‘Inventing the Runway’: Exploring the Evolution of the Fashion Show

1,750 guests watched Pharell Williams’s Louis Vuitton debut from the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris. Over 1 billion people watched on social media.

Over time, the fashion show has developed from an intimate affair reserved for wealthy clients to a globally recognisable spectacle, impacting culture and society. Viewers outside of the industry now have almost-instant access to these previously-closed off runways via brands’ owned social channels, not to mention those of the press, celebrities and influencers in attendance. But what is the purpose of a fashion show today, and who is it for?

It’s the theme of a new immersive exhibition, Vogue: Inventing the Runway, which will premiere on 13 November at London’s Lightroom, an immersive experience venue right in the shadow of Central Saint Martins, where many of the 60 designers featured in the exhibition studied. Tickets, which range from £15 to £25, are on sale until 26 April 2025.

The spectacles draw on Vogue’s vast archives (which date back to its first publication in 1892) and contributor network, bringing together the perspectives of leading industry voices, with narration from two-time Academy Award-winning actor and producer Cate Blanchett.

Jacquemus Spring 2020.

Photo: Justin Sutcliffe for Lightroom

“We all learned so much through [putting the exhibition together],” says Laura Ingham, deputy director of Vogue’s global fashion network. “It was great to deep dive into the research that you don’t normally have time to do when you’re doing a shoot or putting together a show.”

Lightroom hasn’t traditionally been a space for fashion exhibitions. Since opening in February 2023, the immersive space has worked with artists and companies across art, music, film and science. Recent exhibitions include a Tom Hanks-narrated experience of original NASA footage in The Moonwalkers, which details the stories of the Apollo missions, and a journey through the work of artist David Hockney (Lightroom’s debut show).

The exhibition has been in the works for a year and a half. “Fashion is a great subject matter [for an immersive exhibition] because of the rich mix of media — from illustration and archive to video and photography,” says David Sabel, executive producer at Lightroom. “It felt like at that scale, you could do something really fun. So I thought, who would the best partner be? And that seemed to be Vogue.”

Louis Vuitton Menswear Fall 2020.

Photo: Justin Sutcliffe for Lightroom

The exhibition weaves a thread through the most iconic runway moments. The origins of the fashion show can be traced back to Charles Frederick Worth, who was the first to present his couture designs on live models in the mid-19th century, and Paul Poiret, who experimented with certain theatrical elements. After World War II, fashion moved from the salon into the real world thanks to Christian Dior’s New Look, which became an overnight success.

The pace of magazine coverage accelerated in the 1960s, models became household names in the 1990s, and the internet invited the public into the world of fashion in the noughties. Show destinations have gone from small salons to historic sites like the Great Wall of China (which Karl Lagerfeld used as a runway for Fendi in 2007), important markets like Mumbai (Dior) and Rio (Louis Vuitton) or community plays (like Martine Rose’s show in Camden or Kerby Jean-Raymond’s Pyer Moss show in Brooklyn).

“The evolution of the show and that intersection between meeting that big picture cultural moment versus creating a true standout moment — I think you can see how that’s evolved,” says Ingham, adding that the segment on fashion show destinations was her personal favourite.

The exhibition is divided by theme rather than chronologically — an intentional decision on the organisers’ behalf to ensure the audience can enter and engage with the story at any point.

Alexander McQueen Spring 1999.

Photo: Justin Sutcliffe for Lightroom

“Even with all the live streams and access people get to fashion through the magazines and media, how many people actually get to go and experience the shows? It’s a very small number. So that’s what we wanted to share,” says Sabel. “Looking at all this research material and all the archives really allowed us to engage and find the theatricality, the multisensory experience of these shows going backstage sitting front row, the creative genius of the designers — and being able to put that in a way that worked in the exhibition.”

The exhibition concludes with Pharrell’s debut for Louis Vuitton, which was broadcast across live streams, drawing attention from every corner of the globe — a true representation of fashion’s cultural influence. “Now we’re all invited,” the narration says. Watching fashion’s greatest moments on the runway and behind the scenes projected in the exhibition, it certainly feels like we are.

With additional reporting by Kirsty McGregor and Madeleine Schulz.

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at [email protected].

More from this author:

Suppliers are still being excluded from fashion’s sustainability decisions

Capri Holdings sales drop 16.4% after Tapestry deal blocker

Harvey Nichols appoints Kate Phelan as creative director