I don’t even think when I’m walking down the runway. I don’t really breathe either.—Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Has the usefulness of the fashion runway gone away or is it simply changing?
Pass out the brown paper bags. There are dozens of people in the fashion world who are currently hyperventilating. First came the news early this morning from Christopher Bailey that Burberry is cancelling its men’s presentation after this season. Instead, they will combine both men’s and women’s ready-to-wear into two seasonless shows per year, which will be called September and February, rather than Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. Then, around 10:00 EST this morning, Tom Ford cancelled his NYFW show for this season. Instead, he will come back in September and show his fall/winter line then, in the fall, when people actually need it.
What both designers are doing is something that has been discussed heavily in fashion circles for the past six years or more: aligning the runway with retail. Both brands say they will offer runway items for sale immediately after the runway presentation. Rather than waiting six months for their favorite garments to hit the stores, customers will be able to purchase their favorite ensembles while they’re still fresh on their minds through the brand’s website.
Of course, this means some serious changes behind the scenes, starting with the supply chain. Traditionally, a designer creates the design, shows the design, waits for buyers to order the design (and request changes), and then send the design pattern to manufacturers. Obviously, that system cannot possibly work with an order-on-demand concept. Instead, designers and suppliers have to work together from the moment a design is sketched out. Decisions about fabrics and detailing have to be made further in advance and, once committed, are not easily changed. By the time the runway show comes around, what models are wearing is not a one-of-a-kind designer sample, but a finished product ready to be sold. Expect some challenges and delays as both the Burberry and Ford teams struggle to make this work. At the very least, I would expect some delays the first few seasons.
A second big difference is that this change dramatically changes the role of the department store buyer. Whereas the buyers have traditionally been able to request (or demand) changes in a garment before it hits the store shelves, this new off-the-runway concept does away with that option if stores want what is selling right now, and we know they all do. Stores that insist on holding out for changes will be behind the curve in offering designs that have already been available elsewhere. Does this mean buyers will be included in design conversations earlier in the process? That’s certainly possible, but then a designer has to made the decision which buyers to include and which to leave out. Too many cooks spoil the broth and too many opinions ruin a good design.
All of this comes as fast fashion has blurred seasonal lines and forced many designers into year-round designing with as many as eight different collections coming from major brands each year. Designers have been showing increasing signs of fatigue and the hectic schedule undoubtedly plays a role in why fashion has become increasingly boring. Who has time to think and be creative when there’s always another line that needs to go out NOW! By doing away with the antiquated season schedule, this puts designers back in control of what clothing is available when.
At the same time, the move acknowledges that modern runway shows are not the insider-only events they once were. Most major designers now stream their shows live, which allows potential customers to see what’s coming down the runway, fueling desires. Live-streamed shows are fantastic advertisements for the brands, but then shoppers forget what they liked by the time clothes actually hit stores, and often what they liked off the runway no longer exists in the same form. Buying off the runway is great for consumers and is likely to help bolster what have been some depressing sales numbers, especially for Burberry.
This is not so great, however, for department stores who may be beginning to feel a bit left out of the loop as the whole retail concept is beginning to feel more and more antiquated. Exactly how they will respond and how labels plan to address the issue remains to be seen.
Again, there are going to be plenty of bugs needing to be worked out, but should this experiment prove profitable for Ford and Burberry, be sure that many more designers are likely to follow suit. Department stores might do well to be concerned, but customers should be ready to celebrate.
Bookstores And Dreaming: A Natural Combination
A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.—Jerry Seinfeld
Bookstores do so much to stoke our imaginations that our dreams cannot help but be influenced by what we see there
This past summer, I was downtown Chattanooga, Tennessee with two of my sons enjoying Moon Pies and Coca-Cola when we came across a store they hadn’t visited before. The storefront was unassuming, a simple black on yellow sign giving the name of the store but not really indicating its contents. From the opposite side of the street, glare prevented seeing through the plate glass window, so we chose to investigate.
Walking through the door, our senses were immediately overwhelmed. Books lined hand-made shelves from one end of the store to the other. Not just new books, either. Beautiful, old, brown-at-the-edges books that had been loved and read for years upon years were there, some dating back to the very first part of the 20th century. My boys are equally avid readers as their parents and quickly took to exploring everything they could find in the stacks. There were books they’d never known were available. Books that were so far out of print that even digital reprints can’t be had. Every genre one could imagine, at every reading level, was right there, waiting to be explored, to be loved, and perhaps to be taken home. Had common sense not prevailed, we might have gone broke.
Bookstores were once a staple of Western culture, a part of life that was critical to society. Having a bookstore meant a town had vision to look beyond itself. Having more than one bookstore meant the city was open to ideas and fostered intellectual pondering. Bookstores were part of a neighborhood identity and their contents gave as clear a demographic picture as any census or survey. Bookstores were heaven.
Then came the mega stores, Borders and Barnes & Noble, that forced the small mom-and-pop stores out of business. We griped. We complained. But the new stores had coffee and would let us sit and browse for hours without actually making a purchase, so we still shopped there.
Along came the Internet and a man named Jeff Bezos introduced us to this thing called Amazon.com and the entire business of bookselling changed. There were easy comparisons. There were ready reviews. There were lower prices; sometimes significantly lower. Slowly but surely, even the biggest brick and mortar bookstores began to close or severely downsize. While bookstores still exist, they’re much more difficult to find.
Yesterday, a mall real estate developer, Sandeep Mathran, said during a corporate earnings call that Amazon, that giant online retailer that drove everyone else out of business, is going to open between 300-400 new brick-and-mortar bookstores. The Internet lost its collective mind. Yes, we understand the irony. At the same time, though, the romantic thought of 400 new bookstores dotting the country got everyone very excited.
Since that initial statement was released, there has been speculation that Mr. Mathran may have been trying to paint a picture for investors that is less than accurate. Amazon has refused to confirm or deny Mathran’s statement and persons close to the company say the move doesn’t make financial sense for the retailer. So, don’t go planning those browsing trips just yet.
Still, we like to dream and nothing fuels dreams any faster than do bookstores. While shopping online might be more cost effective and give us access to a wider range of books, nothing beats wandering the aisles of a bookstore and finding titles and authors we would not have considered otherwise. Bookstore shopping is very different than online book shopping. When we shop online, we are typically looking for something specific, either in terms of subject or author. We might, occasionally, click on the automated recommendations of the website, but we go to the site with a fair idea of what we want to buy.
When we shop in a bookstore, however, we allow ourselves the option to browse. We might go in looking for a specific book, but then we stay and look at different genres, explore different interests, and allow ourselves to be swept away by all the possibilities. Instead of leaving with just one book, we are more likely to walk out the door with multiples.
As much as I like bookstores, I will admit that I frequently do shop Amazon. Not only do I shop on Amazon, I sell on Amazon. You can buy all my books, including the one in the pictures above, by clicking this link. One of the great advantages of Amazon is it that they have the ability to sell print-on-demand titles that a bookstore would not be able to stock. Where I would never be able to convince Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million to carry my tomes, Amazon is eager to cooperate.
I love bookstores and can get lost spending hours wandering the stacks. I would not complain at all if Amazon were to actually open several brick-and-mortar stores (though 400 does sound unreasonably aggressive). Bookstores and dreaming are a natural combination and I don’t know any creative person who doesn’t like to dream. We’ll wait and see what happens. Should Amazon open a store near me, though, don’t expect to find me online too often. I’ll be somewhere midst all the shelves, indulging in dreams.
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