“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”
Entering the madness of Paris Fashion Week, an existential crisis is just around the corner. The final and arguably the most important shows of the season are just about to unravel and put a big stamp on all that we will be focusing on for the next six months. And in order to handle all that pressure, we search for deeper meaning. Of fashion, of life, of our existence. Have we gone too deep? Perhaps, but don’t blame it on us. Blame it on the fast-paced fashion industry.
So, how do we tackle this emotion the right way? Instead of raiding the self-help aisle at our local WH Smith, we’re listening to people that seem to have it all together. “What is different about my point of view is pragmatism. The fashion world isn’t the real world and my aesthetic is a kind of hyperrealism. I am not interested in trying to live in some kind of dream. I’d be bored to death,” said Demna Gvasalia in his interview with Guardian last year. Seems like a mentally healthy man, so why not take a page out of his book? Apparently, that book is Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, a guide to spiritual enlightenment through combining elements of world religions and spirituality into one big bundle. Tolle describes the book as “Buddhism mixed with mysticism and a few references to Jesus Christ, a sort of New Age re-working of Zen”. Originally published in 1997, The Power of Now has since become a literary staple on every successful entertainer’s bedside table – including Oprah Winfrey’s. And according to our insider information, Gvasalia reads it on the daily. Perhaps it’s Tolle’s lines that keep him sane as he juggles the creative director role at Balenciaga as well as being in charge at Vetements. That Zurich-Paris train ride takes exactly long enough for a nap and a chapter of The Power of Now. As we flick through the book in search of that Gvasalia Zen, the main message is to focus on the now (duh, the title says it all). And so we will – every show, every moment as a whole – now is now, and what happens next is something we’ll think about later. Probably on Sunday at 11.30 when Gvasalia is showing his new collection at Balenciaga.
‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle is available to buy online and in stores.
