The Four Seasons

3,192 words

---

The term ‘season’ is defined as the division of time based on weather conditions that occur inexorably each year. Fashion seasons follow the same rules, a heavily segmented cycle of spring/summer and autumn/winter collections with which products are sold. This traditional life cycle has become integral to culture as it offers structure to a system renowned for obsolescence, yet fulfils consumer demand for newness and allows designers to show their diverse skill while building a reputable and profitable business. The once timely anticipatory rush for new seasonal clothing is mostly lost on today’s consumer.

Lifestyles are becoming more pressurised, personal and complex, greater diversity in a shorter time frame. This has been fuelled by a number of factors resulting in this somewhat rapacious attitude; social networking sites are creating a more fashion-literate client base, mass globalisation, Zara (retailer) who is able to respond immediately to market change through quick response manufacturing and designers like the late Alexander McQueen creating ‘art-wear’ based on themes not trends. This unravelling of the fashion season is nothing new, like many recognisable fashion eras such as the flapper girls or the hippie movement, fashionable trends grew out of cultural instability and social validity. Today’s consumer is as fickle as the fashion it follows and to ensure brand loyalty, designers are providing consumers greater choice more frequently with pre-collections, most notably pre-fall and resort. While a divisive strategy, the once important and purposeful term ‘fashion season’ is inevitably leading to a more fragmented system.

Is it still viable to keep pursuing the doctrine of seasonal fashion for today’s clientele?

Background

‘Seasonal terms are still used because they are firmly ingrained in our culture’ (Jackson, 2009). Tradition, a long-standing belief system, in fashion is crucial, emitting a sense of collective identity and cementing continuity in an era of change. ‘Fashion introduces order in a potentially anarchic and moving present’ (Blumer, 1968). Although Blumer refers to fashion, the seasonal division that naturally occurs arguably allows such fashion to have true order. Barnard (2014) describes, ‘the point of seasons is that they pass and are replaced by another’. Thus, one could argue, that without the quarterly division of time, the fickle nature of fashion has no grounding and therefore less meaning in culture. Fashion thrives on newness; the summer, spring, fall, winter seasons provide the chronological conventions people desire and enable the subversive fundamental of fashion.

The biannual fashion turnover also fulfils the contradictory human need to be socially accepted while preserving a unique sense of style. ‘To look like nobody else is a sufficiently mortifying reflection; to be in danger of being mistaken for one of the rabble is worse’ (Quentin Bell, On Human Finery cited in Robinson, 1961). Bell’s observation highlights the fine line between dressing like nobody else and being lost in sameness. While Bell alludes to this mimetic behaviour, Lynch highlights that this condition allows a ‘calming sense of self-endorsement’ (Lynch, 2007). This has never been more relevant than in fashion; playing on the tendency for union and isolation to full effect. Those who follow the seasonal order can signal their relationship to a certain group while those maintaining individuality are stigmatised, further strengthening the bond between consumer and seasonal fashion.

While a highly creative industry, one must not forget that fashion is a business that exploits customers’ expectation for change while simultaneously gaining a healthy profit and reputation for its designers and retailers - the perfect marketing strategy. ‘The driver was seasonal change and the expectation among consumers that a change in the season required new clothes with the latest colours, silhouettes and decorative details’ (Brannon, 2003). This drive has placed a premium on being ‘up-to-date’ and as a result when we engage with seasonal fashion, as Blumer (1986) states, we move towards ‘a dim, uncertain, but exploitable immediate future'. Though a seemingly ignorant way of living, it works as a system because remaining so elevates pressure, time, worry and brings the unexpected joy of surprise. But most importantly, it forces people to live in the moment, paramount in fashion. ‘Fashion serves as a means of demonstrating command over current’ (Robinson, 1961). Maintaining its status as the source for keeping up-to-date and modern, further cementing seasonal fashion ranges as significant for today’s fashion customer.

History

Fashion & Media

Case Study: ZARA

Case Study: McQUEEN

It has taken several decades to unseat the established fashion seasons. Seasonal fashion has served consumers well, dictating what they should wear and when, satisfying the need for familiarity, sense of security and belonging through their clothing. For designers, the bi-annual change can simultaneously provide order in an otherwise archaic industry while allowing designers enough freedom to explore and present their skill to their desired audience. Yet, the abundance of fashion-savvy customers, the by-product of social media, celebrity culture, fast-fashion chains and designer ‘Artwear’, have altered how fashion seasons are governed. Today’s consumer, like the fashion it follows, thrive on a ‘see it, buy it, discard it’ attitude that traditional industry conventions are unable to address. Seasons are being rendered meaningless because customers, with their newfound autonomy, are making their own decisions about what they wear, how and when. In order to maintain their position as the forefront of fashion, they will have to adapt with a new, cogent and persuasive approach to be able to counteract the influence of fast-fashion retailers.