I’ve been thinking a lot about performance lately, not in the theatrical sense, but in the way it quietly structures our lives, daily. Luxury fashion, especially. There was a time when everything felt louder: bigger shows, louder statements, faster cycles, constant… performance. Now, brands seem to be lowering their voices. Not because they’ve suddenly found humility, but because the world feels fragile, and fragility doesn’t tolerate excess very well. When money tightens and geopolitics loom, even fashion starts to behave. But what is the cost associated with this new reality?

What we’re seeing across luxury is not so much a return to “authenticity”, that word has been abused beyond repair, but a return to self-definition. Archives, heritage, recognizable silhouettes, stable identities. Jonathan Anderson returning to bows and flowers that echo the silhouettes of Mr. Dior is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, its coherence. Less provocation, more reassurance. It’s almost tender. Brands are saying: this is who we are, this is what we know how to do, let’s not pretend otherwise. Performance, it turns out, is perceived as a luxury. And right now, restraint feels safer, but also more intentional.

At the exact same time, I feel a very different pressure moving in the opposite direction, both personally and at a societal level. As brands retreat from spectacle, individuals are being asked to perform more than ever. Be visible. Be legible. Be consistent. Ideally on video. Ideally often. Have one clearly defined, cookie-cutter identity. Ideally with a personality that can be summarized in under thirty seconds. Check boxes, but not too many. Be bold. Conform. The irony is not lost on me: institutions are protecting their interiors, while people are being encouraged to externalize everything. To constantly make sense. Make sense of nonsense. Choose your niche and stick to it, fashion, beauty. Don’t forget to branch out when the audience gets bored.

I like writing. I like the blog. I like the slowness of it, the fact that no one can see my face while I’m thinking, or tell if I hesitated before a sentence. Writing gives me room to contradict myself, to circle an idea instead of delivering it cleanly. To write and delete. Question. Think. Internalize. Externalize; or not. Video does the opposite. It asks for clarity before I’ve finished being confused. TikTok isn’t just a platform; it’s a demand. Not what do you think? but who are you, exactly, and can you repeat it endlessly without people getting bored?

This is where I start negotiating with myself. I know visibility matters. I know attention is currency. I know writing quietly on a blog can feel like whispering in a room where everyone else is shouting. And yet, something in me resists turning thought into performance. Not because I’m afraid of being seen, but because I’m afraid of becoming predictable. I’m afraid of losing myself, my complexities, my contradictions. I don’t always make sense. And frankly, I don’t want to. People are multifaceted. We live several lives. We move abroad. We change career paths. We make life-changing decisions that sometimes end up having no impact at all. As Judith Butler reminds us, identity isn’t expressed, it’s produced through repetition. The more you perform something, the more it becomes you. That’s not neutral. That’s a commitment. And commitments can become prisons.

I often think about Erving Goffman and his idea of front stage and back stage. Blogs, notebooks, private rituals, those are back stages. They’re where you rehearse without consequences, or without coherence. Video collapses that distinction. Suddenly, the rehearsal is the performance. The unfinished thought becomes content. Hesitation becomes branding. There’s no space for error, reworking, or contradiction. There’s something exciting about that, yes, but also something slightly violent.

Fashion understands this better than we admit. That’s why so many houses are stepping back from overt performance right now. They’re choosing to protect their backstage. Limiting access. Stabilizing language. Repeating themselves with intention. Meanwhile, individuals are encouraged to do the opposite: expose process, monetize personality, never disappear. It feels like a strange role reversal, brands cultivating mystery while people are asked to dissolve theirs.

Guy Debord warned that in a society of spectacle, representation replaces lived experience. We start living our lives through other people’s eyes and forget our own. Today, it sometimes feels like performance replaces authorship. We don’t just make things; we explain ourselves making them. We justify our decisions. We don’t just think; we document ourselves thinking. And somewhere in that constant output, depth gets flattened, not because it isn’t there, but because it doesn’t perform well. Questions without answers stop being asked. Ambiguity becomes a flaw. And something quietly human disappears.

Byung-Chul Han would probably say this is self-exploitation disguised as freedom. No one is forcing us to post, we’re just afraid not to. Afraid of disappearing. Afraid of becoming irrelevant. Afraid of not being part of the conversation. But silence, too, can be a form of authorship. So can choosing a medium that doesn’t demand your face as proof of thought.

I don’t have a clean conclusion. I’m still torn between wanting to be seen and wanting to remain intact. Between knowing that performance is part of being in fashion, and believing that not everything meaningful needs to be performed. That rituals practiced in privacy can be the ultimate luxury. Maybe this tension is the point. Brands are negotiating it. I’m negotiating it. And for now, this blog, slow, imperfect, slightly out of step, maybe even slightly… dated, feels like the right place to let that negotiation exist without becoming a show. And without losing myself.