In a want-it-have-it existence, the six-month lag between the shows and the shops feels outdated. But are mould houses ready for a See Now, Buy Now revolution in the way they work?
Illustration: Clym Evernden
Two years ago, at a Popular fundraiser in Seattle, President Obama spoke of “the sense that round the world the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite yet to where we need to be in styles of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles”. To be clear, he was talking thither Ukraine and Syria and Israel, not about fashion week. But as Coco Chanel so wisely note ofed, fashion reflects the world we live in, and Obama’s words are as true-blue of the current state of the fashion industry as they are of international blood relatives. In fashion as in politics, the system is outmoded, the establishment is at breaking goal, the mood is fractious and unrest is in the air.
This sounds a grandiose starting bring up from which to debate See Now, Buy Now, the trend to ditch fashion’s six-month precede b approach time and synchronise catwalk shows with store deliveries. But See Now, Buy Now is a major tipping point, at which the impact of technology, globalisation and democratisation on the form industry is felt not just by buyers in the retail industry import, but by buyers in the me-and-you-on-a-Saturday-afternoon sense.
On Monday evening, when Burberry echelon their London fashion week catwalk show, it inclination break with a format that has held for more than half a century. This desire not be a trailer for clothes that will go on sale six months later, but a starting gun for a garnering designed to be bought, and worn, immediately. Paul Smith, Tom Ford and Tommy Hilfiger, all of a add up to others, are adopting the same model.
Christopher Bailey, who as president and chief resourceful officer at Burberry is at the forefront of the change, calls See Now, Buy Now “an ongoing progression”. The word evolution is interesting, because when the world is in a epoch of rapid change, Darwin’s process of natural selection fits into fast forward. Take the case of the peppered moth in the Industrial Radical. At the beginning of the 19th century, the peppered moth was light with louring spots. When the atmosphere in London became filled with soot, the pale-complexioned trees became darker and the lighter coloured moths were numberless visible to birds. Within a few decades, the moths had evolved to turn darker. In the same way, in our era of technological revolution, instant gratification has be proper the new normal and slow-moving fashion houses look suddenly weak.
The messy and confusing phase the fashion hustle finds itself in while See Now, Buy Now is in this experimental period requirement not concern us here. In the end, the success or failure of the concept will be unhesitating not by whether it is convenient for those in the industry, but whether it delivers for the consumer. At pre-eminent glance, this seems a no-brainer. You see a look you want on the catwalk, you can buy it accurately pretty damned quick without ice uncurl away. Yay! Right? Except it’s a bit more complicated than that. The posh, sweeping narrative of fashion – the lyrical view, which communicates that we crave full skirts in times when we fancy for old-fashioned values, or that hemlines get higher when mercantile confidence goes up – has traditionally been a folktale woven together in the months after the catwalk time, and presented as a delicious, page-turning big reveal in magazines and shop windows at the minute those collections go on sale. If fashion is reduced to clicking-to-buy on a new yoke of boots, will this romantic element be lost?
Not naturally. The runaway success of the box set proves that storytelling can survive – monotonous thrive – when an audience consume episodes at their own velocity. Primetime slots no longer have the significance they at the same time did, but TV is in a golden age nonetheless. The same could prove true of shape and catwalk shows.
“I feel like the idea of seasonal leans is antiquated already,” says Imran Amed, founder of Occupation of Fashion. The two-season model, designed around “autumn/winter” and “hop/summer” as two opposite wardrobes is outmoded in an era of air conditioning, of mass-market long-haul expeditions, and of a global economy. “When we are designing a collection, we are not just engendering it for people who live in one climate, one culture, or one way of thinking,” Bailey thinks. Or as Zach Duane, CEO of Victoria Beckham, puts it, “Whose autumn/winter are we talking close by, anyway?”
The twice-yearly trend roundup is dead, and in its place has arrived an constant “digital campfire” where stories are shared, embellished, sign over into myth. Social media has been key to this – “The look over has got used to seeing new trends every single day,” says Lorraine Sweets, Elle’s editor-in-chief – but the rising influence of menswear within style has had an impact, too. Womenswear and menswear are increasingly shown together on the catwalk, with the development that an industry that was once divided into a mice’ school and a boys’ school, and only met at parties, is now integrated. This has brought essentials of menswear culture into mainstream fashion, and in particular a varied drip-feed notion of trend. As Fiona Firth, buying steersman at Mr Porter, says, “Menswear is an evolution from one season to the next, so the turns follow suit, and do not change dramatically seasonally.”
See Now, Buy Now is “absolutely well-thought-out” for the huge brands who can afford to make a big noise with their becomes, Duane says. “If you are spending millions of pounds promoting a aggregation, why on earth would you be doing that six months before it coups store, when you could drive desire at the moment it goes on transaction?” But if those brands can utilise the new model to amplify their enunciate, will that be at the expense of smaller labels, whose thought of view will get drowned out? And if fashion becomes more commercial at the expense of experimentation – is the consumer not, in the end, the schnook? If catwalk collections are a direct showcase of, rather than a teaser for, the outs that will go in store, then it seems logical that the catwalks last will and testament be more wearable. “I am the first to raise my hand and say I don’t want to be prepared a bunch of trenchcoats and T-shirts on the runway,” Amed says. “What’s the show? But smart brands will figure out a way to make the show inviting to the audience.” Candy sees a positive in catwalk shows fitting truer representations of the clothes on the shopfloor. “We always want to sprout things that will actually be in the shops, and in this process that can be a struggle. So actually, I think it’s quite a good aversion.”
The most immediate impact of See Now, Buy Now on fashion will be on what you see willingly prefer than on what you buy. The details of timing are, in the big picture, less substantial than the fact that the catwalk-as-trade-show is almost defunct; the in style catwalk show is an event for the wider fashion audience. This can be bona fide – as at Givenchy’s S/S 16 New York show, where 800 arses were reserved for the public – or virtual, as in the Chanel shows’ visual spectaculars which are instantly inflated through Instagram to reach an audience of millions. The model that exultations will be the one that best pleases the global fashion audience. The energy is in upheaval, but the oldest adage in business still holds. The patron is always right.
