Unlike a lot of people, Christian Siriano didn’t take a bit of a step back over the pandemic.
Some fashion designers hit pause on everything, but not Siriano, who has carried on working and holding safe shows, albeit on a smaller scale, throughout.
Siriano, who just presented his Fall 2022 collection, called Victorian Matrix, at New York Fashion Week, tells InStyle of never taking a break: “I’m like, I can’t do it.”
He adds of the unpredictability of the fashion world: “I have to remind people that fashion’s so hard — we never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We all really are understanding that now, I think.
“And, for us, it’s like, if I don’t have shows, or I don’t do this fantasy world, or bring someone into a Victorian Matrix underground in the Empire State Building, then all I’m doing is sitting at my office, talking about bills and what is going to happen in fashion. I don’t want to do that. I’m just not interested in that. That’s why I always fill my shows with my customers — people who are shopping, people who love my world. So, that’s what we’re going to do.”
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Insisting his shows are meant to be an escape from everyday life, the designer says of why Fashion Week is so important: “Why do we go see a Broadway show? Or why do we go see a concert? I think fashion should kind of be the same thing.”
Siriano adds of focusing more on what he and his customers want instead of paying attention to the critics: “I still try to try new things. I definitely think I do that every season — I take risks, and they sometimes work and sometimes don’t.”
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“But I kind of started just making clothes that I love and what I think our customer would really want. It might not impress every fashion person in the business and that’s okay — I’ve decided that’s okay. We’re still here, and I want to keep my lights on and not go out of business.”
