update to last post: And So It Begins

Well, just as we were discussing speeding up the fashion cycle and access for all... It was recently announced that NY Socialite Lauren Santo Domingo has partnered with an ex-Gilt founder to launch a site- Moda Operandi- that will allow shoppers to buy from the runway 48 hours after the show has taken place. It will work like a trunk show- they'll take your orders (with a deposit of course) and you'll receive the pieces when they're ready.

Is that quick enough for you?

Let 'em in!?

I recently was on Style.com looking at the much talked about Prada runway show and I started to think how great it would be to hear the music that went with the show, to see one outfit transition into another on the runway....and then it occurred to me that it was probably available on their site- I mean, it was done last year already by others- no matter how resistant the Italians have been to technology maybe it's there- didn't Prada just update their site?  So off to Prada.com go I, et voila!

Well, isn't this fabulous?! I enjoyed the show: loved that it showed un-matchy-matchy outfits that shouldn't work but do, loved that Miucca can pull off the granny look more elegantly than nobody's business and watched Suzy Menkes' little hair bubble run out of the front row (probably to the next show). I felt like I was there watching from the nose-bleed section.

But (and there's always a but) is it all getting too public? Will the riff raff wreck the Ball? Should everyone be able to see this THIS quickly?

Just last week, NY Mag had an article entitled "Shop the Runway: 20 Fashion Week Looks for $200 or less". It took looks from NY Fashion Week and matched them up with pieces available in stores now. This isn't necessarily new- the fashion crowd have been influenced by the runway as soon as we saw the photos in WWD the next day, but this is now reaching out to those not in the industry- those who's money makes up the business of fashion in the big dollar way- in the derivative market (we all remember the blue sweater scene from Devil Wears Prada).

Back in February, Donna Karan said that we need to return to in-season deliveries as well as stating that we are killing our own industry with making it all too public. Recently, Imran Amed from BoF interviewed Natalie Massenet, founder of Net-a-Porter and he posed the question regarding the speed of seasons. Her response? We should take a season off and let everyone catch up. (Click to see interview here)

The new buzz surrounds an article in the IHT where Suzy Menkes questions whether shows are needed at all as designers increasingly rely on short movies for showing their collections (and advertising campaigns). Leader of the fashion show-movie genre, Nick Knight says in the article- “Firstly, it is a true artistic expression that the designers can control,” he said. “Secondly they can get so many more people, from 300 to three million. And because — although it hasn’t happened yet — designers will want to sell their clothes.” By this he is referring to instant ordering online that would take place while still watching or shortly after the show has finished.

We know that the internet is going to change the fashion industry- it already has. We can see things faster, more closely, and have more accessibility for purchasing across countries and currencies. But will it be affected by letting the "behind the scenes" parts not be so "behind"?

So this leads me to ask the following:

- are designers letting too many cats out of the bag and will there be no surprises when that season comes around?

- are we already sick of the clothes before they go into the stores? or, on the opposite side of the coin- have the consumers been salivating so long that they rush the stores the moment the collection hits?

- will we still need people to "translate" the runway trends when we can see them, sit on them and work it out ourselves?

What are your thoughts?

PS- all images are from the Prada S'11 show- check it out!

New Topic: NOW is the time

With another fashion season here I thought this may be a good time to bring up something that seems to be taken for granted but yet gets re-assessed from time to time- the question of "what is the fashion of NOW?"

While purging some old articles I came across a NYT piece by Guy Trebay posing the question of why designers don't seem to be able to design for TODAY and why there is a constant revisiting of past decades or a jump ahead to the future for reference. In fact, he begins the article by asking "When did today become such an impossible idea?" (read the article here)

Just recently, after the Christian Dior couture show, fashion expert Suzy Menkes made a statement that Galliano "could have done with a little less past and a little more present."

So while Nicholas Ghesquiere can do a fashion show in 2006 that many said referenced fashion in 2025 and Dior is referencing the 40's, 50's and the days when women rode side saddle (and getting critiqued for it), we can ask "what would fashion of 2010 look like?"

Previously to the Couture shows, the Men's Fall 2010 collections showed an abundance of heritage looks, reflecting the respective brands' expertise and origins. This in itself has been an ongoing theme for several seasons now. But are we learning anything new?

Looking back to go forward is not new and many would argue that the mood of fashion reflects the mood of the people at the time- optimism leads to fashion influenced by happy times (ie the 50's) and bad times reference dark and rebellious (ie gothic or punk). And sometimes we want to put the past and future together (Steampunk). Karl Lagerfeld was recently asked about futurism to which he responded "I hate that. I don't believe in avant-garde clothes for a future that will never happen. Fashion is always now."

But is it?

So the questions are asked:
- what would fashion of 2010 look like if designers had to reference only that year?
- what does the word "modern" mean?
- can we design a collection without referencing the past or future? Is it even possible?
- do consumers drive this by living in the tomorrow and buying for next week?
- what does it mean to live in the NOW and do we really want to?

Discuss.