There were no crowds forming outside the venue waiting for the occasional celebrity guest. No street style photographers. No influencers strutting up and down. No endless queue of black cars holding up traffic. Instead, it was a rainy Wednesday night, and I found myself walking into an office building on a quiet street in Milan. I was venturing into the Etro headquarters, having been one of eight people asked to, for the very first time, watch a fashion show live-ish (more on that later) via the Apple Vision Pro headset.
The vibe was different from any other runway show experience I’ve lived through. Working across social and video content at Vogue for over seven years, I’ve been lucky enough to sit at a fair share of fashion shows. But that morning I walked into a room to find champagne and little sandwiches—a welcome addition to a fashion show experience, as many happen through lunch or dinner time. I still had to sit around and wait, but I did so on a comfy green Etro paisley couch instead of a backless metal bench, like those you typically find at runway shows.
After a short introduction, we waited for Marco De Vincenzo’s spring 2025 show for Etro to begin. The Roberto Cavalli show had just happened, so some guests were running late, putting this presentation behind schedule—some things never change, even in the digital world. This was the first thing I missed from the IRL show experience: Not the wait, but what we do as we wait. Usually, during this idle time, I get to sit around and chat, gossip with colleagues, and people watch. I’m also very used to arriving at shows early to go backstage, and I couldn’t help but think of all the action I was missing out on. The time before the show is when the most content is created. Capturing the rush of a fashion show coming together is all part of how we tell the story at Vogue, so it was strange to not intimately know what was going on and when the show was about to start. It was completely foreign to have my phone in my pocket for this entire experience. My battery is usually drained to about 20% by the time the show starts.
It must be said here that I was not watching the show live, or at least not at the same time as everyone else. It had just been recorded and we were getting an immediate stream of it, so I did feel a little… behind. That’s the funny thing about working in media, social media, and at Vogue—we are used to being immediate.
I’m wearing the headset, the lights go down, and I’m suddenly transported to a set. I’m no longer in the brightly lit studio, but rather sitting in the dark at the show. I can see people in the audience begin to take their phones out to film the first model as she walks out. Similarly to a livestream, you could see the clothes move and the models sway down the runway. I was entirely transported. So much so that, in the stream, I could see my colleague Virginia Smith running out as the show ended, except that I couldn’t catch up to her and ask her what she thought, and if I could ride with her to Vogue Italia’s 60th birthday celebration. The great part about attending shows with my colleagues is that I get to hear their thoughts, their quips, and find out what they’re into and imagine what they’ll shoot for the magazine or what will go into their review. Watching via a headset, you’re not actually in the room, so you miss out on the smells or sensation of the soundtrack or room. You can’t catch someone’s eye across the runway. It was almost like being in a glass box.
