The doomsayers got it wrong, as it turns out. Despite the gloomiest predictions about ghost towns and the end of fashion, the round of shows that ended last month (sort of; stragglers kept turning up after the train left the station) gave plenty of reason to be optimistic not only about the industry’s survival but of its reinvention.

Fashion is not dead, though tired ideas about the business — who owns it, what drives it, where it meets its consumers — are slumping toward the scrap heap, trailing a tight little cadre of panjandrums who controlled it for too long.

Signs of renewal were everywhere to be found over the last months, particularly when it came to men’s wear. You could see it in the innovative and hybridized hoodie-and-blazer uniform that Jerry Lorenzo, 43, devised for his seventh Fear of God collection, one that took him two years to produce. You could see it in the emergence of ornery independents like Evan Kinori, 33, a San Francisco talent whose blocky jackets and outsized trousers — think Yohji Yamamoto meets August Sander — released in unannounced Instagram drops, sell out in days.

You could spot it in the arrival on the scene of Tristan Detwiler, a 23-year-old surfer, whose first-ever Stan collection of blazers and chore coats made from recycled patchwork quilts looked as polished as the work of more seasoned designers, although created as a final project at art school.

Source: New York Times

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