If fashion is known for one thing, then it is this: drama. It’s campy, it’s imaginative and it’s always performative. One can not talk about a runway show without talking about its performance. However, this synergy goes in both directions, as “El túnel”, a collaborative performance by choreographer Kianí del Valle and Y-3, proves. Could theatres and performance halls be the next big thing for brands to showcase their collections?

Picture this: About a dozen of performers stand on a fog-covered stage at Theater des Westens in Berlin, crawling and intertwining in unison. They almost move and breathe like one big organism, with a uniform of gray camouflaged raincoats enhancing this almost cult-like experience. Throughout the changing electronic soundscape by Kelman Durán with elements of jungle, hip-hop and ballroom, the performers slowly wring themselves out of their coats to reveal various black outfits, with a “Y-3” logo scattered throughout some of them.

El túnel is the result of four years of research and discusses resurrection, birth, and death. “I’m tapping into ideas of quantum physics and quantum realities in relationship to grief and death and the transcendental nature of life”, says Kianí del Valle, the performance director behind El túnel. She calls her work with Y-3 a perfect match. “It completely fit”, she says. “I really wanted to push the capabilities of the garments in relationship to my dramaturgy. For example, the Lost Souls, which I call the characters in the first act, are stuck in this space for so long that they become rocks, you know. And then the coat and the set design are in the same color.” 

The Puerto Rican born choreographer has worked with artists like Billie Eilish, Labrinth and Bad Bunny and always had strong connections to the fashion industry. “I’m a fashion enthusiast. I’ve been going to fashion weeks for most of my career”, she says. “For a very long time, I’ve been thinking that the frame of a fashion show is kind of outdated and boring. So I’ve been wanting to work with a collection and make a dance theatre piece to break from the conventional ways of presenting a fashion show.”

Fashion goes hand in hand with theatrics – and their bond is as old as time. Numerous designers rely on performance arts to gather media attention and to capture the essence of their collections: Think, for example, Rick Owens hiring a step team for his Spring/Summer 2014 show or Alexander McQueen’s Deliverance presentation in 2004, which featured a performance adaption of Sydney Pollack’s movie from 1969 “They Shoot Horses Don’t They?” and was staged at Salle Wagram – a historic dance hall in Paris.

And the performing arts have also numerously featured the expertise of fashion designers: Coco Chanel worked on two stage adaptations of Sophocles’ Antigone (by Jean Cocteau) in 1922 and Le Train Bleu (by Sergei Pawlowitsch Diaghilev for the Ballets Russes) in 1924. The design duo Viktor & Rolf created elaborate custom couture pieces for the opera in 2004 and collaborated on the “Dutch Double” project with the National Ballet in Amsterdam in 2014. 

Hence, a brand showcasing their designs on stage might be nothing new – in theory. However, this is where El túnel sticks out in a surprising way. Instead of elaborate, avant-garde couture pieces, the performance uses Y-3’s ready-to-wear. The stage boldly showcases the logo of the brand. For the audience, seeing a streetwear brand on a traditional theatre stage felt almost refreshing and relatable. 

Gen Z and Millennials seem to have high standards to satisfy in order to gain brand loyalty. It’s not about the garments anymore. They yearn for authenticity, individuality and a strong identity in a label. So interlinking a raw medium like performance art with a collection might be a new way to connect on a deeper level with the audience. “I also think we are living in such hard times, we need to question the status quo and the structures that are directing the society”, Kianí says. Artists could tap into mass consumer spaces like social media or fashion to reach a broader audience with their message. “To go with the typical sterile idea of fashion as a blind, purely aesthetic thing; I don’t think it’s working anymore. Because we really need to connect aesthetics with real emotion, connect aesthetics with social justice. We need to shake things up.”

Especially in artistic spaces, a consensus between independence and commercialization is difficult to reach. But if big name brands such as Y-3 are able to support innovative artists like Kianí del Valle in exchange for strengthening their brand identity and relationship with their customers, while also still allowing them their artistic freedoms, then this scenario might be a big win-win other brands and artists alike should follow.