WAKE UP! It’s Fashion Week. And if you happen to be a fashion geek like me, you will also want to drop everything you have planned and start looking at the new collections.Â
Twice a year, the whole fashion world moves through four cities over four weeks: New York, London, Milan and Paris, sometimes also referred to as “The Big 4”. And while fashion week happens every year, it never looks or feels the same. This year’s spring/summer 2027 collection was no exception. Michael Kors and Coach in New York, Burberry in London, Giorgio Armani in Milan, and Dior and Saint Laurent in Paris. Every city brings its own flavour to the runway every year.Â
So yes, Fashion Week happens every year. But one might ask, “What’s new?”
Let’s talk fashion.
More than just an Outfit
Fashion is the most powerful art there is. Its movement, design, and architecture, all in one -Blair Waldorf. (Gossip Girl).
Blair really had a point, didn’t she? Fashion has always been expressive, dramatic, confusing, and strange. It means someone out there styled a piece of clothing that became the next big thing. But that’s what makes it interesting. The designs were never meant to look the same. And the designs change with every collection, and we change too, maybe more than we realise.Â
Think about it. I’m not the same person I was last year and my perception of things in life was also very different. Today, I can’t imagine myself going back to that mindset. When I apply this logic to fashion, the way I looked at a design last year is completely different from the way I look at it this year. And I’m also sure it will be different when I look at it again next year.Â
Dressed to Express
More than the clothes, my perception of things changed. And fashion week plays a significant part in the change. One of them is the different styles that are associated with different cities in the Big Four. New York with its effortlessly cool vibe, London with its own dose of eccentricity, Milan with its tailored craft, and Paris with its custom couture. But even this association is not fixed. Fashion houses keep changing with time, like our perception. Sometimes, the clothes haven’t changed as much as we think they have; we’re just looking at them differently.Â
Let me give you a personal example. I have been following fashion week collections for two years. Two years ago, I used to love tailored suits and thought it would be my personal style when I work someday. Last year, I was obsessed with streetwear, and I made that my fashion personality, thinking my wardrobe would be filled with them for the rest of my life. This year, I started with a neutral idea that different days have different moods and every mood was to be answered with different styles. Especially as a university student, I have gone to class dressed in formals, in ethnic, in the baggiest cargos I own, and also in pajamas.Â
The Power of Perception
The Big Four changed my perception, and I understood that fashion was never meant to stay constant. As fashion week took me through all different styles with different cities, I started personalising that. The way I dressed every day made me feel like I was in a new place each time, and I still felt like myself.Â
I think it’s better to say that fashion week changed my perception of fashion, but more than that, it changed my entire approach to fashion. I stopped seeing style as something I had to own, and started seeing it like something I could discover.
And I think this is what fashion does best. It makes us realize that sometimes, all it takes is seeing something differently to make us realise that our perspective was never as fixed as we thought it was.