STYLE: Once a year is enough
This week sees the opening of the New York women's spring/summer ready-to-wear shows, the first stop in the four-city marathon that is the international collections. For most designers on the schedule, however, this is but one of the four women's wear collections they now design a year (spring/summer, cruise, autumn/winter, pre-fall), not including all the special anniversary and limited-edition collections they do in the interim to satisfy the ravenous hunger of retailers and consumers.
And yet, some designers claim it doesn't have to be so. Some designers say: "Stop, I want to get off" or words to that effect. Some designers, an increasing number of them in fact, are deciding to show only once a year. "It makes sense to be able to say: 'I will step back and don't have to be like the others or follow the system,'" says owner of hip London fashion emporium Browns Focus and patron of up-and-coming designers Caroline Collis.
Thierry Colson, whose label T.C. has become a big hit at boutiques such as London's Matches and Paris's Maria Luisa, is one such designer. "We are a little bit tired of the fashion system," he says of his decision to design during the winter and roll out his collection at selected boutiques during the spring/summer season. A renowned stylist for fashion bibles such as Vogue Hommes and Numero, and for big houses like Hermès and Chloé, last year he took a trip to India to create an all-white range of 18th-century-inspired kaftan-like dresses made of cotton. For him, his sole spring/summer collection transcends seasons and fills a gap in the market.
"I am travelling quite a lot but I couldn't find that particular product, especially when winter collections arrive in the stores earlier and earlier each year," says Colson. "This collection is good for global travellers who are going away to tropical countries for the winter." He adds: "There are too many clothes out there and I think there are new ways to do clothes right now. There are also too many clothes on the high street that are selling so fast as well and the production cycle compromises their integrity and quality. But this is not about competition. On the contrary, there is a place for clothes that are really not time sensitive."
"A small evolution" is how Colson describes his commercial approach, having decided to grow his label "little by little", alongside his day job as a stylist. But for Sabyasachi Mukherjee, a Calcutta-based designer, growing his once-a-year label Sabyasachi (bohemian clothes made of hand-woven Indian fabrics) is a full-time job. "I am a little bit tired of constantly living in the fast lane," he says. "And I realised people no longer want to buy into this 'the faster, the better' approach. Everybody wants to slow down in life and slowing down doesn't mean dropping out. It means setting different priorities."
Mukherjee shows every spring/summer but his collections are more resort collections and can be worn year round, while his target customer, as he says, is the "woman who doesn't want to be necessarily young and sexy because she is quite sure about herself and not a fashion victim. She doesn't have to buy the latest accessory but she is someone who can find her own thing and can constantly reinvent herself.
"I try to do one collection a year because I hate to be pushed around. I think creativity cannot be forced and for me doing one collection a year makes perfect sense because you can bring a lot of life into a collection, rather than just reading forecasting magazines. At the end of the day, people are tired of what is in and what is out."
According to Maria Lemos, buyer and founder of London showroom Rainbowave, which has introduced labels such as T.C. into the UK market, such once-a-year collections are relevant because we are now more relaxed in our approach to dressing, mixing summer with winter clothes, and such products are not limited to trends and seasons. "Designing once a year is all about this idea of longevity, which appeals to a new customer who is younger, trendier and not label-led," Lemos says. The lines are "new and niche and they make us and the customers want to come back because they are beyond the fashion rat race."
Christina Kim of LA-based label Dosa has been the pioneer of this beyond-the-catwalk idea, having both built a brand around it and made that brand commercially viable. Her current collection is inspired by her trips to Nepal, the beauty of the mountains, and "the way the Nepalese wear all shades of red with their beautiful skin tones". Kim says that designing a collection once a year, notably a spring/summer collection that she updates with minor new arrivals during winter, came from having to develop in-house most of the materials and techniques she uses. "I don't see myself as a rebel in any way; I just follow what works for me," says Kim. "It is really important for me to follow the different stages of the production in LA as well as to travel to different parts of the world to be with our collaborators and artisans. I don't think of it as fashion as much as a line of clothing."
Irini Arakas, who quit her job of six years as a fashion feature writer at US Vogue to take up making jewellery may not have created the same kind of empire as Kim yet but she doesn't follow the existing fashion cycle either. She designs and shows her collection whenever she wants (i.e. once a year). This has enabled her to lay the right foundations for her business. "I am doing what I want, I am not thinking about seasons, I am not thinking about whether the next trend is art nouveau," Arakas says. "It's not so much about rebelling against the trends. I had a previous job where I was thinking about the next trend and it was really nice to have a departure and just design from my own inner creative spirit." Arakas's newest collection features long necklaces with sun-blasted seashells she found on her holidays on Captiva island near Florida, combined with Nepalese and Austrian beads she found in upstate New York.
"Designers are now more interested in quality than quantity," says Arakas. "They are more interested in selling to only a few stores as opposed to 20. They want to keep creative control of where they sell and how they sell. There is a sense of craftsmanship with smaller designers, a sense where you want to get back to the basics, where you want to make everything on your own; there is a tendency now to do things that are really precious and limited as opposed to doing six perfumes and new bags every season."
As for the challenge of keeping up in a world of fast fashion, Arakas says: "The momentum is there because it's not about catching up with what everyone else is doing; it's about keeping the quality. And anyway, shells in winter are always an unexpected twist."
时装发布会一年一次足矣！
纽
约春夏女装成衣展已拉开帷幕。这是一场马拉松式的纽约、巴黎、米兰、伦敦四城市国际时装巡展的第一站。然而，对于多数列入参展名单的设计师而言，这只是每年4次女装发布会（春夏系列、巡回展览系列、秋冬系列、初秋应季新品系列）中的一个，还不包括为了满足零售商和消费者的渴望，在两次发布会中间举行的特别周年纪念活动和限量版时装发布会。
对时装快车道厌烦
然而，一些设计师声称，时装发布会大可不必如此繁多。一些设计师已经说出了“停，我想离开”或类似的话。一些设计师（实际上是越来越多的设计师）决定，每年只举办一次发布会。伦敦时尚时装店Browns Focus的老板卡罗琳?科利斯(Caroline Collis)表示：“如果有人表示‘我要退出，不必像其他人那样，也不必追随整个体系，’是可以理解的。”科利斯也是一些潜力设计师的赞助人。
蒂埃里?科尔森(Thierry Colson)就是这样一位设计师，他设计的品牌T.C.已成为伦敦Matches和巴黎Maria Luisa等精品店的大热门。他已做出决定，在冬季设计服装，在春夏季期间到精选的精品店中展示。他谈到这个决定时表示：“我们对这种时装体系有些厌倦。”作为Vogue Hommes和Numero等时尚权威以及爱马仕(Hermes)、克罗埃(Chloe)等大品牌的著名设计师，他去年曾访问印度，从18世纪服装中获得灵感，创作了类似土耳其长衫的全白棉质长裙系列。对他而言，他设计的独具特色的春夏系列超越了季节的界限，并填补了一个市场空白。
“我旅行得很多，但我找不到那种别致的产品，而每年冬季新品的到店时间却越来越早，”科尔森表示，“对于那些在冬季去热带国家的全球旅行者来说，这一系列非常合适。”他补充道：“市场上的服装太多，而我认为，如今有很多制作服装的新方法。街上也有很多热卖的服装，而产品周期影响了服装的完整性和品质。但这不是竞争问题。相反，有些地方专门销售那些实际上对时间不敏感的服装。”
科尔森形容自己的商业战略是“一种缓慢进化”，在从事设计师的正式工作的同时，他决定“一点一点”地发展自己的品牌。然而，对于加尔各答的设计师萨贝阿萨奇?慕克吉(Sabyasachi Mukherjee)而言，开发自己每年发布一次新品的品牌Sabyasachi（用手织印度布料做成的具有波希米亚风格的服装），则是一份全职工作。“我对一直在快车道的生活感到有些厌倦，”他表示，“我意识到，人们不再愿意接受‘更快，更好’的方式。所有人都想放慢生活节奏，而放慢速度并不等于退出。它意味着设定不同的优先次序。”
新时装可以常年穿着
慕克吉会参加所有的春夏发布会，但他的服装系列具有更多的度假系列风格，因此可以常年穿着，就像他所说的，他的目标客户是那些“不想穿戴得更年轻、更性感的女士，因为她们对自己非常自信，不是时尚的牺牲品。她们不需要购买最新款式的佩饰，但她们可以找到属于自己的东西，并能够不断改造自己。”
他表示：“我力争每年举办一次发布会，因为我讨厌受人摆布。我认为，创造力不能受到压迫，对我来说，每年举办一次发布会非常合理，因为你可以为发布会注入新的生命，而不是仅仅阅读预测杂志。人们最终会厌倦讨论谁流行、谁不流行。”
玛丽亚?莱莫斯(Maria Lemos)是伦敦Rainbowave展厅的创始人兼采购主管，正是这个展厅将T.C.这样的品牌引入了英国市场。她认为，这种一年一度的展示会是比较合适的，因为我们现在的衣着方式更加随意了，夏天和冬天的衣服都混搭在一起，而这种产品不会受潮流和季节的限制。莱莫斯表示：“一年一次，完全是出于这种‘长久’观念，而这种观念对一群新的消费者非常有吸引力，他们更年轻、更时尚，不会跟着牌子走。”这种商品系列是“新兴事物，有自己的目标市场，能使我们和消费者成为回头客，因为它们超越了时装界的激烈竞争。”
追随灵感而不是季节
洛杉矶Dosa公司的克里斯蒂娜?金(Christina Kim)一直是这种“超越T型台”观念的先锋人物，她既围绕这个观念建立了一个品牌，又令这一品牌具备了商业可行性。她目前这组作品的灵感源于她的尼泊尔之旅，得自群山之美，以及“尼泊尔人为自己漂亮的肤色配上各种红色系颜色的穿衣方式”。金表示，一年只设计一组作品（即一个春夏装系列，她会在冬季加入少量新品），因为必须自行开发自己所使用的大多数材料和技艺。“我并不把自己当成叛逆者；我只是遵循对我有效的方式，”金表示，“对我来说，密切关注在洛杉矶的各个生产阶段，去往世界各地会见我们的合作者与工匠，都是特别重要的事情。我认为时装不仅仅是一系列衣服。”
伊里尼?阿拉卡斯(Irini Arakas)辞去了在美国Vogue杂志做了6年的时装特稿作家工作，转而开始制作珠宝。或许尚未建立起克里斯蒂娜?金那样的帝国，但是，她同样不会跟着现有的时尚周期走。不管何时，只要她想（比如说，一年一次），就会设计和展示自己的作品。这使得她为自己的公司打下了正确的基础。“我想做什么就做什么，不考虑季节，也不管下一个潮流是不是新艺术，”阿拉卡斯表示，“这也不能算是背叛潮流。我以前的工作就要考虑下一个潮流，能离开这种工作、只遵从自己内心的创造精神来进行设计，真是太好了。”阿拉卡斯最新一组作品的特色是带有晒干海贝壳的长项链，再加上她在纽约州北部发现的尼泊尔和奥地利风格的圆珠。那些贝壳是她在去佛罗里达附近的开普提瓦(Captiva)岛度假时发现的。
“现在，设计师对品质比对数量更感兴趣，”阿拉卡斯表示，“他们更感兴趣的是把作品卖给有限的几家商店，而不是卖给20家店。他们想对作品的出售地点和出售方式保持具有创造性的控制。名气较小的设计师有一种技能感，这种感觉让你想要回归基础，做具有自己特色的东西；现在有一种趋势，要做真正宝贵、真正限量版的东西，而不要在每个季节都推出6种香水和新款包包。”
至于在一个速食时装世界跟上步伐的挑战问题，阿拉卡斯表示：“动力是有的，因为这不是为了追赶别人的行动，而是为了保证质量。无论如何，冬天的贝壳总是一种意想不到的新花样。”
参考网站：
■萨贝阿萨奇, tel: +91 033 2466 5026;
sabyasachicouture@yahoo.com■蒂埃里?科尔森,
www.matchesfashion.com and
www.rainbowwave.com■
www.dosainc.com
