Tom Ford SS16 campaign

A few months ago the CFDA was discussing possible plans to turn New York Fashion Week into a more in-season, consumer-focused event on the back of the social media/live streaming revolution. We’ve not heard so much about that lately but designers seem to be going ahead and making changes anyway.

The only problem is that they’re not all making the same changes.

Tom Ford and label-of-the-moment Vetements were the latest on Friday to follow Burberry and announce a change to their fashion week approach.

Ford will show both men’s and women’s in September, which for the men’s offer is a huge change as it’s several months after the traditional timing for men’s fashion weeks. Both collections will be available straight away and will be season-neutral.

Demna Gvasalia’s Vetements label will instead show in June and January. That’s when most labels show their menswear for the main season and pre-collections for womenswear. Not sure if it has anything to do with giving him a clearer run at main season for his new Balenciaga gig, of course.

However, CEO Guram Gvasalia, told Vogue.com the brothers want to cut out the need for pre-collections, get their product on sale faster so copyists don’t get there first, and stop overproduction. That’s no surprise given how much product is marked down at the end of the season.

He also said current seasonal schedules are “insane” and damage creativity.

Now of course, neither Vetements nor Tom Ford have ever fallen in with the crowd and done things traditionally, so perhaps it’s not such a shake-up as it would seem.

Vetements AW15

Burberry is still the biggest name to make this change and it would maybe take the same decision from Dior, Prada, Marc Jacobs and more to really suggest that the rule book is being torn up in terms of show timings.

But in terms of instant delivery, that’s definitely been happening more widely. Both Moschino and Versace’s Versus have already gone down the instant availability post-show route, as have number of other labels.

Lots of fashion’s talking heads are discussing this at length but it’s still not clear how it will play out.

Maybe we shouldn’t be so concerned.After all, the oh-so-traditional haute couture has been around for over a century and has always been the ultimate in instant availability as it shows spring/summer in January and autumn/winter in July. The only waiting involved is the several weeks while the million-plus beads are hands-stitched onto your £100,000 dress!