Gucci Just Left the Fashion Calendar Behind. Who Will Follow?
Gucci to Go Seasonless, Show Twice Per Year
This week, everyone will be talking about Gucci's move to a seasonless schedule, Memorial Day sales — or lack thereof — how beauty retailers will reopen stores and luxury's bet on resort dressing. Get your BoF Professional Cheat Sheet.
- “I will abandon the worn-out ritual of seasonalities and shows to regain a new cadence,” wrote designer Alessandro Michele in a diary entry posted to Gucci’s Instagram
- The Italian megabrand is planning a virtual press conference for Monday
- The move follows Saint Laurent’s decision to break with the conventional fashion calendar and calls from independent designers to overhaul the fashion system
The Covid-19 pandemic is shaking the fashion sector to its core, prompting brands big and small to reevaluate the traditional system — conceived for a pre-internet, pre-global era — that has long governed the industry’s approach to developing, showing, delivering and discounting collections. Gucci’s move to go seasonless and scale back shows to twice per year throws the weight of a megabrand behind the drive for change. Saint Laurent, which is also owned by French conglomerate Kering, has announced its intention to skip Paris Fashion Week this September and reshape its schedule for showing collections for the rest of the year. In recent weeks, a forum fronted by Belgian designer Dries Van Noten and a group facilitated by BoF have both published proposals for overhauling the fashion system.
The Bottom Line: Who else will join the call for change? LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group, which owns Louis Vuitton, Dior, Fendi and Celine, has been conspicuously silent.