Most runway shows cut right to the chase — the audience is there to watch models showcase the designer's latest collections. Others decide to go what I'd call the "perfume commercial route" and create a truly stunning visual ~experience~.
However, not every memorable runway moment is the designer's brainchild. Some are born from a model's quick thinking.
Here are 15 of the wildest runway moments in fashion history:
1. To close out the Coperni SS23 show during Paris Fashion Week 2022, Bella Hadid had a dress made of Fabrican (a spray paint–like fabric) sprayed onto her body live onstage.
Then, after a few adjustments to style the dress, she modeled it down the runway.
2. However, Fabrican appeared on the runway more than a decade earlier. Designer Manel Torres, who invented the technology, used the spray-on fabric to create instant outfits and flowers as part of his 2011 Moscow Design Week show.
He presented a multicolored variety of garments created with Fabrican, which he patented in 2000.
3. At Alexander McQueen's 1998 London Fashion Week show, Shalom Harlow spun as a pair of robot arms spray-painted her white dress.
Here's a closer look at the finished design.
4. During Chanel's 2019 Paris Fashion Week show, French YouTuber Marie Benoliel (aka Marie S’Infiltre) crashed the stage to join the models.
However, Gigi Hadid locked eyes with her, and then — transforming from supermodel to security guard — she swiftly escorted the interloper off the stage.
5. Before walking down the Gucci runway during Milan Fashion Week 2019, Bones Tan-Jones wrote, "Mental health is not fashion" on their hands to protest the brand's use of straitjackets "alluding to mental patients" in its collection.
On Instagram, the model wrote, "As an artist and model who has experienced my own struggles with mental health, as well as family members and loved ones who have been affected by depression, anxiety, bipolar and schizophrenia, it is hurtful and insensitive for a major fashion house such as Gucci to use this imagery as a concept for a fleeting fashion moment."
6. During a Betsey Johnson show in 1998, Alek Wek ripped off the blonde wig she'd been styled in. The moment has become a symbol of rebellion against European-centric beauty standards.
#StillThinkingAbout 💭 Alek Wek throwing off her blonde wig while walking in the Betsey Johnson SS98 show.
She told the BBC, "That wig was not just about me taking it off to make a scene. It was a time that I was just starting in fashion, to work. And the one thing that I told my agents was, if you are going to represent me, I’m not going to be a gimmick and be in for a couple of seasons. You’re going to take it all or leave it."
7. At its apocalypse-inspired Paris Fashion Week show in 2020, Balenciaga flooded the catwalk.
Artistic director Demna Gvasalia reportedly waterlogged the runway — and the first few rows of seats — as a visual representation of rising sea levels.
8. At Calvin Klein's fall 2018 New York Fashion Week show, the entire floor was buried beneath 50,000 gallons of popcorn.
Designer Raf Simons reportedly took inspiration from the idea of a "twisted Americana."
9. During Milan Fashion Week 2019, Jennifer Lopez closed out the Versace show in an updated version of her iconic green dress from the 2000 Grammys, which was so popular, it sparked the creation of Google Images.
Here they are side by side.
10. Because of COVID-19 precautions in 2020, Valentino forwent a traditional runway show, instead opting for a circus-inspired livestream with models suspended in the air.
11. For Paris Fashion Week 2015, Rick Owens styled models wearing other models.
They were suspended from each other with harnesses.
12. At Gucci's 2018 Milan Fashion Week show, some models carried quite head-turning accessories — models of their own heads.
During the same show, other models carried more fantastical accessories, including a sleeping baby dragon and a third eye. The props were a collaboration between designer Alessandro Michele and SFX factory Makinarium.
13. During Stella McCartney's 2020 Paris Fashion Week show, a few models closed out the show wearing mascotlike animal costumes.
McCartney told the Guardian, "What we try to do here at Stella is to sugarcoat a powerful, meaningful message in a little bit of humour and fun, to make our point in a palatable and digestible way so that people listen. These animals are the ingredients of everyone else’s fashion shows."
14. Bobby Abley took inspiration from the Teletubbies for his 2017 London Men's Fashion Week show.
One of the Teletubbies even walked the runway.
15. And finally, during Paris Fashion Week 2017, Chanel closed its show with a rocket launch.
Elton John's "Rocket Man" played as models lined up for takeoff.
