The collections are over. And aside from market appointments here and there, the next time one sees spring’s fabulous merch will be, well, spring. But talk of immediacy in fashion has been a major topic this year, with Donna Karan lead the “buy-now, wear-now” charge, and already some designers are listening. Case in point: Burberry’s Christopher Bailey, who has made selected runway offerings available for immediate purchase.
Rewind to 1994. The notion of retiming shipments was an equally hot-button subject. “The idea of delivering an increasingly larger share of a season’s inventory during the season in which it will be worn has been traditional for several years in the lower-end markets,” wrote WWD on May 25. “Only within the past year or so, however, after asking whether it still makes sense to deliver spring goods in the cold of February and fall goods in the heat of July and August, have designer and bridge firms begun to do something about it.”
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While some vendors acknowledged that retailers pushed for earlier deliveries in order to have longer selling periods, they questioned the practicality behind it. “I think that retailers often get the wrong impression of sales trends because there may be a flurry of activity when the clothes first arrive in the store,” remarked Stuart Kreisler, consultant to Biedermann Industries for its licensed Ralph Lauren women’s wear business. “But there aren’t enough of those shoppers to support the season.”
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Others pointed out how the issue was less about delivery date than the one for markdowns. “There should be rolling markdowns,” said Donna Karan president Steve Ruzow. “The March delivery can be marked down in May, but why mark down the merchandise that just arrived in April?”
And as for who actually shopped on the earlier side, even the designers interviewed noted that they didn’t. “I know they say there are those customers,” responded Anna Sui, “but I shop in the season and most of the people I know do.” Meanwhile, Ruzow keenly pointed out, “The real fashion customer isn’t even in the store when the collection arrives because she’s gone to a trunk show, or received a look book and placed her order. She knows she’s going to get what she wants.”