Alexander Wang this week has revealed a lookbook for resort 2017 collection, which the brand has simultaneously made available for purchase at retail. It’s a collection that looks like it’d be at home among offices populated by creatives, and also include some dressier items for them to socialize in after hours, like slit skirts and see-through tops, along with hats made in collaboration with Kangol.
The brand’s decision to reveal resort looks and retail them at the same time has become a big trend among traditional fashion labels and is often referred to as a “buy-now” strategy. It’s a practice that follows the cadence long practiced by athletic and streetwear labels for whom runway presentations were never part of way they spoke to either buyers or their customer. Instead, they showed at tradeshows, and sequestered their design ideas until the release of a splashy lookbook whose buzz helped created demand for the simultaneously-launched product.
While there is a lot of talk of changing the way brands show and subsequently sell their goods, making the transition to this type of selling cadence will take time for big brands to adapt to. In the case of Alexander Wang, for example, while resort is buy-now, it showed its spring 2017 collection (along with an Adidas collaboration) on the runway back in September, and that won’t be available to purchase until February. Eventually, it makes sense that all labels would make efforts to link the excitement around their presentations to the selling of their goods.
