that seem to dominate these spaces but I was pleasantly surprised to find more sophisticated options as well. From Guccified vintage-styled outfits to sari, in which their colouring and folds of fabric were executed at a reasonably realistic calibre. However, a conversation should be had about whether we want any person to have access to garments that represent specific cultural identities, if it is not their own.
There are a variety of digital spaces that brands have built into. Some are gallery-like white cubes,or enclosed rooms made of metal, stone or wooden finishes. Others are open landscapes of rolling hills, with clouded or pink skies and bodies of water that you can awkwardly swim in. The seemingly expansive spaces do have limitations, with invisible barriers marking their territory, and rendering your avatar immobile. Some spaces were filled with EDM music reminiscent of a runway show, others with sounds of nature and birds chirping or poems recited on a loop.
One of the more successful and moving exhibitions was that of Off Grain. I entered their second exhibition space via a 3D-modelled spinning wheel portal, into a spacious room with a large window that looks out onto misted mountains. You can weave through their enlarged avatars wearing 3D modelled garments, seemingly knitted ponchos, oversized scarfs and voluminous separates; they are a colour palette of tans, browns, black and white.
A projected film plays on the back wall that is a dedication to the Kuruba people and their pasture and textile practices in Kandoli, a village in the southern state of Karnataka, India. The space, garments and exhibition media are devoted to their woollen textile practices and traditions being threatened by economic and environmental challenges – a story I would have no awareness of without my interaction with this range of media. It is the presentations that utilise a variety of interactive mediums, to express a coherent narrative, that are the most successful in creating immersive environments for the online viewer.
Other notable moments include a trash palace for Zero Waste Every Waist, a dystopian prediction into our future. Shiu_studio is an exhibition of silicone textured sculptural objects and clothing on uncanny valley avatars defying laws of gravity. ISADOSKA's collection, titled Tropisms, is inspired by the adaptability and transformation of mother nature.
Lastly, Hieronymus is a collaboration between Helena Steinmann of Weft Digital Aotearoa, which offers 3D services for product development and visual content based out of Tāmaki Makaurau, and the designer Anna Hieronymus. Their exhibition features bulbous lime green digital handbags, alongside other lump-urious jackets, dresses and bucket hats.
This isn’t the first attempt at a digital-only event held by HFW. Conveniently timed, HFW launched their first digital fashion week in 2020, a time when physical fashion shows were limited due to pandemic restrictions. A front-runner in this space, HFW aimed to host an event that was open for a greater number of people to attend and to do so without being detrimental to the environment.
They were successful in achieving this goal to a certain extent. Having teamed up with the carbon footprint accountant Normative, they indeed did reduce the 2020 version of the event’s carbon footprint. However it must be noted that this significant drop (from 137 kg to 0.66kg CO2e) was calculated per visitor and the overall carbon footprint of the event was estimated to be higher. Although there are no official reports available for HFW 2024, it is important not to assume that digital is more sustainable and to be aware of the very material outcomes of the information and communications technology sector.
Inclusion and sustainability continue to be a core value of the event, with the website claiming that “...Helsinki Fashion Week will also lead the way into a socially more sustainable fashion week culture by prioritising inclusion throughout the production and fashion shows, bringing more attention to mental health and representation”.
While inclusion can technically be ticked off via the idea that anyone with an internet connection, enough processing power and knowledge of the event can attend, in terms of inclusive representation of different kinds of bodies, the event was lacking.
The appeal of digital worlds is that you can theoretically produce anything that your imagination can come up with. The series of experiences that HFW represent are those that are indicative of either a lack of imagination or limitations of the technology itself – either way, there is no variety of avatar sizing or of diverse abilities. A few designers opted to not present their collections on avatars at all, disconnecting the relationship between the clothing as an expression of identity from the viewer.
I don’t think the lack of diverse identities is representative of the potential of these technologies, but perhaps of wider industry expectations. I am sympathetic to the idea that the event, organisers and designers are limited to what they can create using the VLGE platform, and this is a good reminder to us all that there are significant limitations to these online spaces. But it should not be lost on us that in a world where your creations are supposedly limitless, they choose to represent an industry in a way that it already exists.
This tension between using a digital platform that is lumped together with ideas of innovation and industry transformation, while also trying to create worlds that are still recognisable for fashion consumers, is an interesting challenge that these events will continue to grapple with. To pursue a digital-only fashion event is to weigh the lower cost of production and potential democratising power, against the environmental impact and effectiveness of the event and experience itself.
While I might have been underwhelmed by the overall experience of the values that were promoted in earnest, I cannot critique. And while I’m not convinced that an entirely digital fashion week is conducive to replacing physical events anytime soon, there is potential for digital spaces to complement physical experiences and elevate marginalised voices and project them further than what was possible of a local (mediated) runway event.
