Why Are American Designers Opting Out of New York Fashion Week?

Joining Rodarte, Proenza Schouler, and Thom Browne, Joseph Altuzarra announced today that he’s swapping New York Fashion Week for Paris this September. Three’s a trend, but now there’s four. And it’s not just any four; it’s four of the best regarded, most influential labels on the calendar. New York has lost a good-size chunk of its new guard.

What’s worrying is that designers are highly susceptible to groupthink. In 1998, all it took for New York Fashion Week to move from fourth position on the circuit to first was Helmut Lang. In the wake of the Austrian outsider’s move, Calvin Klein, who had expressed his own frustration about the lateness of New York Fashion Week, quickly adjusted his date, with the rest of New York falling in line shortly thereafter. The optics in that situation were good: New York had become the global fashion leader, chronologically speaking at least. The recent wave of departures is a less positive development. It suggests that Paris is a better place to do business.

Not so fast, says Steven Kolb, president and CEO of the CFDA, which manages the city’s Fashion Week calendar. “New York is absolutely open for business; this is where you can grow your business,” he said via phone earlier today. “Not one of these brands would be able to show in Paris if it weren’t for New York. They’re all winners of the Fashion Fund or participants, and they were able to get their start because of how democratic and open American fashion is.” Pointing to brands like Stella McCartney and Valentino, which show in Paris despite maintaining home bases elsewhere, he noted, “We helped support these brands, and they’re at the point now where they can go to Paris. There’s a sense of pride in that.”

Kolb suggested that the recent changes, which have also seen Tommy Hilfiger take his show to Los Angeles (last season) and London (Fall ’17), may have been prompted by the Boston Consulting Group’s 2016 study, which encouraged designers, in the face of a “broken” fashion system, to “try different things.” Kolb also indicated that these shifts could be temporary: “The truth is we’ve seen New York designers go to Europe and show, and [then] come back to New York.”

And if they don’t come back? Tom Ford kicks off the week on Thursday, September 7, and Marc Jacobs will close it a week later on Wednesday, September 13. Fashion Week is indeed a day shorter this season. Also, we’ve got Rihanna’s Fenty x Puma show back, and that’s not nothing.

“Fashion Week was created to meet the needs of designers, buyers, and editors,” Kolb said. “We meet the demand. As long as there’s demand, we’ll do it. I don’t see it diminishing, I just see it changing.” That’s fair enough. But let’s hope there’s no designer number five.