moves away from the seasonal fall/winter and spring/summer releases towards seasonless collections. From September 2016 Burberry will replace its current four show calendar with two shows, one in February and the other September, which will feature both womenswear and menswear collections. The collections will be available to purchase instore and online immediately following the show. All store windows and point of sale material will also display the new collections straight after the shows conclude. According to the official spiel: “Seasonless, immediate, and personal, the new format and calendar have been designed with a global audience in mind.” Burberry chief creative and chief executive officer, Christopher Bailey, argued the new format will allow the brand to build a closer connection between the runway shows and store experience. “Our shows have been evolving to close this gap for some time,” Bailey said. “From livestreams, to ordering straight from the runway to live social media campaigns, this is the latest step in a creative process that will continue to evolve.” Tom Ford — who cancelled his New York runway show in February in favour of hosting one runway show in early September 2016 to coincide with the delivery of the clothes to stores — went further, declaring “fashion shows and the traditional fashion calendar, as we know them, no longer work in the way they once did.” “In a world that has become increasingly immediate, the current way of showing a collection four months before it is available to customers is an antiquated idea and one that no longer makes sense,” Ford said. “We have been living with a fashion calendar and system that is from another era. Our customers today want a collection that is immediately available.” Thomas O’Connor, principal research analyst at Gartner told Inside Retail Weekly, designing and releasing new product collections throughout the year is “bringing the elements of fast fashion from Zara and H&M to the world of luxury.” “It’s a huge departure from the tradition of luxury goods,” O’Connor said. “Brands would hold their show and then not release products for sale for a number of months. They would essentially take the temperature of feedback from their show and that would inform what products they would actually commercialise or it may well influence decisions around product investment. “The real question is: will other luxury retailers embrace the concept? We’ve already started to see some other luxury retailers come on board with it.” O’Connor cited Louis Vuitton, which tested out the concept in May for its Cruise 2017 show, where they made seven of its runway bags, rather than the entire collection,  available for sale directly after the show. Opposition to fast luxury trend However not all of the luxury houses are supportive of the concept. Francois-Henri Pinault, CEO of Kering, which owns Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent has stated shaking up the fashion calendar “negates the dream” of luxury and making customer wait six months “creates desire.” Similarly the CEO of Dior, part of the LVMH stable, has sworn off the concept too. “The interesting piece about Dior swearing off it is, Dior and Louis Vuitton are owned by the same entity,” O’Connor said. “It’s fascinating to see that within a group like LVMH there seems to be a bit of difference of opinion.” The advantage of making collections available immediately is brands are able to capitalise on the excitement and publicity generated by runway shows. O’Connor believes this is the fundamental reason Burberry has adopted the new model. “A real advantage for Burberry in this instance would be that they are able to capitalise on the recent effect,” O’Connor said. “They could really capitalise on the momentum that’s built around that show rather than needing to wait for a period. It really does drive consumers into store to purchase.” Tom Ford said an enormous amount of money and energy were spent staging an event too far in advance. “Showing the collection as it arrives in stores will remedy this, and allow the excitement that is created by a show or event to drive sales and satisfy our customers’ increasing desire to have their clothes as they are ready to wear them,” Ford said. Going straight from the catwalk to stores, luxury brands run the risk of misinterpreting market demand. Over investing in a particular product could increasing obsolesce and the need for some brands to discount, O’Connor said. “There’s options for luxury brands as they start looking into this fast luxury concept as to how they want to approach it,” O’Connor said. “It might mean they start to do smaller runs of products that they make available immediately following the show. “It doesn’t mean that they have to make their full investment at that time, or they might look at different ways within their supply chain that they can bring products to market faster so they’re then able to respond to what the market immediately says following the runway event.” Access exclusive analysis, locked news and reports with Inside Retail Weekly. Subscribe today and get our premium print publication delivered to your door every week.