Okay, can we just take a second to look back at how much high fashion has experimented with tech over the last few years? As someone who obviously lives and breathes runway collections, I feel like traditional front-row seating isn’t cutting it for me anymore. Instead of watching models glide down the runway, we’ve seen brands drop us into wild, immersive digital worlds.
Honestly, one of the most ambitious, and slightly chaotic experiments in this whole virtual space was Balenciaga’s Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, an interactive video game inspired runway presentation that debuted way back in late 2020 for their Fall 2021 collection. For anyone who spends way too much time analyzing how avant-garde styling translates outside of the physical runway, looking back at this game is the ultimate fashion rabbit hole.
Instead of a standard livestream, Afterworld literally forced the viewer to take the wheel. You picked an avatar and wandered through a dystopian world featuring crumbling brick buildings, raves, and forests. Shifting the control from the spectator to the actual user completely changed the vibe of a runway show.
Image By: https://dimensionstudio.co/work/balenciaga-afterworld-age-tomorrow-volumetric/
That said, lets be real. While it felt super cool when it first dropped, the camera angles and everything else going on could actually distract you from the clothes. When I first tried, I found myself fighting just to get my character to walk straight, which took me away from appreciating the pieces featured throughout the collection.
Visually though, the idea is so fascinating. Seeing ultra realistic fabric textures set up against a video game backdrop creates this bizarre tension, which is really on brand for Balenciaga’s image. It makes you think so hard about how clothes behave in a simulated space versus real life. As noted in a deep dive by Unreal Engine, pushing those graphics limitations changed how designers thought about visual presentation. But at the same time, the game engine definitely flattened some of the subtle textures, making it kind of tough to really critique the garments.
Image By: https://www.dezeen.com/2020/12/09/balenciaga-afterworld-the-age-of-tomorrow-video-game/
For our fashion community and everyone obsessed with runway and making high fashion wearable in real life, these digital showcases are such a mixed bag. On one hand, they totally change fashion by breaking down exclusivity of physical shows (even though the Balenciaga one was originally sent out to a guest list to preview). On the other hand, they risk reducing the incredible pieces of clothing into digital skins. At the end of the day, true runway fashion relies on the energy of a live model, the way the fabric actually moves on a real body, and that electric atmosphere ofc countless hours of hard work finally being revealed. Even the best game engines just can’t replicate that magic.
Image By: https://www.wallpaper.com/fashion-beauty/pierpaolo-piccioli-balenciaga-debut-paris-fashion-week
Looking back years later, Afterworld remains a massive milestone in digital fashion, even if it sometimes felt more like a quirky tech demo than a smooth collection reveal, also keep in mind this was during peak COVID, so moving a gathering typically held in person to virtual during that time was probably a safety thing. It’s a great reminder that while technology can take runway shows literally anywhere, the soul of fashion will always be rooted in real craftsmanship and human expression.
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