Are Fashion Shows Headed To The Oscars Next?

The 2020 Emmy Award nominees have been announced and, surprisingly, a fashion show made the list. Rihanna’s very mega autumn/winter 2020 Savage x Fenty runway show, which was prerecorded with a live audience in February for Amazon Prime, was nominated for “outstanding choreography for variety or reality programming”, along with So You Think You Can Dance.

The Savage x Fenty show was really more than a fashion show. Filmed inside Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, it was a musical and dance performance featuring Halsey, Migos, DJ Khaled, and others, along with supermodels like Bella and Gigi Hadid and Cara Delevingne. Laverne Cox also made an appearance on the stage-slash-runway, as did Rihanna herself. Most importantly, it was a show about empowerment and body positivity with a diverse cast that wore lingerie with intoxicating pride.

In Emmy Award history, the only fashion show to have been nominated or to have won an award has been the Victoria’s Secret fashion show (mainly in the category of lighting), which was cancelled indefinitely last year. It’s not only ironic that Savage x Fenty was hailed as the new, much-needed and more progressive Victoria’s Secret show, but also that the nomination comes at a moment when the industry as a whole is completely rethinking the traditional runway-show model. 

Due to Covid-19, designers and brands big and small have been forced to embrace the idea of digital shows, as well as live streams, hybrid physical and digital – or “phygital” – shows, 3D constructions, and fashion films. Earlier this month, many of the top couture shows were creatively reconfigured into film formats. Nick Knight directed a stellar video for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection starring the house’s latest muse, Leon Dame, that mashed up Zoom calls, bodycam and drone footage, and iPhone screenshots. Knight also worked with Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli for his “phygital” couture collection on a video component to accompany an IRL runway show that was live streamed from Rome. Dior put out its own couture film as well, showcasing a fantastical fairytale narrative punctuated with tulle and organza.

Outside the couture schedule, the designer behind Hanifa, Anifa Mvuemba, made headlines back in June when she released her latest collection on 3D models with no bodies, just forms, which was praised widely for its approach to inclusivity. All of these recent examples, plus Rihanna’s new potential accolade, beg the question: In this new era, can fashion shows be as powerful and impactful as TV and film? Will the runway have a place at the Oscars?

Fashion films are, of course, nothing new, but at a time when the industry is pushing its own boundaries and moving in new, more virtually innovative directions, can these refreshing mediums stand alongside the shows and films we binge and love? Only time will tell, but there’s no doubt that more Hollywood directors and tech-world stars will be tapped to lend their creative hands come the very different fashion month in September.

There’s no doubt Rihanna is already thinking about these shifts in the industry. Whether she wins that Emmy or not, she deserves more than a few props for changing the way we see lingerie, the models who wear it, and the way that a fashion show can inspire us far beyond a catwalk.