INDUSTRY INSIDER: Fashion Week Won't Be The Same This Time Around

How houses handle the circus of Fashion Week is well worth watching.

 The digital era has gotten its claws into fashion and it’s a hell of a grip. 

Instagram, Vine and Tumblr in alignment with convenient clothing options has spelled that anyone can be a curator of taste. The solstice of style, for people like myself, is Fashion Week. All price points can gather up and exhibit themselves and have their picture taken. The streets themselves become a gallery for all to enjoy. In NY, Fashion Week has become a peacock frenzy.  

The event of street style snaps outside of the actual shows have grown so much that now, designers now have to actively address this issue. 

There are two very visible, polarizing views of the how to handle fashion week in the digital era. In one corner, Givenchy, in collaboration with the NYC municipality, is offering free seats, up to 820, to the general public to see the show (by the time you’re reading this it’s too late). In the other corner, IMG is trimming the circus from the festivities.

Ricardo Tisci of Givenchy, like Olivier Rousteing of Balmain and Jeremy Scott of Moschino, embraces low brow culture (in the kind of way Warhol did back in the 80s) and has found a way to marry high brow branding with low brow accessibility for exposure creating limitless impressions on faithful, new and potential future customers.  

Meanwhile, IMG has decided to close ranks and screen the audience, media and even vendors. I think the message ‘we can’t sit with them’ is quite clear.  What’s not clear is IMG’s intention. Are they trying to bring fashion back to the glory days of exclusion?

Retail, with the exception of off-price, has been missing quarterly estimates, consistently. Truth be told, a lot of your favorite fashion houses don’t make any money on clothing, and is buoyed by their lower priced and more accessible accessories, beauty and fragrance (but that’ll be another conversation). Designers have a new boss, the more vocal and educated consumer. Can designers give us what we want, or even remain relevant by being an island of cool and beautiful people? Not only do I think there is a disconnect between fashion offerings and fashion demand, but I also believe that in this era, isolation is brand suicide.

Fashion Week is the start of a new year for fashion followers like myself. This is that window of time to generate buzz and create an experience for fans. Unless the designer has a stand-alone store, or hosts events, there isn’t another opportunity to create that real experience for shoppers. The designers are leaving that experience completely up to the sales people at the point of sale. Tragic.

While I do feel that fashion belongs to everyone, there is the argument that maybe the houses under the IMG umbrella are looking to be less ubiquitous. I’m sure the rollercoaster of Michael Kors struck fear in the hearts of many (yikes!). So we will have to just wait and see what seeds were sown with these actions. I’m almost positive positions excluding the public will change, and ‘inclusion’ will be the name to stay in the game. This is the power of the internet.