New York – Alexander Wang is the latest designer to be hit by the see-now-buy-now
trend. For his resort 2017 line, he will show his collection to press and
retailers like he usually does in June, but will keep the images and
reviews under embargo until the collection ships in November.
While a lot of designers are experimenting with the see-now-buy-now model,
including other contemporary brands like Rebecca Minkoff, Wang is doing so
a little differently from his competitors. He will be showing a selection
of resort items on his spring 2017 runway at New York Fashion Week in
September, meaning although the resort images will be under embargo, items
will be publicized with the spring collection.
“For several seasons now, we have released images of our T by Alexander Wang
and
Men’s collections only at the time of their delivery in store,” Wang told
WWD. “We have had a very positive response to this from consumers and we
decided to pursue a similar strategy with our ready-to-wear
pre-collections; we have found that this shortened timeline between seeing
the collection and it being available in stores creates a sense of
immediacy and generates excitement at the retail level.”
In March, they did on New York Fashion Week in collaboration with the
CFDA. One of the points it brought up was in-season relevancy. While it did
not lay out any explicit provisions for how New York Fashion Week should
function going forward, it did have a series of discussions and
suggestions, merging main and pre-season collections being one of them.
The domino effect of the see-now-buy-now model continues. With a powerhouse
like Wang adopting it, who could be next?
Photo:alexanderwang.com