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In a surprising move, Alexander Wang announced today that the brand would be leaving New York Fashion Week after its Fall 2018 show this February. No, Wang won’t be decamping to Paris like some of his peers, instead he will present his collections in New York in June and December to align more closely with the pre-collection schedule. “Our consumer will be better served through the new system,” said Alexander Wang CEO Lisa Gersh in a press release. “The innovative approach reframes product on the month that it ships, rather than the outdated labels of ‘Resort’ or ‘Pre-Fall,’ giving our customers more relevant and consistent merchandise throughout the year.”
Wang’s schedule change is backed by the CFDA, which is exploring the idea of establishing a more concrete fashion show schedule around pre-collections, Resort in June or July and Pre-Fall in December or January. This would be in addition to the main February and September seasons. CFDA CEO Steven Kolb said, “The idea is, could there be a core group of brands that sat well together and combined their interests to do something during pre-collections.” He also hinted that the initiative could begin as soon as June 2018. Other U.S. brands to adopt the pre-season-as-main-season model include Rodarte and Proenza Schouler, both of which show in Paris.
As for Wang, the decision is startling, but not entirely unexpected. In the brand’s collaboration with Adidas Originals, it has adopted the system of “drops,” unloading merchandise off the back of a moving truck and selling product through a text-based chatbot. At the time he told Vogue, “The activation is just as important as the products, because it really speaks to the narrative and the concept.”
Wang has done a good job aligning his Fashion Week activations with his brand image, but not everyone has been enthusiastically on board with his experiments of late. The brand’s two most recent shows received considerable backlash, Fall 2017 for being in an abandoned theater in Harlem far from NYFW’s central hub, and Spring 2018 for its distant location in Brooklyn, an empty Bushwick street, and major one-hour-plus delay. By moving the show to a less crowded time, Wang might be able to get the press back on his side. The thinking being, it’s easier stay out until dawn watching Ja Rule and Ashanti if you don’t have to attend 10 shows the next day. It’s hard to predict how fans in and out of fashion will react, but one thing is sure: Yet again Alexander Wang is changing the game.
Alexander Wang Spring 2018 Ready-to-Wear: