Fashion Weeks, have always been the propeller of this well-oiled machine but the Internet is emerging as a tool that may revolutionise the way this machine operates in the future. A number of top designers have recently eschewed the expense and extravagance of launching collections on the famous ramps of Paris, New York and Milan fashion weeks and opted for economically viable ways of selling their clothes, by launching their collections live on the Internet and selling them direct to the public.

In September this year, online luxury retailer Net-a-porter.com teamed up with designer Alexander McQueen to host a first-of-it’s kind pre-spring fashion show on the internet, where the retailers’ 2 million customers were able to view the collection, order what they wanted and have it delivered to their doors within 24 hours. The collection was a minimal 8 looks of ready-to-wear dresses, pantaloons and suits that were available in a variety of colours and sizes.  "It’s very democratic, and it’s taking fashion directly to the consumer," says the founder of Net-a-porter, Natalie Massenet.  A number of the pieces shown in the McQueen collection were sold out 48 hours after the show. 

Usually, designers spend months and money producing collections that will be scrutinized by fashion editors and copied by mass-market retailers before they reach the designers’ shop floors, by which time consumers have seen the clothes on the internet, magazines or television and have tired of them.   This method eliminates the middlemen who influence consumer buying habits and those who simply reproduce cheaper interpretations of the original looks and sell them at cheaper prices, thus having a negative impact on high-end designer profits.  Before the McQueen/Net-a-porter partnership, designer Marc Bouwer and local designer Jenny Le Roux of Habits in Cape Town also had virtual fashion shows to launch their seasonal collections.  Following McQueen’s online collection debut, Dutch designers Viktor&Rolfe have followed suit and taken it to another level.  The usually much anticipated Viktor&Rolfe spring/summer 2009 runway collection that is meant to be shown in Paris, will only be shown online - for the whole world to see.

Why this is a burgeoning trend

Last year, veteran fashion critic, Cathy Horn wrote an article in The New York Times, asking whether it would be possible for designers to do away with fashion shows completely and come up with a better way of getting their clothes to consumers, via the Internet.  This was after she had not been asked to last season’s Giorgio Armani runway show after she made unflattering comments about a previous Armani collection.  She may have been posing a theoretical question for the industry to consider, but it has already had had an impact.  The message has rung loud and clear in a lot of ears, especially because of the times we live in, where fewer bottles of champagne are being uncorked, consumers are buying less fashion and luxury items are low on people’s priority lists. The status of the global economy has affected every major industry and resulted in a social climate where:
•    Yuppies and Fashionistas have been replaced by Scuppies: Socially Conscious urban professionals and Recessionistas: Cost cutting, bargain hunting fashion aficionados who get the best deals for the least amount.
•    Luxury items are perceived as unnecessary during a recession resulting in designers coming up with better ways of selling more practical products.
•    Designers are constantly competing with mass-market chainstores. Selling directly to the consumer closes the gap that allows these chainstores to make cheaper versions of designer clothes.
•    Online shopping has proved resilient compared to the direct retail sector following the US Wall Street banking crisis. Almost 72% of online retailers in the US say that shopping networks are more likely to withstand the economic crunch – that’s according to research from shop.org done by Forrester Research.

It therefore comes as no surprise that designers are looking to the web to increase their profit margins.  Having a mini runway show on the net is not only cheaper and less of a hoo-haa than a typical fashion show, it also results in season-less dressing that consumers are buying into, in the wake of the economic crises.

What the domino effect could be:
•    For designers: taking their fresh merchandise directly to the consumer means that  consumers get to decide what they want, without the influence of fashion magazines, critics and chain-store buyers who have the power to make or break a collection. Designers therefore stand to benefit.
•    For the industry: the middlemen that create the lag between the designer collections going from show to retail space may become obsolete, disrobing the Anna Wintours and Suzy Menkes of the industry of their stranglehold. Retailers like H&M and Zara will also be affected because they will have less time to reproduce cheap versions of designer collections should more designers follow in the steps of Alexander McQueen. Luxury retailers like Net-a-porter, on the other hand, will possibly increase their appeal to middle class markets.
•    For the consumer: the democratisation of fashion means that the power is now in the hands of the people whose preferences will now be more evident to the designers. This ramp-to-door approach isn’t just an emerging trend within the fashion industry; other industries are coming up with ways to bypass the middleman.  Growth packaging is an emerging trend whereby food producers are packaging and distributing produce before it’s fully grown, allowing the consumer to "harvest" the product in their own kitchens. It not only eliminates the middleman but provides consumers with hyper-fresh produce.

For the fashion industry, eliminating the messenger means that accelerated distribution from designer to consumer will meet the consumer’s need for instant gratification, practical clothing that suits their budgets, and perhaps more importantly, a system that allows them to decide what’s hot and what’s not. It’s a significant power shift, in favour of the consumer, and it’s a trend that’s beginning to spread across all industries.

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