This Fashion Week’s shows saw the arrival of the much talked about see-now, buy-now model. Marking a major departure from the traditional seasonal fashion calendar, the shake-up was an interesting one - applauded, yet adopted by few. After the initial flurry of announcements in February from brands declaring their intention to embrace the new, the majority of fashion houses have reserved judgement, preferring to see how it pans out for their peers.
Arguably, the brands that have opted for it have given the rest of the industry the perfect excuse to watch from the sidelines and wait for the all-important figures. With the spectrum of labels spanning huge fashion houses - such as Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren and Burberry - to smaller, digitally savvy brands, such as Thakoon and Misha Nonoo, with Topshop Unique - a name with a rock-solid retail infrastructure behind it - in between, there will be a case study for everyone come mid-2017.
So who did what this season? Of the main participants, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren held retail-based extravaganzas in New York, where their autumn/winter 2016 collections were available immediately; Tom Ford amalgamated menswear and womenswear and showed autumn/winter 2016 in the middle of the spring/summer 2017 shows at NYFW; Topshop Unique unveiled its latest collection on the catwalk, online and in store simultaneously; and Burberry renovated an entire block in Soho, transforming it into Makers House, a place to discover and shop the world of co-ed Burberry straight after the show. The latter has gone so far as to dispel seasons completely and instead have the September Collection and the February Collection moving forward.
Then there were variations on the theme. Brands, including DSquared2, Public School and Vivienne Westwood, announced last month that they will join Vetements in showing spring/summer and autumn/winter in January and June respectively, to fall in line with the menswear show schedule and ensure that their collections have a longer shelf life.
While making sections of a collection available straight after a show is nothing new (capsule collections have been in the game for a while and this season were offered by Prada, Michael Kors and Vivienne Westwood), making the entire thing available poses more of a financial risk. As a result, the most pressing question prior to the shows was exactly what percentage each brand would put into production? (Ready-to-wear collections are well known to have smaller production scales than their pre-collection counterparts.) Of the brands that have adopted the model, the answer is - impressively - 100 per cent. As for the other burning question of when press would be able to see the collection to plan their photo shoots, it transpired that they had been invited in months before under embargo. So far, so good.
The future, however, is uncertain. One season in, there are many questions left to be answered and little in the way of figures to herald it a success, as a couple of well-known CEOs and creative directors have pointed out off the record. A main concern is that brands without a factory at their disposal will find it a struggle to produce their collections on demand. Many major brands have also questioned whether it is the right direction for a luxury industry to take (the Fédération Française de la couture, du prêt-à-porter des couturiers et des créateurs de mode unanimously opted out of adopting the format, saying that it had consulted all of its members and no one said the existing system was a problem). Additionally, while a couple of pre-show appointments are manageable, if editors are to see multiple collections in the months preceding the shows, how will they physically find the time - and budget - for this, as well as attend the four-week show schedule a month later?
As far as the latter is concerned, the collective information gathering that happens by creative teams attending the shows dictates the direction of editorial content and fashion shoots, and therefore attending is an essential part of the process. Not going is not an option. More importantly, see-now, buy-now brands may hold impressive on-schedule shows, but how will it be possible to style pieces from these collections with pieces from traditional collections if they need to be shot months before the other collections have even been finished? They will also have been on sale for some time before an issue is published months later (which challenges the notion of magazine exclusives and the weight that it brings). It has become apparent that not being able to style everything together points to problems when producing really great, all-encompassing shoots. So does this mark a shift in the way brands think their product is promoted most effectively?
One of the most interesting by-products to spring out of the see-now, buy-now model is the heightened role of the front-row influencer. If a fashion house chooses to take the risk of producing everything they have designed, then tapping into the power that a celebrity or respected front-row figure has to make their fans buy something they’ve been seen wearing makes for a profitable insurance policy.
Fashion houses are banking on this new generation of influencers yielding incredible spending power, and arguably the model relies on their cooperation to make sure that a brand’s gamble pays off. Topshop and Burberry, for example, had their famous front row wearing pieces from their collections last month, images of which were immediately bouncing around social media so that all of their followers and fans could covet their latest look - and conveniently shop it straightaway. Dolce & Gabbana - despite not going see-now, buy-now - proved what a crucial selling tool this has become by having a front row of influencers, mostly in their teens and early twenties, with a combined Instagram following of more than 20 million.
The significant hurdle that this presents is the increasing pressure by governing bodies such as the FTC for influencers to be transparent about when they have been given an incentive - monetary or otherwise - to promote something, and include a #sponsored or #promotion tag. Will sitting front row wearing an item from a collection come to constitute the same?
Apart from the obvious benefit of selling a seasonal collection in the actual season that it has been designed for, the advocates of the model say the positives include increased connection with the customer; an agile response to the demand by consumers; more independent aesthetics; and beating the high street on its catwalk copies. The negatives? An impact on exclusivity; increased costs for brands that don’t have their own supply chain; a hectic summer schedule for press; and compromised editorial fashion shoots, say the sceptics.
One thing that this season has confirmed, and on which everyone can agree, is that it’s going to take more than one season to see what sticks.LFW: Topshop On Leading The Charge.
