Fashion industry encouraged to review merchandise output

The British Fashion Council and the Council of Fashion Designers of America have endorsed resetting “the way in which we work and show our collections.”

They have encouraged luxury fashion brands “to slow down,” and reconsider how much merchandise they produce.

The Italian Fashion Chamber is promoting three days of online presentation of men’s and women’s collections in July to substitute the regular June calendar. Gucci will participate with a collection called “Epilogue,” to represent the end of an era.

Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele imagines a twice yearly appointments — one in the fall and one in the spring — to present co-ed collections, getting away from the hyped-up calendar which has come to require pre-season collections before the major women’s and men’s runway shows and a one-off cruise collection, increasingly in exotic locations.

When the fashion communication rebirth that Michele envisions will happen remains to be seen.

He said September is too soon, while Saint Laurent only said it wouldn’t participate in any previously scheduled events this year.

Fashion chamber president Carlo Capasa can’t say when live shows might return to the agenda — but he says they are irreplaceable.

“I believe that the digital experience is important, but it should be tied with a physical experience,” Capasa told AP. “Whoever has been to a fashion show knows the importance of the setting and the emotions.”