The Ratio Club of Fashion
Paris Fashion Week 2025: The Feedback Loop of Exclusion
In September 2025, Paris Fashion Week opened with its familiar rhetoric of renewal. Saint Laurent began the week with a show in a garden of white hydrangeas arranged in the shape of the YSL logo, with Madonna and Jean Paul Gaultier in the front row—a spectacle of celebrities as substitute for content. Jonathan Anderson debuted at Dior, becoming the first designer since Christian Dior himself to oversee women’s, men’s, and haute couture simultaneously. Matthieu Blazy prepared his first collection for Chanel after Virginie Viard’s departure. Glenn Martens took over Maison Margiela following John Galliano’s exit while retaining his position at Diesel. Demna moved to Gucci after Sabato De Sarno’s abrupt departure, while Pierpaolo Piccioli replaced him at Balenciaga. Michael Rider returned to Celine after Hedi Slimane left. Louise Trotter stepped into Bottega Veneta as Blazy departed for Chanel. Sarah Burton showed at Givenchy, Haider Ackermann at Tom Ford. The merry-go-round of creative directors—each appointment a tactical maneuver masquerading as renewal, each departure a marker of the system’s inability to sustain vision beyond quarterly earnings. Nicolas Ghesquière marked his tenth anniversary at Louis Vuitton—a jubilee as marker of stagnation, the designer working for ten years while growth declines. Stella McCartney showed a collection «98% sustainable» with plant-based feathers. Courrèges presented protective veils as response to climate. H&M announced a collaboration with Glenn Martens.
Behind the narrative of transformation lies structural collapse: LVMH lost 9% of Fashion & Leather Goods sales in the first half of the year, Kering fell 16%, the industry lost 50 million customers. McKinsey projects luxury segment growth of 1-3% through 2027—the worst performance in a decade. The 2025 crisis is the result of a trajectory from the 2010s, when fast fashion (Zara, H&M), collaborations (H&M x Balmain 2015), and Instagram democratization created the illusion of infinite growth. Rana Plaza (2013)—the collapse of a factory in Bangladesh that killed over 1,130 people working for Western brands—exposed sweatshops, but the industry responded with sustainability rhetoric without structural changes. These contradictions reached critical mass a decade later.
The crisis is not only economic—it is reputational. Dior sweatshop scandal (2024): an Italian investigation discovered that the luxury brand produces under exploitative conditions through subcontracts. Louis Vuitton data breaches. Dior cultural appropriation controversies. Consumers leave not only because of prices—they leave because of brands’ loss of legitimacy.
Geopolitics intensifies pressure. China, which generated 70% of luxury market growth for a decade, reduced consumption. Europe suffers from wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Aggressive price increases (average growth of 54% since 2019, Chanel 2.55 +91%) collided with inflationary fatigue. Customers migrate: some to ultra-fast fashion (Shein, Temu), some to resale (The RealReal, Vestiaire Collective), some out of fashion entirely. Farfetch went bankrupt in 2023—the collapse of the aggregation model.
Social media transformed mechanisms of desire formation. BoF INSIGHTS PULSE showed: at PFW FW 2025, the highest engagement was generated by media spectacles from Schiaparelli and Coperni, not debut collections from creative directors. Saint Laurent with Madonna is the attention economy in pure form: celebrities convert cultural capital into brand visibility. Instagram and TikTok algorithms became new intermediaries, but control over the visible remains centralized. Research based on Reddit and Instagram: consumers are skeptical of sustainability claims (#fashiongreenwashing), but continue buying—cognitive dissonance.
The crisis makes visible mechanisms of power that reproduce themselves independent of technological updates. Three theoretical optics. First: fashion as biopolitical instrument that projects bodies rather than reflects them. Second: digital media create the illusion of democratization while preserving exclusivity through new forms of distinction. Third: designers remain intermediaries between street and masses. In 2025 there are more intermediaries (algorithms, AI), but power is more centralized. Research showed: luxury democratization is a negative network effect. When H&M collaborates with a designer, traditional luxury customers leave—the brand has devalued.
Stella McCartney positioned: 98% sustainable, 100% cruelty-free. FEVVERS (plant-based feathers), PURE.TECH (programmable fabric that absorbs pollutants). Material became the language of the brand’s political position. But FEVVERS and PURE.TECH represent different politics of nature. FEVVERS is imitation: plant becomes feather through bioengineering, nature copies animal, erasing the boundary between bio and tech. PURE.TECH is control: fabric is programmed to absorb pollutants, nature is managed by technology. Both strategies construct «natural» through technology, but the production footprint is not disclosed—opacity under the guise of transparency. A bag with FEVVERS costs €2,900. Sustainability becomes moral capital of the elite and a mechanism for converting symbolic value into premium price. The buyer acquires moral superiority, visible through material.
Fashion Week—thousands of flights, Centre Pompidou, post-show dinners. One show generates emissions equivalent to a small city’s annual consumption. Kenneth P. Pucker: the industry de-prioritizes sustainability despite rhetoric, the European Commission abandoned regulation of green claims. When Dior speaks of ethics while producing in sweatshops, when McCartney shows sustainability while flying to shows—this is capitalism’s structural contradiction. A system based on growth is incompatible with sustainability. LVMH demands sales growth from McCartney. Degrowth is death for capital.
Nicolas Di Felice for Courrèges showed «Blinded by the Sun»—a temperature narrative 22°C→30°C, protective veils, helmet-veils, dresses as automotive sunscreens. The Impression: «Courrèges is surveillance-age, not space-age. Women navigating constant observation receive tools to mediate visibility.» But the veils are a concrete response to control infrastructure. Facial recognition systems make faces data. The veil is an attempt to bypass recognition, but it makes the body suspicious, marks the desire for invisibility as deviance. A double bind: protect yourself from observation, but protection makes you an object of observation. Functionality becomes discipline. The system shifts responsibility: protect yourself from climate, from gazes, from cameras. Self-surveillance as management: you monitor your body, decide when to hide, internalizing the logic of control.
The veils will be photographed, posted on Instagram, the algorithm will decide—trend or not. H&M will make a version in three months. Origin is indeterminate—this was predicted in 2010: when everything becomes a trend instantly, the filter disappears, but power remains—it dematerializes into algorithms. Shein and Temu accelerated the cycle to weekly: algorithm scans TikTok, AI generates design, factory produces in 7 days. Pure algorithmic management.
The algorithm’s reach extends beyond production to the construction of bodies themselves. J.Crew scandal (August 2025): the brand used AI-generated images. BoF poll: 74% against AI models. The industry continues—reduces costs. AI trains on datasets where most models are white, thin, cisgender women aged 16-25. The algorithm reinforces the norm, making it invisible. This is automation of old biopolitics, more efficient and less noticeable. Forrester: 7.5% of advertising jobs will be automated by 2030. Photographers, stylists, models disappear.
But AI is ambivalent. Studio Qiling (Singapore) uses Midjourney for campaigns, reducing costs, competing visually with major players. The Fabricant and DressX provide 3D/AI tools for digital fashion, allowing independent designers to monetize without physical production. Technologies expand access for some while concentrating power for others. AI lowers barriers to entry, but visibility algorithms reinforce winner-takes-most.
Phygital technologies at PFW create new biopolitics of reactivity. FabriX AR Try-on Kiosks: «See Now — Try Now — Buy Now»—algorithm shows how clothing «fits» through AR. The algorithm decides what «suits,» based on norms encoded in software. Illusion of access, control with the brand. Anrealage showed thermochromic fabrics: material changes color from body heat. Clothing doesn’t just project the body—it reacts to it, creating feedback loop. New biopolitics: body and clothing as unified system, material constantly reading physiology.
The crisis generates fissures—spaces of alternative practices. The Row refuses seasonality, produces limitedly, but prices from $1,000—new exclusivity through durability. SukkhaCitta (Indonesia): farm-to-closet, seasonality subordinated to natural cycles, hundreds of pieces per year. Gabriela Hearst discloses carbon footprint of collections, works with Uruguayan cooperatives, but dresses from $2,000, shows at PFW—integration of sustainability into the system, not exit from it.
Manos del Uruguay—network of 12 women’s cooperatives since 1968. Members own means of production, decisions are democratic, profit is reinvested. Veja works with Brazilian rubber-tapper cooperatives: cooperative production + capitalist distribution, prices €100-150.
Upcycling is heterogeneous. Bethany Williams (UK): upcycling + social manufacturing, production as rehabilitation for vulnerable groups. Duran Lantink (NL): upcycling collages from deadstock, sales through Dover Street Market—premium. Conversion mechanism: deadstock (zero cost) → artistic intervention → uniqueness → premium price. Upcycling doesn’t make clothing more accessible—it makes it more expensive through symbolic value.
Early Majority: degrowth model, limited collection, membership instead of sales. Fashion Revolution: produce less, wear longer. Remake: struggle for rights and climate justice. Radical challenge to growth logic.
Why are alternatives marginal? Four structural barriers. Capital: cooperatives require patient capital without exponential growth. Venture capital is incompatible. Visibility: algorithms reward engagement. Media spectacles receive millions of views, social practice is known narrowly. Infrastructure: distribution system is built for scale and speed. SukkhaCitta produces according to natural cycles—irregular deliveries, impossibility of working with major retailers. Labor: who produces fashion? Predominantly women of the global South under conditions hidden from consumers. Even luxury brands exploit labor through opaque subcontracting chains. The industry’s response to factory disasters has always prioritized rhetoric over structural change. AI automates creative labor while leaving physical production under the same conditions.
Race and gender are structurally woven in. AI datasets reproduce bias built into training images. J.Crew’s AI-generated images cloned existing standards. Cooperatives like Manos del Uruguay (women’s, Latin American) show: alternative economy is inseparable from questions of identity. But marginal not by accident—the system is built for white, cisgender, heteronormative elite.
Paris Fashion Week 2025 exposes contradictions that can no longer be managed through rhetoric alone. Three mechanisms dominate: sustainability becomes moral capital divorced from material practice; surveillance is reframed as protection, shifting responsibility to individuals; AI automates bias while claiming neutrality. Technologies change, power structures remain. When Dior produces in sweatshops while speaking of ethics—hypocrisy is exposed. When McCartney shows sustainability while flying to shows—moral capital becomes visible. When J.Crew uses AI-generated images, receiving 74% backlash—automation meets resistance. The structural contradictions become undeniable.
The 2025 crisis will not automatically create transformation. Collapse has already begun: Farfetch bankruptcy, 50 million departed customers migrating to resale, fast fashion, or exiting consumption entirely, growth decline to 1-3%. But collapse doesn’t guarantee emancipation. It can lead to concentration (LVMH buys competitors) or to fragmentation without alternative coordination.
The space between the agony of the old system and the birth of new practices is tense, unstable, without guarantees. In it exists practice of the present: cooperatives functioning since 1968, degrowth brands refusing growth, social production as rehabilitation, technologies in independent hands, materials as political language, phygital biopolitics. These practices prove other fashion is possible. They show the system’s boundaries—points where power reproduces itself through exclusion of alternatives.
Scaling alternatives requires dismantling barriers. Venture capital must be replaced with patient capital. Visibility algorithms must be reconfigured or cooperativized as public infrastructure. Industrial logistics must adapt to local cycles. Culture of growth must be replaced with culture of sufficiency. Labor must be recognized as value, not cost. AI datasets must be decolonized. Without this dismantling, alternatives will remain marginal not due to weakness of practices but due to strength of structures.
The question is not whether transformation is possible. Alternatives already transform practices—but locally, marginally, under pressure. The question is whether transformation can scale without being absorbed by the system. Alternatives scale only if capital, algorithms, infrastructure are forcibly reconfigured—through regulation, cooperativization of platforms, or system collapse. Dismantling requires organized action: regulation to limit growth, cooperativization of platforms to democratize visibility, public infrastructure for local cycles, decolonization of AI datasets, recognition of labor as value. Without this, crisis will produce not transformation but intensification—concentration, exploitation, exclusion.
Alternatives exist. The question is political: who has the power to scale them, and on whose terms.
Liza Kin
Berlin, October 2, 2025