c h a n g e i s c o m i n g t o SA & African Fashion Weeks! ‘The front row, whether fashion is ready for it or not, is going to look very different a year from now. The strangeness of this season is only the beginning’ ‘Fashion week and fashion shows will indeed go on. But their purpose has changed. The big brands, the ones who attract the biggest crowds, no longer need traditional media and retailers the way they once did. Their marketing budgets are allocated to Instagram and online customer acquisition, or paid out to influencers, whose audiences shop their recommendations. When it comes to retail, most major fashion players are focused on their own sales channels, working with just a select number of multi-brand stores — if any at all. Brands don’t need so many editors at their shows, or so many buyers, either. The public’s need for fashion critics, who used to have the power to make or break a collection’s success, has shrunk. Customers can view a fashion collection online and make their own snap judgement regarding whether they like it or not. Fashion shows will be about marketing and selling a product directly to a customer. But we can expect that shows will be smaller, and the front row filled with influencers who can help amplify the marketing message across the globe. There will be less and less room for the traditional trade, many of whom are used to expensing thousands of dollars a year — sometimes hundreds of thousands — on flights, hotels and dinners at Caviar Kaspia because they believed the return on investment made all that extravagance worthwhile. That return has been diminishing for years — and publishers and retailers can no longer afford to justify such investments.’ For one, I will certainly miss the social currency of fashion week if it diminishes ‘perhaps more than anything, is a weeks-long social function. A time for networking, peacocking and simply spending time together as an industry. The deep fear of a missing out is real.’ As Lauren penned. But more importantly I fear how this global change will impact Africa’s fashion weeks. These are my snippets from a @bof article that resonated w/ me penned down by #laurensherman https://www.instagram.com/p/CEga8CRBzZY/?igshid=1ay6i87stw9a9