On 22 September, Vogue World placed manual work at the centre of its Milan evening. It also sent humanoid robots down the runway, while Meta Glasses and OpenAI were among the backers. The discussion that followed sheds more light on the event than its figures do.
What the evening announced
Vogue had set the theme in advance: “Where The Future Is Made By Hand”. The editorial direction of Vogue Italia explained that it wished to celebrate the history of Made in Italy, a history of genius and craftsmanship, in the age of artificial intelligence. The five acts followed, according to the organiser, the role of the hand in fashion, from the ateliers to artificial intelligence. Craftspeople from several houses had their place in it, and eight Memory Dresses appeared in the finale, according to the organiser’s account.
What the evening showed
According to the AP, the event combined runway and spectacle: Gigi Hadid opened in a gold brocade dress, Alicia Keys performed under the glass roof and, again according to the AP, closed the evening. TechCrunch, for its part, places robots at the end of the edition: the exact order of the finale therefore varies from one account to another. Humanoid robots, identified as machines from the manufacturer Unitree by Fashion Times, walked in a segment devoted to artificial intelligence. The criticism published targets both the robots themselves and the gap between an event presented as a tribute to the hand and this sequence. It comes mostly from online commentary and opinion pieces, and no overall measure of the reception has been published to date, to our knowledge.
Who pays
Vogue names its sponsors: ALO, eBay, Eli Lilly and Meta Glasses, with the support of FedEx and OpenAI. The magazine nss notes that Meta and OpenAI appeared on the title card of the livestream, and suggests a link with the robots. That link is not demonstrated in the articles that suggest it: the coincidence is noted, it is not established.
What will remain: the library
The amounts vary from one source to another. Before the evening, AGI reported the entirety of the ticket sales and an investment of at least 2 million euros from Vogue. The day after the event, the same agency still spoke of two million euros earmarked for the library. The organiser, for its part, announces 3 million dollars, or 2.65 million euros, an amount above the 2 million euro target it mentions. None of these figures specifies what it covers: ticketing, donations or sponsors. The Quarto Oggiaro library is a public facility: it will be judged on its opening, its collections and its attendance. The event’s communications give no opening date.
What these elements allow us to say
Two criteria hold: the consistency between what an event claims and what it shows, and what it leaves once the evening is over. On the first, the controversy reflects a perceived gap between the theme and its staging. On the second, we will have to wait for the library to open. Neither allows a conclusion today.
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