Tommy Hilfiger likes to be first to things. The brand recently introduced a virtual reality experience in its flagship stores, for example, and will host an “Instapit”—i.e. a photography pit for Instagram influencers—at its Fall 2016 women’s show next week. It’s not totally surprising then that Tommy Hilfiger has decided to join two other big-name disrupters, Burberry and Tom Ford, in ditching the current fashion-show format where brands reveal collections a full six months before they hit stores. Instead, Hilfiger will start showing collections to buyers and press in advance, privately, and save the splashy runway shows for consumer enjoyment when the clothes actually hit stores. It’s not a perfect system but it’s infinitely more logical that the one we’ve got now.
As more brands start to show and sell simultaneously, it’ll be interesting to see how the mass-market stores react. Under the current system, retailers like Zara, H&M, and Topman are able to digest and regurgitate runway trends without competition from the brands who came up with the ideas in the first place. This shift in scheduling will even the playing field a little bit, and may even force the high-street stores to be more creative, and less derivative, with their collections. Because they’re fast, but not that fast. Honestly, we can’t say we’d be disappointed to see them work a little harder for their billions.