Seasonless style from the 2012 catwalks. Photograph: Victor/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images/photomontage
When the fashion shows begin next month in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, designers will be show their collections for autumn/winter 2013.
In recent years, winter collections have included exotic hothouse flowers and miniskirts with bare legs and sunglasses, while the most recent round of summer shows featured layering, coats and a whole lot of very winter-worthy black.
This is part of a trend towards a sort of seasonless style. In a world where we spend time in artificially cold or warm environments thanks to air conditioning and central heating, the demarcations between the seasons are not as clear as they once were. Add the wash-out summers and warmer winters created by climate change, plus the growing global market for high fashion, and the blurring makes even more sense. It may be around 7C (45 degrees Fahrenheit) in London, but in Mumbai it's 34C (93 degrees Fahrenheit) and humid.
This is a problem at the heart and soul of the fashion industry right now; recently, Vogue ran a three-page article addressing the problem in a recent issue and designers are getting involved in the debate.
"The problem at the moment is that you look at a winter show and you want to see warm clothes," says Jonathan Saunders. "In actual fact, in the whole other half of the hemisphere, it's warm, and you deliver in July."
To an increasingly show-literate audience of shoppers who have style.com in their bookmarks bar and get access to behind-the-scenes snaps from fashion insiders on Instagram, the collection in store starts to look a bit stale earlier than it used to. We have all seen the new range on the runway – even if we can't buy it yet. In a world where you can get a movie instantly, or download a song in seconds, our patience for waiting for season-led content is wearing thin.
Even though Saunders believes that eventually the industry will have to change to accommodate this new demand, Susannah Frankel, fashion director of Grazia says,
"Pre-collections have probably been more visible for about the past five years." Grazia is a weekly fashion publication in the UK. "The rise of fast fashion partly explains that – people know a lot more about fashion now than they used to and they want to see new things more often."
So will this end seasonal fashion show? No, not really… these show will continue to evolve like everything…
"The show is about the brand image and the pre-collections are about keeping that momentum," says Ruth Chapman, founder of London boutique Matches. "These pieces need to be transseasonal. Our online business is 50% international and the climates where people live obviously make a big difference."
Fashion designers will be able to focus on fashion rather than designing relative to a particular season. Jennifer Baca, managing director of British label Erdem
"We have to service the customer in the Middle East, Florida, Russia – everywhere," she says. "It's mind-boggling… These clothes are going to be on the floor for a long time," she says. "We ship resort in October, it's in store from November to May. When the main collection hits the store in January, it gives clients a breath of newness."
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