ADVERTISEMENT
The traditional structure of Fashion Week, particularly in New York, has been shifting for the past few seasons — and September’s shows felt like a turning point of sorts. This season, a number of designers are shaking up their show formats. Others are rejiggering their geographical logistics of where they're showing. Some are heavily utilizing social media to innovatively share their fall 2016 collections. And a few are taking a hiatus from staging a runway or presentation altogether.
Inclusivity was a big conversation at the spring 2016 shows, particularly concerning Givenchy's NYFW showing: Creative director Riccardo Tisci staged a massive show, in New York instead of Paris, for an audience that included the general public. Beyond Givenchy's one-off jaunt to NYC, we're seeing the fashion industry really consider how to make the Fashion Week experience more accessible, whether via social media or a markedly more diverse show audience. And while we don't quite have a Givenchy-level moment this season, Kanye West did offer up tickets to his Madison Square Garden fashion show-slash-album-release spectacle (mostly for concert-level prices).
This season, there's a heightened focus on consumers instead of the insular crowd that’s historically partaken in the fashion show experience: editors, buyers, stylists, and, more recently, bloggers (plus a few celebrities to populate the front row). It’s arguably a savvy business move, and since collection images crop up instantaneously on social media, it means the six-month lag from show to selling floor just doesn’t really make sense these days. Showing clothing that can immediately be purchased is a win for a wider consumer audience, though an added lift for print editors and store buyers who are still figuring out how to adapt to this lack of lead time.
Ahead, here are 21 noteworthy shuffles to the NYFW experience this season, and some insights into what it all means for the fall '16 collections (and you).
ADVERTISEMENT