English Version | 20 years of Fashion

Twenty years ago, when the first edition of Vogue Portugal came out, the world was a totally different place. Fashion, which has always been a reflection of the times, an expression of culture, values, and customs of society, was also a completely different industry. Two decades later, any resemblance to that reality of the beginning of the millennium is pure coincidence. 

Lisbon, November 2002. The first issue of Vogue Portugal hit the stands. The cover line, N.o1, left no room for doubt: this was the beginning of a new era. The uproar caused by the launching of the “fashion bible” (readers and critics had long been yearning for a Portuguese version of the publication) can be compared to the changes that were being felt all over the world — the same world that, since the September 11 attacks a year earlier, was losing the innocence and confidence with which it had lived through the 80s and 90s and was slowly becoming a strange place. But let's go back to Lisbon, where Vogue Portugal, which is now read in dozens of countries, was born. Cell phones were used, above all things, for making calls — the cameras were archaic and their purpose was to record shaky images that resembled ghosts. The iPod, a device that allowed hundreds of songs to be played digitally, was the closest we had to a next-generation gadget — the iPhone didn't appear until 2007. CDs were the simplest way to store information — whoever thinks that our computers were born with a cloud miraculously installed is sorely mistaken; before that there were things like DVDs and external disks — and this is relevant because any editor or stylist knows how difficult it was, until the technology boom, to choose images for shopping pages and editorials.

Magazines were the main source of inspiration for everything related to fashion. They were the ones responsible for, months after the Fashion Weeks — namely New York, London, Milan and Paris, all the others, like Copenhagen, Berlin, Seoul, Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, only gained “relevance” much later — brought us the looks and trends of the season. websites were an option revealed later on, which occurred around 2010. This is precisely where one of the biggest changes in the industry takes place. In the late 2000s, the first blogs began to emerge — to give you an idea, Chiara Ferragni, a star in her own right, started The Blonde Salad in October 2009. From there to the birth of a new type of players, the bloggers, was a small step. In 2009, Tavi Gevinson (author of the blog Style Rookie), then 13 years old, achieved the feat of sitting on the front row of several shows at New York Fashion Week, which sparked a true revolution in the (until then sacred) guest list of Fashion Weeks. Journalists, critics, buyers and other specialists were no longer the only agents to have direct access to the ins and outs of fashion, which thus opened itself to the public, becoming permeable to external judgment and to the disapproval of those who, until then, were not its peers.

The consequences were immediate. The dress code changed. Stilettos started to be replaced by sneakers — the epithet of cool, according to the girls who leave the house in “I woke up like this today” mode —, both day and night, something unthinkable twenty years ago. The proliferation of viewers demanded, on the runways, a multiplication of bodies and shapes — instead of the skinny white models that defined the 80s and 90s, brands slowly started to embrace diversity, both on the runway and in campaigns and lookbooks. There are no supers anymore, admittedly, because Claudia, Naomi, Linda, Cindy, Christy, Kate, Gisele and Helena only appear once every 5,000 years, but the tops of the new millennium have platforms that allow them to communicate directly with their followers (and their employers, of course) and a much longer “shelf life” than stipulated by the previous paradigm, where no one got a job after the age of 30. But there is more. Now, instead of half a dozen Maisons that dictate the trends (if it still makes sense to talk about trends...), there are hundreds of new brands that, every season, show what's new — high fashion, slow fashion, demi couture, it's impossible to keep up with all the new names that “are hot.” Sustainability is no longer a difficult word to pronounce, but the most urgent of all requirements. In between, geniuses like Alexander McQueen (2010), Karl Lagerfeld (2019) or Virgil Abloh (2021), whose legacy proves that creativity remains the most valuable asset of all, have disappeared. Looking back, any similarity between today's reality and that distant reality that hosted the first issue of Vogue Portugal, is pure coincidence.

The change operated in these twenty years was not only total — it was visceral. That's exactly what Eduarda Abbondanza, Director of Associação ModaLisboa, says: “The only thing that hasn't changed in the last twenty years is the assumption that Fashion itself is driven by change. And there is no greater change than the unplanned, uncertified, and unaccelerated acceleration of technological processes. On the one hand, digitalization has made it possible to streamline all the steps in the value chain, by massifying the production of the fashion product, while at the same time becoming the most obvious solution to the climate emergency. In terms of its social impact, technology has eliminated gatekeepers, making us all producers and disseminators of information with an active, relevant and participatory voice.” The consumer is now much more than the final link in the production chain. “Naturally, voices have risen and demanded unprecedented accountability from fashion brands: representativeness, inclusion, abolition of prejudice, social justice, political manifestation, ethical and fair conduct are not abstract concepts today, but mandatory parameters without which a brand cannot survive. The wills, the faces, the bodies and the genders have changed, and if technology seems to be blamed for pushing us away, it is also giving us the platform for us, as fashion, to become more human.” An opinion that is supported by Georgina Grenville, one of the hottest models of the early 2000s and one of the protagonists of our covers on this 20th anniversary: “There was more freedom before. I believe that social media is to be blamed for that, taking away freedom and ultimately affecting people’s creativity, of course, cancel culture also impinges on people's freedom. People seem afraid to think differently and it’s sad. Having said that I also see positive changes there is a lot more diversity in casting and fashion is slowly becoming more inclusive. When I started modeling fashion was not the global force it is today and most people outside the industry weren’t that interested. Today it’s a huge industry and it seems like everyone is interested in fashion.”

It is not by chance that all these changes occur. Fashion is intrinsically cyclical. It is a body in constant mutation. It lives on redoing what has already been done, on looking with new eyes at what has already been worn, and on rethinking what has already been created. Nothing is lost, everything is transformed. This is what Philippa Morgan, Global Director of Content Planning & Editorial Director, Licensing at Condé Nast, believes: “As is well known, the fashion world operates in hyper-speed cycles and spirals referencing and riffing off of what has been, whilst gently teasing forwards what's yet to be. Within two decades, we've seen the decline and now resurgence of hip-bone grazing jeans; 20 years ago we waved goodbye to pleated minis and yet Prada has resoundingly made micro-skirts return in 2022. Hooray! The true change is seen in how the consumer has taken the steering wheel. Today, the audience truly calls the shots. In one Tweet or IG Reel, a trend or ad can burn if it doesn't resonate with the changes demanded by society. If there is a lack of true diversity in campaigns or a whiff of green-washing, then the potential customer will hold up a megaphone and speak to the world's digital population, veiled behind IP addresses. Democracy has landed on the virtual front row. Yes, that fabulous frou frou skirt will get ‘likes’ but will it be purchased by many if it costs the climate? For brands that create with integrity, have no fear. Fashion is in a period of genuine renaissance and the audience is its architect.”

And one of the things the public demands more than anything is respect for the planet. As one of the most polluting industries in the world, fashion needs to change the chip. And it has been doing it. Slowly, but it has been doing it. The word to Carry Somers, Founder and Trustee of the Fashion Revolution Foundation, one of the entities responsible for this chip shift. “One of the biggest changes is that people can now find out more about where their clothes were made, and under what conditions. Even a decade ago, having public access to information about the factories where our clothes are cut and sewn together seemed like an unrealistic dream for many NGOs and trade unions, but now nearly half of the major fashion brands and retailers publish such a list, helping to answer the question #whomademyclothes? That being said, some of the most severe and exploitative working conditions and worst environmental damage happen deep within fashion supply chains where raw materials are grown and fabrics are produced and processed, where many brands still have little or no visibility. Estimates vary, but synthetic fibers are present in around two-thirds of the textiles we produce today, a figure that has more than doubled in the past 20 years. We have seen the results of this in a very visible way: mountains of clothing waste made from synthetic materials and coated with chemicals piled up in the Atacama Desert in Chile; billions of plastic microfibres that end up in our environment and in our bodies.”

It’s organizations like Fashion Revolution, founded in 2013 as a response to the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh — a dark day for Fashion that sadly needs to be remembered — that force change. On April 24 of that year, an eight-story commercial building collapsed, eventually causing over 1100 deaths and 2500 injuries. The garment factories there belonged to well-known brands in the Western world, which caused a “shake-up” in the way mass production is understood — and prompted the beginning of a (long, protracted) reform of the industry, focusing on the need for greater transparency in the supply chain. The “revolution” started in 2013 by Somers and others has seen unprecedented ripples of repercussions. In 2016, the presentation of the first Fashion Transparency Index, which scored 40 major Fashion companies according to the information they disclosed to the public on social and environmental issues, was the first step in separating the good boys from the bad boys — after that moment, no major brand wants to be associated with shenanigans that hide how they (really) produce their garments.

The keyword is “responsibility.” Throughout these first two decades, Vogue Portugal has accompanied major changes — social, political and cultural — which all ended up shaping its own identity and purpose. Fashion was never just about clothes, and these twenty years prove that the advances (and setbacks) of the world are accompanied by advances (and setbacks) of the industry. The magazine has reflected, in one way or another, the transformations of society, women and minorities — playing, in many cases, a decisive role in these same transformations, and actively intervening in this process of evolution, which seems endless. Because Vogue Portugal, like its homonymous editions, had and continues to have, a double responsibility — “to sell” the dream, show fantasy and glamour (even if sometimes unattainable) and reflect on the world we live in. This is why the topics it presents in each issue allow for a deeper analysis of each subject, be it something as seemingly prosaic as a trend that appears in TikTok, or something more serious, like an eating disorder. Its pages invoke a universe of infinite beauty, but they cannot (or should not) be detached from reality. And they imply an enormous responsibility. This is perhaps the biggest difference from twenty years ago. The reader doesn't want to be fooled. They recognize filters, detect Photoshop excess, spot subtle “understandings” that do nothing to his advantage — shootings paid for by brands of dubious morality that occupy dozens of pages, interviews arranged with personalities whose positioning goes against the status quo. It's not better, it's not worse. It is different. In late October, Lisa Armstrong, Fashion Editor of the British newspaper The Telegraph, reflected on her 30-year journey in the industry: “In the old days, when a few hundred insiders went to the shows, I often thought what a poetic waste it all was. All that epic creativity, years of training and everyone — from hats to hair, make-up to models, seamstresses to soundtracks — working at the top of their game for something that lasted eleven minutes and hardly anyone got to see. Now, anyone can watch and everyone’s a fashion critic. How lucky am I to be in the room where it happens?” Perhaps the conclusion to be drawn is only one: it is a privilege to watch all these changes, whether in the front row or not, because all the moments — both the most spectacular and the least extravagant — that fashion gives us are an imperishable testimony to a time that will never come back.

Translated from the original on The 20th anniversary issue, published November 2022.Full story and credits in the print version.