Kering Rejects See Now, Buy Now Shows

Fans of Gucci will continue to have to wait six months or more to buy pieces they love on the catwalk, as the brand rejects the new see now-buy now fashion calendar. Francois-Henri Pinault - CEO of French luxury conglomerate Kering, which controls Gucci and a raft of other top-tier fashion houses - feels that the new concept, advocated by brands including Burberry and former Gucci designer Tom Ford, "negates the dream" of luxury and that waiting for the pieces "creates desire" for his labels.

"There are some brands for which a runway show is a communications event," Pinault - whose company also controls Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen among others - told Bloomberg. "Burberry has doubtless decided what suits it best. What we will decide will be what suits our brands and our vision of luxury."

There is also the small matter of how well Kering, and Gucci in particular, iscurrently performing. The company, enjoying its second season under creative director Alessandro Michele after a less illustrious recent past, sold through so successfully last season that it elected not to implement any end-of-season markdowns at all, meaning that Pinault may be perfectly safe in thinking that what isn't broken doesn't need to be fixed.