Will Gucci's seasonless calendar rewire fashion week?

Gucci is overhauling its catwalk and seasonal programme as it embarks on a “new path, away from deadlines that the industry consolidated.”

In a series of Instagram posts over the weekend, Gucci Creative Diretor Alessandro Michele said the “excessive performativity has no raison d’etre today.” This new path will shift from “the worn-out ritual of seasons and shows to a new cadence.”

The fashion seasons are outdated

Planning just two yearly presentations, Gucci says defining fashion by season, i.e. pre-fall, cruise, spring/summer, is “stale and dated.” Other businesses may adopt similar changes as the current calendar is both distorted and unsustainable.

“I believe we can build our tomorrow starting from a renewed capacity of denomination.”

Gucci joins a growing chorus of industry heavyweights who are calling for a system overhaul. Saint Laurent announced in April it would cancel its upcoming Paris Fashion Week show in favour of “more intimate” customer interactions.

Last week Belgium designer Dries van Noten along with a group of notable CEOs, buyers and creative directors, came together in a series of conversations and launched a manifesto outlining ways in which the fashion industry needs to transform. Specifically adjusting the seasonality via a more balanced flow of deliveries throughout the season and delaying discounting toward the end of the season in order to allow for a longer period of full-price selling. It further sets out to create less unnecessary product and reduce travel and production waste.

Gucci’s stance may prove to the catalyst for other companies. When Kering’s leading luxury brand presented co-ed catwalk shows, other brands were quick to follow suit.

“This crisis represents a fundamental test for us all,” Michele wrote in his Instragram post. “Above all, we understand we went too far. Our reckless actions have burned the house we live in. We conceived of ourselves as separated from nature. We usurped nature, we dominated and wounded it.”

Image Gucci AW20 via Gucci.com