Runway Rumour

There was a time when fashion’s obsession with authenticity felt almost noble. The industry had reached its breaking point, too much gloss, too much curation, too many filters over filters. Consumers were burnt out from the spectacle, hungry for something that felt real again. Cue the era of raw denim, minimal campaigns, and models caught “mid-laugh” on film cameras. Suddenly, everyone wanted to look unfiltered, unposed, unbothered. But the thing about authenticity is that the moment you try to manufacture it, you’ve already lost it. The irony, of course, is delicious. Authenticity became a marketing strategy faster than you could say “quiet luxury.” Brands started selling imperfections as if they were a limited edition. Influencers posted “I just woke up like this” shots sponsored by SK-II. A generation that prided itself on seeing through the façade ended up buying a new one, just with better lighting. Let’s be honest, the authentic aesthetic became its own uniform.

The plain white tank. The messy bun that took three products to perfect. The artfully wrinkled linen shirt. Somewhere between the oversharing confessions and the soft-focus vulnerability, “realness” started to look suspiciously like a performance. And like all good performances, it was highly curated, strategically spontaneous, and algorithmically approved. But perhaps that’s the paradox. The more we chase authenticity, the more it slips away. In an economy built on self-presentation, even rebellion gets branded. The influencer who “quits influencing” still posts the announcement on Instagram. The designer who rejects trends ends up on a Vogue list for doing exactly that. And the moment someone says, “I don’t care what people think,” they’re already thinking about how that sounds. 

The truth is, authenticity today isn’t about being real; it’s about looking real. It’s about performing sincerity so convincingly that the audience forgets there’s a script. Brands have caught on. They know the modern consumer doesn’t want perfection anymore; they want proximity. They want to feel like they’re in on the secret. So campaigns are no longer glossy; they’re “behind the scenes.” Collections aren’t “exclusive”, they’re “community-driven.” And the word “authentic” now appears so often in press releases, it’s starting to lose all meaning. Maybe the problem isn’t the performance itself, maybe it’s our denial of it. Fashion has always been about transformation, about constructing identity through fabric and fantasy. To pretend otherwise is to strip it of its very power. The more interesting question, then, isn’t “How do we stay authentic?” but rather, “What does authenticity even mean when everyone’s selling it?” Because perhaps, deep down, we don’t actually want raw truth. We want a version of it that’s palatable, aspirational, and a little bit beautiful. Maybe we don’t crave authenticity so much as the illusion of intimacy, the idea that someone, somewhere, is letting us see behind the curtain, even if they’re standing under studio lights.

And that’s okay. Maybe authenticity was never about purity, but about intention, the quiet wink that says, “Yes, I know this is all a show, but isn’t it a good one?”