Ten Big Luxury Brands Are Skipping Fashion Week - Forbes

Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors, Coach, Tory Burch decided to skip New York Fashion week. Burberry in London. Gucci, St. Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen in Milan and Paris also skipped fashion week. Is this a new trend? Some of the biggest fashion brands in the industry are not participating in the fashion weeks.

What has happened?

None of the houses listed above have stopped marketing their fashion and their latest look. Most of the labels are staging events of their own to attract buyers. As a matter of fact, many of the labels are reviewing their strategy in order to include social media and gain an individual focus of their presentations.

Bof F states that by skipping shows during the fashion week creates structural opportunities. By skipping fashion week and delaying their shows until closer to the selling seasons assures a closer sensible relationship between public presentations and when the fashion is in stores. This has been a big problem in the past, when fashions were shown too early to be in demand.

In addition, one must consider that the fashion is marketed globally and consumer demand newness at uncanny speed. Gucci has done away with seasonal collections completely. There is no longer a Spring/Summer or Autumn/Winter collection. The company now continually adds new items to their collections. Gucci takes advantage of digital story telling for new additions to the collection. It is a seasonless collection that creates the opportunity for more frequent visit by customers to the store to review “what’s new”.

What will happen?

One can envision a return to fashion weeks as the pandemic abates. It will be different than before. Some have suggested a global event instead of a month-long circuit that winds itself from New York to London to Milan and finally to Paris. The global event could be held in Paris, New York, Shanghai, Milan, Tokyo or London at different times of the year.

The event could be pushed later into the season although that would shorten the delivery period to a shorter period. It is also likely that design houses will find it profitable to have fewer events. The cost both to participate in shows and the cost to attend the shows for buyers is very high and during the recent lock-up we have discovered that many decisions can be made at home. Physical shows are very powerful marketing platforms, but by bundling them together they will become more effective and will attract a greater audience.

We are living in a period of change. The Fashion Week is the industry’s way to define fashion for the coming season. A new format would be exciting and rewarding to the individual fashion houses.

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