As a fashion designer, do you agree with Harry Halim's statement on the current approach of fashion? Why?

Innovation is relative. When they created a button down shirt or button down dress that was true innovation. Or shorts. But everything that was created even from the very beginning was based off of something existing. Innovation is not creating something from nothing, it is created something else from something that already exists. In that respect fashion is very much alive. There are different types of designer nowadays, not all are innovators per se the way legends are, but that is what sets apart a good designer from a great designer, etc etc..

I have no idea who Harry Halim is. In the words of our wonderful Vice-President, malarkey. Maybe balderdash. Issey Miyake and his team have always stood for innovation in texts. The current state of fashion is, however, influenced unduly by corporate dumbing down, large conglomerates buying the services of designers but expecting up to 32 collections annually. The global sameness of shopping streets, one (dulled down) designer shop after another, presents something very banal and far from the creativity that is possible. Let me qualify this: I am not or ever have been a fashion designer. I have, however, been a shop owner/buyer of fashion and bought Issey's collection, and his mens, at the beginnings of his pret-a-porter work. I've watched the change from artisan to industrial in fashion and while the creativity, of course, is intact, the merchandising and possibilities are rather than of good upscale hotels - many doing the same thing when translated to racks in a store.