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In Paris, during the latest Fashion Week, the thermometer reached 28 degrees. In the streets people were still wearing T-shirts and shorts, while the shop windows displayed coats, heavy jackets and autumn-winter collections. A contradiction that is starting to weigh seriously on companies’ accounts.
The problem was also raised by Reuters, which on October 7 devoted an in-depth report to the effects of ever-higher temperatures on the fashion calendar. Autumns are getting longer, the cold arrives later and consumers postpone their winter purchases. Meanwhile stores fill up with goods that risk reaching the sales before they have even been worn.
For those who know apparel production and distribution, the issue is fairly obvious. Collections are designed many months in advance, orders are collected when the climate conditions of the following season are still unknown, and deliveries follow established commercial schedules. But today those schedules are beginning to show their limits.
Nicolas Ghesquière, at Louis Vuitton, acknowledged the influence of heat waves on his creative choices, introducing lighter fabrics and less heavy constructions. It is an interesting signal, because the change also concerns the way a garment is conceived, not only the moment at which it is sold.
Personally, I believe the industry must above all rethink the composition of its collections. Fewer pieces conceived for a few weeks of cold, more attention to intermediate weights, to fabrics and to the possibility of wearing the same garment for longer periods. Not forgetting that an unsold coat is tied-up capital, with consequences for margins and for the following season.
Fashion continues to present spring-summer and autumn-winter according to a calendar that belongs to its industrial history. The climate, however, no longer respects those deadlines. And consumers, understandably, dress according to the temperature they find outside the door, not the one foreseen by the maisons’ schedules.
