Meanwhile, Dries Van Noten emailed guests ahead of its show Thursday at 7.30pm: “Please note that, due to the heatwave, we plan to start the show on time. Please allow extra time to avoid traffic delays.”
“Everybody is going to have to adjust to the changes in the schedule, which probably the smaller brands could be the ones most impacted,” says fashion consultant Julie Gilhart. For Gilhart, it’s about safety but also practicality. “If you are buying the collection or reviewing it, it’s distracting to do so in the blazing heat,” she says. At a time when the risks associated with climate change are growing ever greater, brands will have to put more emphasis on making people comfortable, on both ends — in the audience and backstage, according to Gilhart.
In an Instagram post, Eugene Rabkin, founder of StyleZeitgeist magazine, urged brands to provide an Uber code or a taxi voucher alongside presentation invites: “I speak for many independent editors here who don’t get a car from Paris Fashion Week organizers or expense accounts, and I say this respectfully, but, climate change is real… Sometimes when you hear a polite “no”, that is because your showroom is too far and we are prioritizing our well-being over looking at clothes, as we make the best of the frantic schedules that send us across town like a ping-pong ball multiple times a day in debilitating weather…I know that budgets are tight, but help us help you.”
The heatwave has been a challenge for all at Pitti and MFW. Summarizing this Milan Fashion Week, Simon Longland, director of buying at Harrods, said: “Hot — quite literally. The exceptional temperatures became an unavoidable part of the week and reinforced many of the themes we saw on the runway: lightness, ease, and relaxed sophistication.”
“What a scorcher,” wrote Luke Leitch in his review of Thom Browne, the first-ever Thom Browne show in Milan. “Edward Buchanan’s iPhone stopped working, Garth Spencer’s arms went several shades darker on the tanning Pantone, and I’ve almost never seen Alex Fury fanning so feverishly: nobody seated in Block C of this Thom Browne show will forget it in a hurry. That’s because it was held al fresco in the long courtyard of Palazzo Serbelloni, where Block C ran down the western, sunny side. My own phone said 38 degrees, and that was from the shady idyll of Block A.”
How will Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI) adapt if the MFW Men’s season keeps getting hotter? “Climate change is becoming increasingly evident, and this is precisely why environmental sustainability has long been one of the core pillars of CNMI’s work,” says Carlo Capasa, president of CNMI. “As for the impact of increasingly high temperatures during Milan Fashion Week Men’s, we fully understand the challenges they can create for guests, professionals, and everyone involved. We hope that, going forward, the industry will continue to identify solutions that make the experience more comfortable for everyone attending, while preserving the quality of the Milan Fashion Week experience for all.”
It’s not just fashion week. The Cannes Lions festival is also in full swing, amidst record-breaking temperatures in the French Riviera. Blazing sun and high temperatures can turn swigging rosé and pounding the pavement at the Croisette into a dangerous activity. Sponsored beach cabanas invested in more overhead tenting than in years past to create shade, while misting fans, water stations, and free SPF were found in abundance to make sure guests can do Cannes carefully.
