In the last century, fashion and luxury have relied on creativity, image and craftsmanship to grow businesses, build brands and conquer markets.

The most prestigious brands developed iconic products, created warm and welcoming high-end boutiques and set up effective selling ceremonies to engage customers and create desire for their detail-obsessed objects.

They offered a sense of refined lifestyle and exclusivity. Collections were shown behind closed doors to press, buyers, retailers and very little was shared before the actual time the products hit the stores ready to be sold to the final customers who were taken by hand by smart sales assistants and shown the precious items with a top down attitude that demonstrated how the brands were knowledgeable and able to craft attractive objects for connoisseurs.

It was a conservative yet effective approach that didn’t need to be put under discussion because the revenue growth and the easy cash seemed to flow on forever, thanks to markets like China which appeared eager to open up to Western brands that represented success and a younger consumer tastes.

And so while, at the end of the ‘90s, the rest of the world explored and experimented strategies and activities related to the internet - fashion and luxury thought that it wasn’t necessary for the industry to sort of pollute their uncompromising values and impeccable DNA.

The first digital fashion show took place in 1998 in New York produced by Helmut Lang but it seemed more an eccentricity of a mad genius rather than a strong, long-lasting trend (and the collection presented is still so modern and wearable).

Very few believed in the synergy between innovation, technology and creativity and, as it is said, “one swallow doesn’t make summer” despite the advanced organisation of the Helmut Lang show that saw the collection book of the show sent to the press not in paper version but on a CD Rom.

Since then, and in the following 22 years, no brand has dared to present a collection online only. Luxury watchmaking brands produced CD, iPhone and iPad apps as tools to introduce new collections but no physical event was replaced by an online only until February 2020, when Giorgio Armani decided to show without guests in Milan during the fashion week when the coronavirus outbreak was already showing signs of dangerous spread in Northern Italy.

Even the greatest luxury groups didn’t give full credit - in the early 2000s - to the potential of e-commerce. LVMH, for example, shut down its own e-commerce multi-brand platform called eLuxury in 2009 (in the same period when fashion e-businesses like Yoox, Net-à-porter and Luisa Via Roma started booming) because it never really took off despite being based in digital tech epicentre San Francisco. And it replaced it with a harmless digital magazine called Nowness.

Richemont's jewellery and high-end watch brands stayed away from e-commerce for years before shyly taking the first steps on Net-a-porter following its acquisition while second hand, pre-owned sites thrived and created huge communities of loyal collectors such as the Paneristi.

Creativity versus innovation and technology has always been considered as a trade-off instead of an incredible opportunity for synergy.

The industry, completely self-focused, apparently didn’t take into serious consideration successful case histories like the one of Pixar, the first computer generated images company founded by Star Wars and Indiana Jones director George Lucas, acquired at the end of the ‘80s by Apple founder Steve Jobs who turned it into a dream making, cash flowing machine.

It’s a different industry someone may say, but on the other side what make brands evolve and grow is cross pollination, not isolation and self-referral. The Pixar case history is the clear example of how a company can successfully leverage digital technology and unleash creativity at the same time, creating a unique style and a powerful voice for a very passionate community of engaged customers.

“Creativity is not a well of ideas, it is an alchemy of people,” said George Lucas about Ed Catmull book “Creativity Inc.” on how he co-founded and managed Pixar in the different phases of its life, from niche dream to global corporation.

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Opinion: Will Fashion and Luxury Pass The Digital Stress Test?

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