The non-stop madness that is fashion week begins officially tomorrow (and unofficially today), meaning you have just a short time to prepare. That means stocking up on coffee, granola bars, doing your laundry, picking up your dry cleaning, submitting all of your ticket requests and rsvp’s, and–this is a fairly new one–making sure you’ve downloaded Read more →
While we still travel to big halls and complexes with tents and sit on benches while models walk down a runway in clothes that wont be sold until six months later–5-10 times per day for a week–fashion week has changed a lot over the past few years. Much if not all of that change is Read more →
When it comes to technology, the fashion industry is resistant to change. For fashion shows, publicists use unwieldy seating charts, using stickies to seat and reseat editors and buyers up until the last minute. Editors at big glossies arrange their books so they’re spread out, page by page, along a wall or table (you remember that room in The September Issue where Vogue’s book was laid out right? The one Grace Coddington kept popping into to see how many pages of her spreads had been cut?) Designers send out thick glossy lookbooks after their shows so editors and buyers can request the looks they saw on the runway. Invitations to shows are bulky (though their heft and shape is part of the fun) and sent via snail mail or hand delivered.
But the industry has slowly but surely begun to embrace technology wholeheartedly (without losing the glamor, of course). A lot of the credit is due to a small startup called Fashion GPS. This year, Fashion GPS is managing 80% of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week’s shows, and 184 shows total during New York Fashion Week. That means they’re providing the tech systems that manage contact lists, provide online invitations, handle RSVPs, and seating. Last season, they managed just 40 shows.
