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A group of influential fashion designers, retail executives and others on Tuesday issued a collective call for a more sensible calendar that would deliver clothing to stores in the season it can be worn, and institute discounting at the end of the season rather than the middle.
In a Zoom call, designer Dries van Noten, Lane Crawford chief executive Andrew Keith and Altuzarra chief executive Shira Sue Carmi described what they hope will redirect their global industry to an annual calendar that is more sensible for consumers, brands and stores. “This is a super challenging time but let’s not let this crisis go to waste,” said Carmi, who stepped into the job at Altuzarra in January just as the coronavirus was spreading.
“It’s not normal to buy winter clothes in May,” van Noten added. “It’s not normal to work with the design team on a collection that hits the shop floor one month and a half before it’s discounted at 50 per cent.”
It is an unusual coalition of luxury industry players — the petition has so far been signed by a lengthy list including Nordstrom, Bergdorf Goodman, Holt Renfrew, Mytheresa, Harvey Nichols, Tory Burch and Pierre-Yves Roussel, Marine Serre, Craig Green, Gabriela Hearst and Mary Katrantzou — and a cry of anguish. For several months, factories have been shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic and Spring 2020 collections sit unsold in shuttered stores and storerooms. Autumn collections are expected to arrive in September, just weeks before the normal calendar of store discounts begins.
What the statement isn’t is an actionable plan: antitrust laws in many countries prevent any formal agreement that would seek to control pricing decisions by the brands. Instead, the group, which doesn’t have a name, has posted the petition online at ForumLetter.org and is calling for more signatures in an informal display of unity.
None of the ideas under discussion are new. Brands and retailers have been calling for an end to early discounting since a wave of dramatic sales launched during the 2008 financial crisis. And buy-now-wear-now has been experimented with for at least five years — and even longer for proponents such as the designer Donna Karan. But they are given new urgency as a result of the pandemic.
The forum also raises awareness of the sheer amount of fashion products flooding the market, calling for an end to “unnecessary product”, less fabric and inventory waste, and less travel by making use of digital showrooms. Bringing that to fruition would require each company to alter the way it does business, including budgeting and production calendars. But some of these changes are already in the works: autumn collections will hit store shelves in the autumn this year because of Covid-related factory delays, and many brands are implementing digital showrooms in the interim, with travel largely shut down. But ultimately, to enact changes permanently will require hundreds of companies to individually change their operations.
Keith initiated the forum after receiving a request from an online platform he didn’t name asking if he’d join a discounting plan for Lane Crawford inventory. “It was one of those galvanising moments,” Keith said. He wrote to van Noten, and they quickly formed a group and organised what became three Zoom calls in which they created the forum and petition.
Van Noten described hoping that fashion week organisers will coordinate market weeks for pre-collections so that store buyers don’t have to fly repeatedly around the world to place orders. Keith noted that stores need to re-engage with consumers who have been trained that paying full price is a mistake because sales will begin within a few weeks of fashions being delivered to stores.
How does the industry make a reality out of this statement of intent?
“We don’t have the answer to that,” Keith said.
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