Fashion week
Fashion week, series of scheduled runway shows and presentations during which designers introduce upcoming collections to buyers, the press, and other fashion industry professionals. It functions as both a marketplace and a publicity platform. Media professionals report on collections and emerging trends, generating exposure for designers, while retail buyers evaluate garments and prepare for wholesale appointments. Fashion weeks also attract celebrities, generate social media content, strengthen brand prestige, and help shape broader conversations about fashion and trends worldwide.
Organization around the big four
The best-known fashion weeks take place twice a year in the âbig fourâ fashion capitals: New York City, London, Milan, and Paris (usually in that order). Womenâs autumn and winter ready-to-wear collections appear on the runway in February and March, and spring and summer ready-to-wear collections are unveiled in September and October. The same cities also host menâs ready-to-wear, with autumn and winter collections shown in January and spring and summer collections in June. Certain labels, including Balenciaga and Vetements, however, have combined their womenswear and menswear presentations, a move that can reduce production costs while also reflecting a growing interest in apparel that crosses traditional gender boundaries.
Paris is also the exclusive home of Haute Couture Week, held twice each year. Unlike ready-to-wear, haute couture centers on one-of-a-kind garments made to the exacting standards of craftsmanship and personalization established by the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion (FĂ©dĂ©ration de la Haute Couture et de la Mode; formerly the French Haute Couture Trade Association [Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture]). Spring and summer couture collections are presented in January, followed by autumn and winter collections in July. New York City, meanwhile, is the best-known host of fashion weeks devoted to bridal collections, with the next yearâs spring and summer designs shown in April and the autumn and winter designs in October. Outside the traditional fashion centers, cities across the globe, from Dubai to Lagos to Shanghai, have established their own increasingly influential fashion weeks, bringing local designers and distinct regional styles to an international audience.
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Origins of runway fashion
The presentation of seasonal fashion collections can be traced back to the mid-19th century. English fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth, whose house was founded in Paris in 1858, helped replace the predominantly client-directed commission system with one in which he created original designs in advance and presented them as a collection at his establishment a few times a year. Clients came to view the designs, select the ones they wanted, and then have them made to their measurements and specifications. Toward the turn of the century, French designer Paul Poiret, a former employee of Worth, held elaborate private balls with his designs on display, while Lady Duff-Gordon, who designed under the name Lucile, staged mannequin (the former term for models) parades in London as invitation-only salon spectacles. By the 1920s and â30s Paris had become the center of celebrated designers such as Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, whose fashion houses presented collections on models in smaller, more exclusive, and closely guarded shows designed to prevent copying.
History of the big four
New York City
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Ehrich Brothers in New York City staged what is often considered the first department store fashion show in 1903. Other emporiums soon followed, with Wanamakerâs and Gimbels showing clothing by European designers using models filing along ramps and stages. After 1915, fashion presentations expanded into increasingly elaborate formats, including large-scale pageants with orchestras, special effects, theatrical performances, and thousands of attendees.
During the World War II era, imports from Paris, then considered the reigning capital of the Western fashion world, were halted by the Nazi occupation of France, and publicist Eleanor Lambert saw an opportunity to promote American designers and manufacturers on a worldwide scale. An entrepreneurial figure who was later involved in the founding of the Met Gala, she helped to formalize the disparate fashion collection shows taking place throughout New York City into a single, widely publicized event known as National Press Week. The first was held in 1943 at the Pierre and Plaza hotels, where American designers showed their garments to reporters and photographers from across the country. The event, combined with American postwar prosperity, helped New York City become a fashion capital in its own right. Press Week developed into what is now known as New York Fashion Week (NYFW). Today the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a nonprofit trade association founded by Lambert in 1962, serves as the official scheduling and coordinating body for NYFW.
Paris
After the war Paris was quick to reestablish itself as a fashion powerhouse. In 1945 the French Haute Couture Trade Association set official guidelines for the couture houses, requiring them to show at least 35 runway looks that included both daytime and evening wear to the press each season. Postwar shows featuring the designs of Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Balmain, and Jacques Fath garnered international attention and helped dictate global fashion trends.
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The first official Paris Fashion Week (semaine de la mode), however, was not held until 1973, as part of a fundraiser dubbed the âBattle of Versailles.â This competition was the idea of Lambert and GĂ©rald Van der Kemp, then the head curator of the Palace of Versailles, and it pitted five American designers, comprising Halston, Anne Klein, Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, and Stephen Burrows, against five of their Parisian counterparts, Marc Bohan, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, and Emanuel Ungaro. The French side created elaborate spectacles on the site of Versailles, including rhinoceros-helmed caravans and âCinderella-style pumpkin coaches,â but the Americans were widely considered the winners, with their lineup of mostly Black models and a performance by Liza Minnelli, a good friend of Halston.
Also in 1973 the French Federation of Couture, Ready-to-Wear, and Fashion Designers (FĂ©dĂ©ration Française de la Couture, du PrĂȘt-Ă -Porter des Couturiers et des CrĂ©ateurs de Mode) was formed to unite Franceâs major professional fashion bodiesâcovering haute couture, designer ready-to-wear, and menswearâand to represent and coordinate the interests of the French fashion industry. Renamed the Federation of Haute Couture and Fashion (FĂ©dĂ©ration de la Haute Couture et de la Mode) in 2017, it now represents leading French and international fashion houses and organizes Paris Fashion Week and Haute Couture Week, helping maintain Parisâs position as a global fashion capital. Paris Fashion Week has continued to present over-the-top spectacles, notably Karl Lagerfeldâs Chanel shows, which have featured an imported 265-ton (240-metric-ton) iceberg for the autumn and winter 2010â11 womenâs ready-to-wear show and a fully functional model rocket ship for the autumn and winter 2017â18 womenâs ready-to-wear show, both staged in the Grand Palais museum.
Milan
Although bombings during the Second World War decimated Italyâs infrastructure and economy, the country maintained its centuries-old expertise in textiles and tailoring. Funds from the Marshall Plan helped modernize the garment industry, butâunlike other major textile-producing countries, which relied more heavily on larger, vertically integrated mills or industrial groupsâItaly developed a decentralized system of many small and medium-sized family-run companies. These businesses usually specialized in different parts of productionâsuch as weaving, dyeing, cutting, or finishingâand collaborated with one another locally. This gave Italian fashion more flexibility, specialized craftsmanship, and the ability to respond quickly to changing designs and smaller production runs. The structure became especially important in the 1960s and â70s as fashion shifted globally from haute couture (or alta moda in Italian) toward mass ready-to-wear, with designers increasingly collaborating with manufacturers to create accessible branded collections.
In 1958 the National Chamber of Italian Fashion (Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana) was established in Milan and began staging biannual fashion shows to give growing ready-to-wear labels, such as Pucci, Krizia, Biki, Missoni, and Max Mara, a more organized platform. While Florence had held the first postwar fashion shows in Italy and remained associated with alta moda, Milan became the center of Italyâs emerging ready-to-wear industry. In the 1960s Vogue Italia set up its headquarters in the city, and in the 1970s influential designers, including Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace, established their houses there, gradually making Milan Italyâs international fashion capital.
London
London Fashion Week, the youngest of the big four fashion weeks, began under the direction of the newly formed British Fashion Council in 1984. It was the first of the cities to brand its event as a âFashion Week,â a name soon adopted by the other fashion centers. Among the 15 designers at the inaugural London Fashion Week were Vivienne Westwood, David Fielden, and John Galliano. Galliano, who had recently earned first-class honors from St. Martinâs School of Art (now Central Saint Martins), London, showed his graduate collection, âLes Incroyables,â which was a hit among the press and buyers. London Fashion Week quickly gained recognition for its focus on innovation, emerging designers, and unconventional style and went on to showcase the countercultural and experimental fashions of Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan.