How to Watch a Fashion Show

This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row of the fashion world. Sign up here to get it free.

I was recently scrolling on TikTok when I came across a video from a guy whose disembodied head was bobbing in front of a green-screened model wearing an elaborately tailored dress. “I don’t know anything about fashion,” the guy wryly declared, “and today I’ll be reviewing the Thom Browne show.”

The joke is that he’s doing something a lot of people on the Internet do: confidently judge fashion collections despite having no idea what they’re talking about. I have a bit more professional authority. In my role as GQ’s global fashion correspondent, I attended 111 runway shows last year, which means that in 2025, I probably saw something like 5,000 pairs of pants on catwalks all around the world, from Paris to Seoul to the undersung fashion capital of the American South known as New Orleans.

Most runway shows accommodate maybe a dozen serious reviewers. But where before members of the international press corps competed with each other, now the pressure is coming from outside the arena. Luxury fashion brands spent the last decade demanding attention from the masses, and now that they’ve got it. Everybody—from your favorite influencer to your aunt to your proverbial swagless homie—has a hot take about Jonathan Anderson’s stewardship of the codes of Christian Dior.

I say: Bring it on! You certainly don’t need to be an expert to care about or judge luxury fashion, and the rise of thousands of critics surfing the algorithm has generated an exciting, edgy energy that permeates the major fashion weeks. But this phenomenon has also generated waves of baseless put-downs, ignorant analysis, and AI-generated slop (a dead giveaway is when the clothes “whispered”).

Things got so heated last fall during the so-called season of change, where over a dozen designers debuted at new houses, that the creative director and editor Edward Buchanan had to post a public call for civility. “Please bring some intelligent criticism to the table otherwise it’s just a troll fest from the comfort of your homes,” he wrote on Instagram.

So I figured I should share what goes through my mind at a runway show. Because if you’re going to turn your couch into a front row, you shouldn’t spam runway show livestreams with vomit emojis. You should try to engage deeply with what you’re seeing. It will help you hone a sharper sense of what you like, what you want to wear—and ultimately who you are.

1. Do your homework.

That doesn’t mean memorizing ’80s YSL collections before an Anthony Vaccarello production, but establishing a firm grasp of the history of a brand and the designer.

2. Consider the context.

It’s important to spend some time thinking about how the work has shaped—or is shaped by—wider trends and conversations in menswear.

3. Catch a preshow vibe.

Once I’m done preening for street-style photographers, I conduct recon in the venue. Who’s sitting in the front row? What are people gossiping about? It’s important to establish the stakes and expectations. If you’re at home, you can get plenty of table setting on social media. I tap into the online chatter once I’m settled in my seat and waiting for the lights to go down.

4. Focus.

The most successful shows situate the clothes in a distinct world, propose a strong idea for how people should dress next, and articulate who the designer is and what they care about. Pay attention to the soundtrack, the casting, the whiz-bang catwalk pyrotechnics, and, of course, the clothes themselves.