Rebecca Minkoff’s Next Fashion Show Could Change Everything About #NYFW

Rebecca Minkoff plans to revolutionize the fashion industry with her new #NYFW model. In recent years, we’ve seen an uptick in fashion shows that include shoppable pieces. Minkoff is taking that concept a step further with a runway show that only features items available for purchase. And the audience will include editors, buyers and consumers.

Minkoff’s innovative approach to Fashion Week emerges at a time when consumers have unprecedented accessibility. In the past, editors and buyers would view a collection privately, six months before the rest of the world. Thanks to the advent of social media, consumers can view a collection on Instagram, Twitter or Periscope before it even leaves the runway. That immediate exposure is leading to “customer fatigue.”

“Through social media and the Internet, our customer is seeing the product at the same time as editors and influencers,” Rebecca Minkoff explains in a press release. “By the time that the product has hit retail shelves 6 months later, they are over the item that they were coveting when it originally walked down the runway.”

To fix the “broken” Fashion Week model, the Rebecca Minkoff brand will shift its focus to full-price, in-season items. This coming February, while most designers preview their Fall 2016 collections, Rebecca Minkoff will present their already-in-stores Spring 2016 collection. “The goal is to promote with our partners what is available, rather than creating a tease of what isn’t,” Minkoff says. 

This new structure is more in line with Minkoff’s core brand values: “Retail may still be behind schedule, but Rebecca Minkoff is, and forever will be, pro-consumer,” CEO Uri Minkoff says. But if they’re pro-consumer, where does that leave editors and buyers? Rebecca Minkoff plans to accommodate them by hosting private industry viewings of the Fall 2016 collection. This enables editors/buyers to see the upcoming collection in an intimate setting before it’s exposed to consumers at a shoppable fashion show in September. “[It] allows the trade to have proper product and designer interaction in a private setting to afford them the most respect and relationship,” the brand explains. “This will also allow us to partner with the trade so that what comes down the runway in season, has actually been produced and will be available for purchase.”

Rebecca Minkoff’s new model hands Fashion Week completely over to consumers. It will also restore the natural order of things by letting editors view collections first. We’re interested to see if other brands will follow suit. In the meantime, check out the Rebecca Minkoff Spring 2016 collection that will be shown to consumers in February below.