The new art of summoning to fashion runways

What for years was only a piece of paper with elegant calligraphy, date, time, and location, inviting the audience to discover a designer’s or brand’s new fashion collection has today been transformed into small works of art that function as a brief preview of the concept the designer conveys in every creation.

This protocolary gesture, whose origins date back to the 19th century, evolved from formal business cards or hand-written letters to free newspaper advertisements; the latter became the dissemination resource with which designer Martin Margiela presented his Spring-Summer collection in 1989.

These invitations can sometimes become as exciting as the show itself, and beyond their form whether a sculpture, an exploration of unprecedented materials, or a reinterpretation of the everyday, these pieces operate as powerful communication tools.

They are symbols of value that grant the attendee the privilege of possessing a collectible and even functional object. Ultimately, these small creative details manage to condense and extend the show experience weeks in advance, a ritual almost as anticipated as the runway itself.

Boxes, envelopes, or small artifacts appear mysteriously at the guests’ doors, generating a wave of collective expectation. The famous unboxing, opening the package in front of the camera, transforms the invitation into a public spectacle, shared with millions of followers who discover the object at the same time as the recipient.

But why do brands opt for this type of invitation? The answer is digital strategy. These objects are specifically designed to create an entire experience at the moment of opening. By sending them to content creators weeks in advance, the houses secure a free and massive advertising campaign on social media.

What used to remain only in the guest’s memory now comes to life on social networks, where images, videos, and brand-related content become an integral part of the visual narrative anticipating the collection. This is how the Paris Fashion Week invitations were received, with the delivery of unconventional objects.

The house of Alaïa, directed by Pieter Mulier, bet on modular experimentation by sending leather pieces that could be assembled to form a bust. More than a simple invitation, it was an exercise in construction that previewed the exploration of the body and structure present in his collection.

For its part, the house of Dior presented a unique invitation: a gray box that, when opened, revealed miniatures of green chairs. These were replicas of the iconic Chaise Sénat, named as such because they were commissioned by the French Senate for the Luxembourg Gardens and are now part of the Parisian urban landscape.

Including these chairs in the invitation served as a nod to French design heritage and the visual memory of the city. With this gesture, Dior seeks to elevate furniture design to the status of Haute Couture, reaffirming a relevance that transcends time.

Chanel continued its tradition of transforming invitations into collectible pendants. While in past seasons objects like a small house, a subway car, or even a mushroom appeared, for this collection, Matthieu Blazy opted for a metallic measuring tape turned into a necklace; a direct symbol of the work of the artisans in the atelier (workshop), of the value of the handmade, and of the precision that defines the craft.

In this context, faithful to its surrealist spirit, Schiaparelli invited its guests with a vibrant pink box containing a ring. This art-object, positioned between jewelry and sculpture, anticipated the golden, theatrical, and exaggerated universe that defines the Parisian luxury house today.

In the case of the brand Loewe, under the direction of Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, the creatives maintained their taste for the unexpected object with a black inflatable lobster inside an intense yellow box; a playful and almost absurd gesture that encapsulates the humor and contemporary surrealism associated with the brand.

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All this visual imagery is part of the archive or what the creator wishes to transmit. And behind them lies the same conceptualization as the clothing line. Ultimately, seeing those objects before us makes us feel part of an exclusive and idealized world. It is a move of aspirational marketing—it is not just an aesthetic detail; it is a communication tool designed so that the brand goes viral long before the first model starts walking, consolidating the object not just as an invitation, but as the first manifesto of a story that is only beginning to be told.