Shhhh! Pretend You've Never Seen Those Styles
By TRACIE ROZHON
Published: September 7, 2004
Carol Halebian for The New York Times
When buyers from the biggest stores in the world take their seats before the hotly lighted runways of New York's Fashion Week, which starts tomorrow, they will uphold the fiction that they are seeing the new silhouettes, the new styles and the new colors from American designers for the first time. The waiting — and the pre-show chatter — intensifies; when a hush descends, the audience sits up in anticipation.
In fact, retailers have had a major sneak peek. Leading department stores have already bought 60 to 80 percent of their fashions for spring 2005, from exactly the same labels, in a growing market known as designer "pre-collections."
Quietly exhibited in Seventh Avenue showrooms in the weeks and months before Fashion Week, the clothes will arrive in stores from November through January, at least three months ahead of the traditional, post-catwalk orders.
And while most of the fashion press and its readers — increasingly the target audience for runway shows — will see spring styles for the first time during Fashion Week, any store buyer worth his or her Palm organizer knows what is ahead.
"The runway grows directly out of the pre-collections," said Nancy Murray, a spokeswoman for Polo Ralph Lauren. Mr. Lauren started doing pre-collections last fall because of consumers' growing demand to buy designer fashion ahead of the conventional seasons, and more frequently than twice a year. "We did a lot of research," Ms. Murray said.
The volume of clothing sold in pre-spring and pre-fall collections, just a trickle not long ago, has now remade the retail landscape, merchants and designers say. The fashion industry is jumping to fill stores with clothes when America's luxury shoppers want them: all the time.
Last year Americans spent an estimated $62 billion on luxury clothes, shoes and accessories, up almost $4 billion from the previous year. Although midmarket department stores have struggled recently, luxury purveyors like Neiman Marcus (which owns Bergdorf Goodman) are flourishing; its sales rose 17.2 percent in August compared with the same month last year.
Depending on the designer, "up to 80 percent, maybe even 90 percent of the buy is already made — starting maybe back in June," said Suzanne Patneaude, the vice president for designer apparel at Nordstrom. She and other buyers have already visited New York, Paris and Milan — and much of what they selected is now being made in China, Italy and elsewhere.
For designers, the demand for extra collections "is a new phenomenon, and the key is that fashion consumers are more informed than ever before — there's an ever-growing preponderance of magazines and fashion shows on television," said Tom Murray, the president of Calvin Klein. "We've found that when we can get new fashion out, they're ready to buy early — and this is becoming a much bigger part of our business."
Five years ago, stores bought 20 to 30 percent of the Klein collections early, Mr. Murray said. "Now they buy 50 to 60 percent before the runway," he said. "Even the mainstream customer wants to see something fashion-driven, something that typifies the trends, something new in her closet."
Whereas pre-collections used to offer mainly wardrobe staples like black pants and ivory tops, increasingly they embody the same glamour and fashion edge that a designer imparts to a runway collection. "Now the kiss of death for pre-collection is to shout basic," said Robert Burke, the fashion director of Bergdorf's.
Designers like Francisco Costa, who took over the Calvin Klein label last year, say that pre-collections serve as a "testing ground" for the runway. If retail buyers embrace a look in pre-spring, that look can be developed and embellished for the runway.
For example, Mr. Costa said he showed a sea-green silk dress "wrapped like a towel" in his pre-collection. The dress, which he described as a hit, will be shipped to stores in late fall or early winter. A variation on the dress — the same color and style, but mixing silk with other fabrics — will be unveiled on the runway as if it were a revelation at the Calvin Klein show next Tuesday. The runway dress, Mr. Costa said, will be slightly more flamboyant — and slightly more expensive than its predecessor.
In Vera Wang's pre-spring collection, she showed buyers a gold sleeveless dress with a vaguely Hawaiian print in a dark burgundy. The same colors and edging will appear again — "in day dresses, and evening, and pants and tops" on her runway on Friday, Ms. Wang said.
Ms. Wang orders fabric for both her pre-spring and spring collection together, ensuring that the two will be stylistically similar. She said that she sells 70 percent of her ready-to-wear clothes in pre-collections. Like other designers, she still saves the most individualistic, drop-dead designs for the runway.
Interviews with retailers and designers about the pre-collections offered a glimpse of the direction of spring 2005. The tweeds of fall will be followed by the tweeds of spring, especially in black and white. The trend for ladylike clothing in bright colors is continuing, but everything is more subtle (goodbye, ruffles). Pink is still big, but it won't be of Day-Glo intensity; greens and blues will appear "drowned," as if glimpsed through water.
"Day dresses are very important — a bit more whimsical and fun," Mr. Burke said. Reading off a list prepared by his staff at Bergdorf's, he continued: "Sleeveless sheaths that are belted at the waist — very retro 50's. Eyelet dresses in dusty pastels. Printed floral in chiffon. There are also great sundresses that are long — mid-ankle — from Jil Sander and Marni."
Even smaller-volume, high-end designers like Oscar de la Renta have begun offering pre-collections to get more merchandise into stores. "There is no question about it — the American woman is demanding more clothes, more often," Mr. de la Renta said in his Seventh Avenue workroom last Thursday, while adjusting the hem on a model's raspberry silk evening gown to be offered up at his show next Monday.
European designers, including Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel, have also started offering pre-collections — but not for Europeans. They are mainly for the American market. "Europeans buy in the season — they buy spring clothes in spring," Ms. Patneaude of Nordstrom explained. Is this confusing for the European designers? "Yes," she said, "but they have no choice — if they want to sell in America, they have to do pre-collections. They have to ship to America early, by December at the latest. Then they must prepare to ship to the European market in March."
Mr. Burke especially hailed the pre-collections of Dolce & Gabbana. "They put so much fashion in the pre-collections, it's hard to distinguish the two," he said. "Dolce's even perfected the shipping: three times a season."
None of this has made the runway obsolete. From 20 to 40 percent of the American designer clothes that stores buy will be bought after the catwalk shows. But they are typically the rare and exotic birds, the peacocks and flamingos of the collections. And a store may decide to order just one or two of the buyers' favorites, to display on mannequins, in windows, and to add to the excitement of the line.
Runway shows are still important. But their role is changing — from a market to a marketing device, intended to affect consumers rather than retailers, and meant to generate excitement with the public through photographs, television footage and Web coverage. "A lot of it is, very frankly, for the press," Mr. Murray of Calvin Klein said.
There is another role for the runway. Designers and stylists tweak the clothing and add accessories to outfits to accentuate their creative message. "The trends really get cemented on the runways," Mr. Burke said. "Last fall, there were so many brooches and flat shoes and bows and furs as accessories — and that all happened on the runway."
All during the week before their shows, designers are changing the lineup, changing the selection of jewelry and handbags and shoes that complete an outfit, making it more photogenic, more magazine-cover-worthy.
"Designers start adding embellishment, changing the lengths of skirts — that kind of thing," Mr. Burke said. "And those things should happen. But you can't build a business on that kind of spontaneity."
