The New York Times recently made waves with their article, “Is New York Fashion Week Near the End of the Runway?” The article traced the history of fashion week in New York City as well as voicing several negative opinions about the runways shows and showrooms that swamp September. To quote one of the main creators of Mercedes-Benz fashion week, Fern Mallis, “Fashion Week needs to be rethought”. So, what does that mean for you as a fashion industry professional?
If you are a designer, the good news is that there are a lot more opportunities to show your fashion collections to the public. Bloggers, fashion photographers and other members of the fashion world are going to more shows then ever with a total number of 350 shows and 9 presentations (even more if you count the ones not on the official stages of Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week). The extensive number of shows can act as double-edged sword; more designers have a chance to show but at the same time, more designers have compete for exposure with all the other designers who are now able to show their collections.
Fashion week is officially scheduled for only a week, but the other outlying events now consumes all of September with the unofficial start being the Vogue Magazine Event, Fashion Night Out. After Fashion Week leaves New York, it moves to London, then Milan and finishes in Paris in October. The main purpose of the event is to generate buzz for designer’s collections for the next season, in this case, spring apparel.
If you’re a fashion blogger, that means you are tweeting, posting and instagramming like mad! Everyone is trying to find new ways to post information, images and videos of the fashion chaos on social media websites and that is where I believe the true chance of opportunities lies. During the last fashion week, the App, “Vine”, made its debut and became a smash hit with the fashion elite. Now, “Vine” is used by social media users of all ages and interests to share video snippets online. The way we share images and experiences has changed drastically in the past decade with the rise of social media and technology so I am terribly excited to see how the technology world will rise to the challenge of fashion week. Will fashion week one day just be a video stream available live online to all viewers and not just those worthy of a seat at fashion week? It would in a sense, democratize fashion, which is not something the fashion world embraces generally. All we can say is, it will be a most interesting fashion week indeed and we can’t wait to watch!
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