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For decades, season upon seasons, Paris Fashion Week has been an uninterrupted, sought-after biannual event where fashion elites flock into the French city to witness every year. The event often featured prestigious labels with the shows held at different venues throughout the city. But it turns out that this year’s fashion week is certainly going to take a different approach due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In response to this uncertainty, Saint Laurent is going solo and has decided to break out from the official Fashion Week calendar to be able to ‘take control of its pace’ and also follow its own schedule. Now, the brand is poised to connecting to the people around the world in their own way.
“Conscious of the current circumstance and its waves of radical change, Saint Laurent has decided to take control of its pace and reshape its schedule,” the company said in a statement. “Now more than ever, the brand will lead its own rhythm, legitimating the value of time and connecting with people globally by getting closer to them in their own space and lives.”
According to the brand’s artistic director, Anthony Vaccarello, the Covid-19 outbreak has posed a serious negative impact on the fashion industry and it’s time to forge ahead with the new reality.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to suddenly and completely change our habits, behavior, and interactions with others,” Vaccarello told WWD. “It has had a violent impact, disguised in apparent calm. Our decision not to be part of any predefined calendar this year stems from our desire to recognize the importance of our time, of our life. A certain way of living more than a certain way of dressing. Slowing down and living the moment reveals all the vulnerabilities of an imprisoned organization. What’s out of fashion now is the schedule of the entire system: the shows, the showrooms, the orders.”
“The fact that stores worldwide have been closed for some weeks, and some production sites, too, has impacted the shelf life of collections, actually shifting to more of a buy-now-wear-now calendar,” added Francesca Bellettini, president of Saint Laurent and president of Chambre Syndicale de la Mode Féminine, France’s governing body for womenswear. “This has to be taken into consideration in the development of the next pre-collections in particular, and every brand will do it in the way that suits its offer best.”
However, it is not only Saint Laurent that is making such an unprecedented decision. Marc Jacobs had also made a similar announcement that the brand is skipping New York Fashion Week due to COVID-19 and following the same uncertainty, the British Fashion Council announced last week that the upcoming London Fashion Week will be a gender-neutral and digital-only event, so as to best fit our needs of today.
