During the pandemic, everything slowed down, and the fashion industry was no exception. There was a sense of change in the air: it seemed that, finally, everyone understood the unsustainability of overproduction and the frantic pace of fashion.
Major brands promised smaller collections, fewer shows, and a commitment to sustainability. Yet, those good intentions faded, and production resumed as if nothing had happened. Perhaps the euphoria following the end of the pandemic increased the desire to create, to meet, to celebrate. Or perhaps we were looking for hope in the wrong place. After all, is it really plausible that major brands would slow down their production at the expense of their expansion? Even though, in many cases, steps have been taken toward more sustainable production and commercial strategies, this is not enough and remains superficial. Sustainability and large-scale production are essentially at odds, since behind a major brand there is always the intention to generate and sell more than necessary. Sustainability does not simply mean using organic fabrics and avoiding plastic, but above all combating overproduction. For this reason, true sustainability and innovation, at least for now, are promoted only by smaller brands with lower production volumes: operating in more limited contexts makes it easier to control production and take responsible actions.
There is also another issue: innovation. Once again, emerging brands are leading the way. The large budgets of major players allow for spectacular runway shows, but the products that are actually sold in stores are not equally original. Emerging designers, on the other hand, tend to maintain a certain consistency between runway and product. In such a saturated market, uniqueness is the means of survival for a new brand, which would otherwise get lost among dozens of similar labels. For big fashion houses, however, given the uncertain times we are living in, resorting to basics or simplicity seems to be the strategy. From a profit perspective, a logo T-shirt is always a safe bet.
This does not mean that large brands should not move toward sustainability or that they cannot be innovative; it means they have a longer way to go to break out of the rigid system they are part of. As consumers, we must continue to demand responsible behavior at every stage of the production cycle. The urgency of the climate crisis does not allow time to wait for a change that could take decades. For this reason, it is essential that small brands are protected, as they are the ones driving change.
New brands and talents should always be supported, but even more so in the aftermath of the pandemic. While a major brand may consider the health and economic emergency largely over, the same cannot be said for smaller ones. As students, we deeply felt the lack of physical interaction during our education, which took place partly online. Fashion, however, is meant to be touched, tried on, and experienced, and technology is a tool we can use to our advantage (for example, the CLO3D software). But fashion cannot become entirely digital. As much as we might like to, we cannot forget the pandemic so easily. On the contrary, now is precisely the time to support emerging brands and talents even more than before. e-Satête was born as an “ideal project” to put forward a proposal for how a brand should operate in a context like Milan today. This means that our intention is not really to bring the e-Satête brand to life, but rather to take part in the conversation about the role of fashion today. For this reason, we created an Instagram page (@e.satete) for the project in order to share our message with a national and international audience.