London designers want to remind you that humans made these clothes

This season, many of the designers showing at London Fashion Week seemed to want to remind us of one thing: humans made these clothes.

It was an idea placed front and center at the Steve O Smith show — which wasn’t a show at all, but a seminar, delivered by Smith himself to 20 or so fashion editors and journalists in a cozy drawing room at the Royal Academy of Arts. Each look was carefully broken down not just in terms of narrative but also granular technique — a luxury compared to the three second fly-by of typical runway shows — from the appliqué sewn on tulle to beading embellishment, panniers and ties cut out of shirts. At the end of the masterclass, Smith gushed effusively of his “incredibly small team” from behind the lecture stand. “It makes me a little bit emotional,” he said. “There’s one seamstress, Joanna, who made everything you’ve seen today. We have one beading artist, Saskia, and Thomas, who is my assistant designer, who is absolutely incredible.”

Courtesy Steve o Smith

Backstage at Pauline Dujancourt’s fourth London runway show, the designer — who is part of the prestigious Paul Smith’s Foundation fashion residency program — spoke at length about the 700 hand-crocheted flowers used to adorn one of her ethereal gowns. Each bloom of yarn took between 10 and 15 minutes to make, she said, and many were constructed in Peru by women Dujancourt was able to employ with the money from her Andam Prize win earlier this summer. Her clients in particular love “to know how long it took to make something,” she said.

At Labrum, before guests even saw the clothes on the runway, they got to meet the hands that helped make them. By the doorway to the catwalk two people sat toiling at desks, one hand-beading a piece of cloth and the other machine sewing a denim garment. It was a “performance piece,” they said, though both were actually part of Labrum’s design team. The collection featured hand-woven raffia trousers made in India, as well as shirts, shorts and skirts hand-embroidered with scenes from Sierra Leone. “People don’t understand how things are made and where they’re from,” founder Foday Dumbuya said after the show. “That’s why we wanted to put it at the forefront and celebrate it.”

Currently it’s taken for granted that some person, either with a needle or a sewing machine, made what you are wearing — whether they were paid fairly or worked in safe conditions is less certain. But who knows how much longer that human touch will be guaranteed. AI, which has steadily infiltrated design workflows over the last few years, is now being developed by robotics companies to take on more physical tasks like pattern cutting, sewing and quality inspection in countries like South Korea. When asked whether he thought about AI’s impact on the fashion industry, Dumbuya replied “100%.” “I don’t buy AI,” he continued. “The moment we kill that human interaction, we’re gone.”

Talia Loubaton, founder and designer at Liberowe, went a step further than simply talking about her method. On Sunday afternoon she folded journalists, editors, buyers and even some of her customers right into it by using the presentation to shoot her campaign imagery. The backstage of a runway is usually a hectic underside designers would rather pull a curtain around, but here it was all hanging out. “I think it’s interesting to make it quite immersive,” Loubaton said, as busy stylists and photographers zipped around her, slamming sticky-notes on the giant model board to indicate when they’d photographed a look. She spoke of the importance of “being in the same room and being able to talk through the collection, meet and speak with each other and show you how we work, how we create the imagery and get you in the process.”

This emphasis on the human collateral of fashion week — design teams, photographers, stylists, seamstresses — felt like the real display of luxury. Perhaps it was a deliberate act of technological resistance by designers, or perhaps the old analog ways of working feel new and poignant in our AI-driven world. One thing was for sure: none of these hands were idle.

Courtesy Pauline Dujancourt

Courtesy Patrick McDowell

Ben Broomfield/Courtesy Simone Rocha

Jed Cullen/Dave Benett/Getty Images

Courtesy Petra Fagerström

Carlo Paloni/Getty Images

Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

Hoda Davaine/Getty Images

Daniele Oberrauch/Gorunway.com/Courtesy Oscar Ouyang

Courtesy Toga Archives

Courtesy Emilia Wickstead

Courtesy Johanna Parv

Courtesy Francesca Lake

本季，许多在伦敦时装周上展示作品的设计师似乎都想提醒我们一件事：这些衣服都是人做的。

这个理念在史蒂夫·O·史密斯的“秀”中被置于核心位置——与其说是一场秀，不如说是一场研讨会，由史密斯本人在皇家艺术学院一间舒适的会客厅里，为大约20位时尚编辑和记者授课。每一套造型都被仔细拆解，不仅从叙事角度，更从细节技法入手——这与普通T台秀三秒钟的匆匆掠过截然不同，可谓精益求精——从缝在薄纱上的贴花到珠饰点缀，再到裙撑和衬衫裁剪的领带，无一不体现着他的匠心。大师班结束后，史密斯站在讲台后，热情洋溢地谈起他“精干的小团队”。“这让我有点激动，”他说，“我们只有一位名叫乔安娜的裁缝，今天你们看到的所有东西都是她做的。我们还有一位珠饰艺术家萨斯基亚，以及我的助理设计师托马斯，他简直太棒了。”

承蒙史蒂夫·史密斯惠允

在宝琳·杜扬库尔 (Pauline Dujancourt) 第四场伦敦时装秀的后台，这位设计师——同时也是著名的保罗·史密斯基金会 (Paul Smith's Foundation) 时尚驻场项目的成员——详细讲述了她一件飘逸礼服上装饰的700朵手工钩织花朵。她说，每一朵花都需要10到15分钟才能完成，其中许多是由她今年夏天早些时候赢得安达姆奖 (Andam Prize) 奖金后雇佣的秘鲁妇女制作的。她还说，她的客户尤其喜欢“了解一件东西的制作过程”。

在Labrum时装秀上，宾客们甚至还没来得及欣赏T台上的服装，就有机会见到这些服装的制作者。在T台入口处，两位工匠正坐在桌前辛勤工作，一位正在手工缝制布料上的珠饰，另一位则在用缝纫机缝制牛仔服装。他们说这是一件“表演作品”，但实际上他们都是Labrum设计团队的成员。该系列包括产自印度的手工编织拉菲草裤，以及绣有塞拉利昂风情图案的衬衫、短裤和裙子。“人们不了解物品是如何制作的，也不了解它们的产地，”创始人Foday Dumbuya在秀后说道，“所以我们想把这些展现出来，并加以颂扬。”

如今，人们理所当然地认为，你身上穿的衣服是由某个人用针线或缝纫机制作的——至于他们是否获得了公平的报酬，或者工作环境是否安全，则难以确定。但谁又能预料这种人为的触感还能保留多久呢？人工智能在过去几年里稳步渗透到设计工作流程中，如今，在韩国等国家，机器人公司正在开发人工智能技术，以承担更多体力劳动，例如裁剪、缝纫和质量检验。当被问及是否考虑过人工智能对时尚行业的影响时，杜姆布亚回答说：“百分之百。”他继续说道：“我不相信人工智能。一旦我们扼杀了人与人之间的互动，我们就完了。”

Liberowe 的创始人兼设计师 Talia Loubaton 不仅阐述了自己的设计方法，更进一步。周日下午，她邀请记者、编辑、买手，甚至一些顾客参与到她的创作过程中，利用发布会现场拍摄宣传照。T台后台通常是设计师们恨不得拉上帘子遮挡的混乱景象，但在这里，一切都毫无保留地展现在眼前。“我觉得营造一种沉浸式的体验很有意思，” Loubaton 说道。在她周围，忙碌的造型师和摄影师们穿梭其间，将便利贴贴在巨大的模特板上，标记着他们拍摄的造型。她强调了“身处同一空间，能够一起探讨系列作品，彼此交流，向你们展示我们的工作方式、我们如何创作影像，并让你们参与到整个过程中”的重要性。

时装周对幕后人员——设计团队、摄影师、造型师、裁缝——的重视，才真正展现了奢华的真谛。或许这是设计师们刻意回避科技的举动，又或许在人工智能主导的世界里，传统的模拟工作方式反而显得别具一格，令人耳目一新。但有一点可以肯定：这些人的双手都忙碌不停。

图片由 Pauline Dujancourt 提供

承蒙帕特里克·麦克道尔惠允

Ben Broomfield/图片由 Simone Rocha 提供

Jed Cullen/Dave Benett/Getty Images

图片由佩特拉·法格斯特伦提供

卡洛·帕洛尼/盖蒂图片社

Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

Hoda Davaine/Getty Images

Daniele Oberrauch/Gorunway.com/由 Oscar Ouyang 提供

承蒙 Toga Archives 惠允

感谢 Emilia Wickstead 提供图片

承蒙 Johanna Parv 惠允

图片由弗朗西斯卡·莱克提供