New York and London Offer to Move Fashion Week Dates

As we reported last month, there was a bit of a misunderstanding between the organizers of the New York, Milan and London Spring 2013 fashion weeks, scheduled for September of next year. The issue was centered around agreement which the governing bodies behind the New York, London, Milan and Paris shows had signed back in 2008 that defined a clearly set order the shows would be presented in, thereby allowing editors, designers, models and fashion fanatics everywhere to attend each fashion week in sequence (if they were lucky enough to get invites and be able to afford the plane tickets that is). The problem was that Milan and Paris claimed the agreement was only valid for three years, while New York and London clearly thought it would be permanent. One thing led to another and before you knew it we had ourselves a fashion week stand-off with both Milan and London planning to show on the same days!

Fortunately it seems that a full on fashion fight as been avoided, as Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) is now reporting that the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) the governing body behind New York fashion week has agreed to move their dates up to the week of September 6th – 13th. This puts New York in the position they had hoped to avoid, showing during the Labor Day weekend, however it seems that the CFDA has no intentions of walking away from this empty handed. The compromise they are proposing would allow all the fashion weeks to return to their agreed upon 2008 order, in exchange for New York and London moving their dates next year.

The CFDA sent Mario Boselli, president of the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana the CFDA’s Italian counterpart, a proposal that would make the original fashion week order a permanent fixture for years to come. Mr. Boselli will be sitting down with his people as well as representatives from the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the governing body on the French side, to consider the CFDA’s compromise. The meeting is scheduled to be held at the end of this month, so if all goes well the fashion world will have some set dates for the Spring 2013 fashion weeks by December. Let’s hope that compromise is still in vogue!