Designers Sewing a Ripped Seam

Note: Today's post is more about fashion than law, but I thought it is timely to discuss.

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Fashion designers are trying their best to mend a seam torn apart by COVID-19. Recently, Kering released its first quarterly earnings report of the year. (Kering is a French fashion conglomerate that owns brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta.) The group registered a 16.4% drop in revenues. François-Henri Pinault, its Chief Finance Officer, explains that, despite "an exceptionally good start" in January, brands started to suffer in February as stores closed in the Asia-Pacific region. Starting from March, stores across Europe and the United States shuttered in response to the pandemic, and e-commerce was impacted by "the partial closure of logistics facilities". Of the 16.4% drop, 6.8% came from the wholesale network, reflecting the hardship distributors are experiencing in this difficult time. Only Bottega Veneta reported an increase in revenues, strongly suggesting that the creative direction of Daniel Lee, its new creative director, is having a positive influence beyond a popular buzz. (Personally, it's reassuring to learn that talent still matters a lot in fashion!)

Although COVID-19 is undeniably exerting a downward pressure on sales, it would be a wishful thinking if brands hope that revenues will rebound in the coming quarters as the situation ameliorates (as much as I hope so, will it in the context of business?). They are betting that China will serve as a driving force as Chinese consumers reopen their purses. In my personal opinion, it is more accurate to think that the dwindling sales are a manifested symptom of the chronic illness that fashion has neglected to attend to: product cycle. One shining ray of hope is that designers have a good sense of where to start tackling the issue.

Let's start from Anthony Vaccarello's Yves Saint Laurent (or Saint Laurent as he prefers to call it). Saint Laurent made a press release two days ago that it is opting out of the 2021 Spring/Summer Paris Fashion Week and hinted that this might continue to be the case. "Conscious of the current circumstance and its wave of radical change", Saint Laurent announced it has made a decision "to take control of its pace and reshape its schedule". Anthony Vaccarello pointed out that fashion has to reinvent its product cycle in the wake of COVID-19. He said, "What's out of fashion now is the schedule of the entire system: the shows, the showrooms, [and] the orders", referring to the traditional way of running a fashion business. Earlier, Chloé's Natacha Lamsay-Levi hammered home the same point while lamenting the dazzling pace at which the fashion industry is now working. Marc Jacobs echoed the similar sentiment when he announced that his eponymous brand will not produce the 2020 Fall/Winter collection he presented earlier this year and halt working on the 2021 Spring/Summer collection in this time of huge uncertainty. Appearing on Vogue Global Conversations, the designer said, "Until we discover a new way to work, until we create a new way to work, or a new end goal to work towards, we really have nothing to do.", an honest confession that fashion has to part with the past to move forward. The confession is also a firm acknowledgment that fashion has become a highly inter-connected enterprise with talents and source materials coming from all parts of the globe. The latest addition to this chorus for change came from Valentino's Pierpaolo Piccioli yesterday. In his interview with Vogue, Piccioli revealed that he is tinkering with the idea of combining womenswear and menswear collections to reduce the waste the current cycle is spewing out.

So designers know where to start, but, at least for now, seem to fall short of addressing how. To their credit, it takes time to formulate a new business plan and implement it in practice. As much it is a hackneyed cliché, the devil is in details. Can fashion really reinvent its future, bouncing back more resilient than before?