Logos For Millennials, Fashion For The Chronically Online

THE FASHION INDUSTRY IS HEADING IN A DIRECTION THAT MIGHT NOT NECESSARILY BE A GOOD LONG-TERM STRATEGY.

- BRYAN GOH

BACK WHEN I WAS an editorial stylist, we'd do quarterly meetings to gauge the temperature of a season.

We'd lug in towering stacks of boards—key looks, moodboards, shopping stories—and the meeting would unfold with military precision: present, explain, log, file. Most of my boards were built around Phoebe Philo’s Céline. Comfort framed as the ultimate luxury. A quiet normality that felt spontaneous. And the occasional gender-fluid flourish that never seemed forced. I remember thinking she'd cracked it for us who believed getting dressed could transform us into someone more interesting.

She had an uncanny ability to reconcile how women, and plenty of men, wanted to look like how they lived. That clarity extended to me, my Gen Y colleagues, and my baby boomer boss. The closest anyone else came to that coherence was Hedi Slimane across Dior Homme, Saint Laurent, and Celine. While people liked to complain that neither evolved, you knew what they stood for. You could decide whether you were in or out.