‘Buy now’ fashion show lets you order straight off runway
“Oh, I love that,” says Kim Newport-Mimran, adjusting the ruffled collar on one of her fit models, who is working a checked tweed ensemble, the coat and dress slightly mismatched in scale. “With coloured tights — amazing.”
We are meeting in the Pink Tartan studio, a week before Newport-Mimran will be showing her fall/ winter 2016 collection. The samples have just returned from the New York market by Purolator that very morning, and she has only days before the show to adjust the styling and the fit. Newport-Mimran, of course, has been here before. Pink Tartan has been the North Star of Toronto Fashion Week since she started showing it on the runway in 2004. But this year, Pink Tartan was not on the schedule. For the first time, the label will be shown the week following, in what fashion insiders are calling a “see-now, buy-now” presentation where the audience can order straight off the runway instead of waiting the usual time before the collection hits the stores — the one trend from fall that seems to be taking off big time.
“There’s been so much disruption in fashion,” says Newport-Mimran, using 2016’s buzziest of buzz words. “There is so much, so fast now because of digital.”
Spring, in fashion, means fall. The traditional idea of a “fashion week” offered a window to buyers and editorial before a collection hit the shop floor. But now that the looks are being tweeted and instagrammed from the runway, the whole style industry is contemplating a makeover.
On the high heels of the likes of Burberry, Vetements and Tom Ford, all of which have announced they are adopting a ‘see-now-buy-now’ model, Pink Tartan is picking up the pace and speeding up production and delivery (which traditionally involved a four-to-six month window for buyers and editorial following a runway presentation) and heading off the pressure from fastfashion copyists.
As Tom Ford explained in a release about fashion’s new, disrupted mood: “In a world that has become increasingly immediate, the current way of showing a collection four months before it is available to customers is an antiquated idea and one that no longer makes sense.”
For her part, Newport-Mimran is taking the move one step further, and using it as thematic inspiration. “What this collection is about is reconnecting with our customer, and making them the editor,” says Mimran, who likes to pick a central “muse” to inspire her designs for each collection.
“This fall, my muse is (Vogue creative director) Grace Coddington, who has been everything in the fashion business really — model, designer, editor, and now an icon.”
And the collection is very Grace indeed, in its use of lush fabrications, rich jewel hues of maroon and Kelly green and wonderfully oversized coats, put together in the icon’s inimitable way.
“This season, it’s all about more is more: I’m really liking pattern-on-pattern, fur and floral brocade. Of course the blazer is back, and it’s all about the shoulder, and also I’m really into ruffles — just not the kind that make you look like you’re on your way to a child’s birthday party.”
In a nod to her muse, Newport-Mimran has dubbed the collection “Front Row Only” and, fittingly, the seating for the presentation will be configured so that every seat offers a coveted front-row view.
“We are at a point now where everybody is as interested in what the front row of editors is wearing as what’s on the models,” says Newport-Mimran. “As fashion evolves, you just have to roll with it.” Karen von Hahn is a Toronto-based writer, trend observer and style commentator. Contact her at kvh@karenvonhahn.com.