New York –
The decades old format of the biggest weeks on New York City’s fashion
calendar could be changing. Diane von Furstenburg, Chairman of the CFDA,
announced this week that Fashion Week might turn into more of a
consumer-focused event. The theoretical idea at hand is that the
collections shown would be the collections that are about to arrive on the
sales floors, as opposed to the collections that will be on the sales floor
six months from now. In an age of social media and immediacy, many in the
fashion industry feel that showing the collections so far in advance is
nonsensical.
Customers see pieces on Instagram and websites like voguerunway.com, and
their impulse is try to get their hands on those clothes as soon as
possible. Instead, they realize that it is another six months before those
collections arrive in department stores and boutiques. Designers like
Rebecca Minkoff have announced that they will be taking the
consumer-focused approach already with her show in February.
The CFDA intends to meet with designers, editors, buyers, and other
industry personnel over the next several weeks to discuss overhauling the
current format of Fashion Week. The issue here is that it could potentially
overhaul the way the entire fashion industry works in America.
It is only common sense that editors and buyers would still be able to
see the collections six months in advance, so stores and fashion
publications will essentially run the same as they always have. Fashion
critics would have to take the approach film critics do, and have their
reviews embargoed until the shows happened, so the role of the critic would
change in that way.
The runway shows would become more of a market force because impulse
shoppers would see the collection and run out to stores to get them. In
this age of immediacy, it will definitely be good for business.
The downside to making Fashion Week more consumer based is that designers
will focus on making shows more internet buzz worthy, and the actual
clothes could be forsaken. Then again, many in the fashion industry already
complain live-streaming and social media make the shows too democratized
already. Tom Ford rebuked the live-streaming trend at Fashion Week by
debuting his collection with a Lady Gaga video.
Social media definitely changed the world of fashion marketing by making
high-fashion more accessible to the public. Who would have thought that it
would have as dramatic an affect as changing the way the fashion calendar
operates.
On the other hand, the European markets like London, Paris, and Milan have
no intention of changing the way they operate their fashion calendars. They
are much more of old guards when it comes to that, so the big question at
hand is how will that change how NYFW is perceived?
photo:simplymeasured.com