‘Fashion Seasons do not run concurrently with the actual season.’
OMG
The Fashion Industry drives me crazy.
Just as a season is beginning, the fashion world is releasing their collections for two seasons ahead.
It is all you can find in the stores.
Let me enjoy this season.
Let me enjoy summer.
I want to go into a store in June and look at shorts, not winter jackets.
Here are the names of the collections.
Spring/Summer.
Pre-Fall.
Autumn/Winter.
Resort/Cruise.
As you can see, there are lots.
It is hard to keep up as a client.
It must be even harder if you are a designer.
When it is summer, I think about summer.
Even though it may be August, I still want to buy a pair of shorts.
They are now relegated to the back corner of a store.
That is if you can find them.
The only good thing is that they are usually on sale.
When the season is here, that is when you are going to buy something for yourself for that season.
On a hot summer’s day in July, I am not looking at ‘Canada Goose.’
But that is what the store will be full of.
The opposite is true too.
I have not begun to think about shorts in February.
But maybe I should?
But why should I?
Why don’t ‘they’ slow down?
I think they are out of touch with the consumer.
I think they have become too insular.
Lost touch.
I am sure this cycle works for some people.
But I think it does not work for ‘us.’
People like you and me.
People in August who get tired of a pair of black shorts and want to buy a new pair.
You know there are at least two months you can still wear them.
But when you go looking for a new pair, shorts are long gone.
I am thinking about today.
It is a rainy early August day.
I was thinking of walking around downtown.
Going into a few stores and seeing what is up.
But I know what is up.
FALL and perhaps even a little WINTER.
It has been in their store front window for the past month.
And they wonder why their store is quiet?
It is summer.
I live in Montreal.
Winter is long.
Don’t make me think about it now.
I am not thinking about it now.
I will not think about it now.
It is not just me, some of the biggest designers agree.
Giorgio Armani says that the non-alignment between the weather and the commercial season is ‘criminal.’
He finds it ‘bizarre that in winter only linen dresses can be found in stores, and in summer coats made of alpaca wool.’
I do not think it is ‘rocket science.’
Ask anyone you know, and they will agree.
Our world and their world are out of sync.
Is it really that hard to change it?
In times when any advantage in any industry must be taken, this is a given.
I am sure they would clear out far more inventory too.
Less waste.
If I had a store, I would sell summer until the first day of fall.
Fall until the first day of winter.
You get the idea.
It would be kind of fun.
Close the last day of the season.
Restock and open again.
A new beginning, a new season.
I am trying to figure out something.
‘Is the Fashion Industry too far ahead, or too far behind?’
Insert thinking emoji here.
‘Wear it OUT’