Where Did "Fashion Week" Come From, and What Can the Big Four Cities Tell Us About Shanghai's Future?

First, why does everyone show summer clothes in winter?

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"Fashion week" usually means womenswear first, and ready-to-wear (as opposed to couture) second, and a city holds one twice a year. Shanghai, for instance, is now showing Spring/Summer 2016 womenswear.

You must have noticed something odd: why show spring and summer clothes just as autumn sets in? Have we got it wrong?

The answer is simple. Showing early tells factories, in advance, how much to make. In other words, the moment the models walk off the runway is the start of the whole fashion supply chain: buyers place orders after seeing the designs, factories need time to take those orders and produce them, and stores need to know the production schedule before they can plan deliveries. That is why Paris Fashion Week shows autumn/winter collections in March of the same year, and spring/summer collections in October for the following year.

The fashion weeks that draw the most press are those of New York, London, Milan and Paris, the ones we usually call the "Big Four."

Still, as Julie Bradford writes in Fashion Journalism, "specialist fashion publications also cover places such as Shanghai, Copenhagen, Sydney and São Paulo." (Why Shanghai comes first, Bradford does not say.) Gemma A. Williams, author of Fashion China, recently went to Tbilisi, Georgia. And at the last Shanghai Fashion Week, Colin McDowell, founder of the London fashion award Fashion Fringe, singled out New Delhi.

Zemira Xu is a co-founder of DIA, a marketing consultancy for designers, and used to work at the concept store 10 Corso Como. In her view, a season's success depends on how many journalists and buyers it attracts. The first generate buzz; the second do business. But in the internet age, fashion weeks have inflated the buzz without limit, as if they meant to compete with every front-page headline.

Kim Kardashian and her husband alone stole the spotlight

The "press plus buyers" yardstick can be traced through fashion week's history. New York Fashion Week was created in the first place to make the press notice American fashion. Eleanor Lambert, founder of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), also staged a contest between five French and five American brands; the French side included YSL, Marc Bohan for Christian Dior, and Hubert de Givenchy. Afterwards Marc Bohan was seen telling reporters: "After seeing the American designs, we felt like idiots." American confidence in its own design reportedly soared from then on.

The buyer tradition goes back to 19th-century Paris, where clothing houses held private shows for their most distinguished clients.

Beyond the press, the buyers and the fashion professionals, yes, as you suspected, fashion week matters little to most people. Stan Herman, a former president of the CFDA, called New York's fashion events of the 1960s and 70s "an exclusive club" and "like a luncheon for stars and designers." Yet as late as 2007, The New York Times still ran a story headlined "Fashion Week: Not Open to the Public."

Does a fashion week succeed the bigger it gets? That question caused considerable argument among New York Fashion Week's organizers. Residents around its venue, Bryant Park, kept complaining that the event took over public space: the park was meant to be open to everyone, not reserved for a small group. Shanghai Fashion Week ran into the same problem when it held its shows in Fuxing Park.

So, beyond marveling and grumbling, you probably have had little chance to learn what the Big Four fashion weeks actually are. Below, we try to fix that.

First, because each city deliberately staggers its dates, fashion editors and buyers fly from one city to the next every season. All told they may watch several dozen shows and visit a dozen or so showrooms, so of course they spend a frantic month.

At an established fashion week, at least a quarter of the attendees are buyers. The other largest group is the press. Local media still play a big role, since a fashion week is, after all, bound up with its city. Foreign coverage reflects how international the event is, and there are few surprises there.

Even some monthly magazines cover fashion week to a degree, often hoping to win favor with fashion-brand advertisers. Fashion influencers do the same: their WeChat Moments, Weibo, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook feeds fill with street-style and front-row photos, half showing off, half doing their job. Brands now prefer to hire them to raise their profile during fashion week.

New York

New York Fashion Week comes first each year. It began in 1943, organized by the New York Dress Institute (NYDI), which had been founded in 1940 mainly to boost sales of clothes made by New York's garment manufacturers. In the postwar slump, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia found that the city could rely only on the fashion industry's employers. The main concerns then were economics and loyalty, not designers.

Before the CFDA was founded, another dominant force in American fashion was the New York Couture Group. Arnold Scaasi, a designer who later joined the CFDA, recalled that many people in that group went to Paris to copy patterns. "We were different from those garment makers," he said, and "creativity was an important word back then."

In Impact, the book that records the CFDA's history, you will read that only in the 1990s did the council realize that real influence came from holding events, which worked better than handing out awards. The CFDA's New York Fashion Week took formal shape in the 1990s. At first it was seen as a way both to support deserving designers and to satisfy council members (think of it as a vanity project), but after a few seasons, sales were exceptionally strong and the event kept growing.

Stan Herman, president from 1991 to 2006, made the biggest changes. He gathered the shows scattered across New York into one fairly fixed location, Bryant Park. He also made the CFDA more democratic, for example by replacing invitation-only membership with open applications.

Diane von Furstenberg is the current president of the CFDA; her namesake brand, DVF, first made its name at New York Fashion Week

Fashion columnist Lin Jian says that to judge a fashion week, you look at "whether designers come out of it." By that standard, New York Fashion Week has produced Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Diane von Furstenberg, Donna Karan and Michael Kors.

But what New York is most praised for among the Big Four is its commercial focus; it is run by several companies, including IMG. New York Fashion Week also encourages designers to concentrate on the domestic market. On the commercial side, many now think Shanghai may come to resemble New York.

London

Straight after New York, some of the buyers and fashion editors fly to London. London Fashion Week began in 1984, and British celebrities, royalty and politicians all lent a hand, including the "Iron Lady," Margaret Thatcher, who took a particular interest in fashion week in the 1980s.

At the first London Fashion Week, John Galliano presented his graduation collection. People called it astonishing, saying it "showed a free spirit," a phrase that almost became London Fashion Week's keynote from then on.

In 1992, Alexander McQueen made his debut. The British saw McQueen and several young designers of his generation as future stars, and London launched its NEWGEN platform at the same time. People realized that London Fashion Week was unlike any other.

McQueen presented his Spring/Summer 1994 "Nihilism" collection at London Fashion Week

Later, several awards, including Fashion Fringe, were launched during London Fashion Week to support emerging designers. The Chinese designer Wang Haizhen won one and received five years of funding. The first five years are usually the hardest for a new designer.

The British Fashion Council also funded London's showroom program, which let brands such as Craig Green, J.W. Anderson and Christopher Kane sell their latest collections to international buyers.

In the early 2000s, London Fashion Week looked shaky for a while. New designers kept emerging, but after Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Matthew Williamson, all of whom had benefited from London Fashion Week, began showing abroad, people worried that London would lose its international standing.

In 2009, Burberry decided to leave Milan and return to show in London. Commercially successful brands like this always help make a fashion week better known to the public. The usual method is to bring in celebrities as brand ambassadors and front-row guests, and their photos travel widely alongside those of figures such as the editor-in-chief of Vogue.

That same year, Matthew Williamson, Jonathan Saunders and Amanda Wakeley also came back to London, and Christopher Kane, after his big success, kept showing there. Most people still believe that "to go international, you have to go through the Paris system," but the shift gave cities that had only recently started fashion weeks more confidence.

Today London's place among the Big Four is fairly secure, though most of the news people see is still about new designers breaking through, some of them Chinese. In 1986, Drapers' report on London Fashion Week said: "If it's young, innovative fashion you want, the British can always do it best." None of that has changed.

London Fashion Week always impresses visitors, because it has more than one runway. Back home, they tell anyone who will listen: besides the huge main runway, people there put on shows on their own in restaurants and bars.

Milan

Milan Fashion Week follows London. CNN Style described the event, which began in 1958, this way: "In London you will always see a subtle, potentially punk spirit, but Milan is entirely different; people consider it super refined, very glamorous."

Not much character of its own, easily swayed by Paris: couldn't that description of Milan apply just as well to Paris Fashion Week?

A few years ago, Milan Fashion Week looked troubled. Some big local brands, such as Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci, held shows outside its official schedule.

Eventually, Italy's National Chamber of Fashion had to make new appointments to restore confidence, including new directors such as Prada executive Patrizio Bertelli.

The real change came in 2013, when Giorgio Armani joined the chamber to help revive Milan Fashion Week. Armani had always refused to join, and Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana had taken the same line. But once Armani declared his support, almost every high-end brand began showing its new collections in Milan.

Emporio Armani presented its Spring/Summer 2015 collection in Milan as part of Milan Fashion Week

Armani also issued a statement saying the move would help ease the industry's troubles, and he urged all Italian brands to come home. A designer of his stature has every reason to think about helping the whole industry, but for emerging designers the situation is somewhat awkward.

Local loyalists still cannot understand why Miu Miu goes to Paris to show, and such people seem to be growing in number across the industry.

But then, why does it?

And Then There's Paris

In 1973, Paris Fashion Week was reorganized under the French Federation of Fashion, and its position remains unshakable. "Showing in Paris" is still seen as a mark of status.

"You can be a genius in London, but to get real international standing you eventually have to put on a show in Paris," says Didier Grumbach, head of the French federation. The industry agrees. Brands that show in Paris typically include Chanel, Dior, Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Valentino, Balenciaga, Lanvin and Celine.

New York shows autumn/winter in February and spring/summer in September; by the time the circuit reaches Paris, it is around March and October. Just as Paris is the ideal place to launch a collection, becoming a big name that makes money the way Parisian brands do is the goal of almost every designer label. Some critics say the brands at Paris Fashion Week offer collections that strike a chord but are ultimately safe, with a dash of new youth-culture trends. Yet that formula is exactly what gave Saint Laurent its best sales ever last year, up 27%.

Paris is also a frequent selling point when designers promote themselves. But during fashion week the whole city is really one giant trade fair, so launching a collection in Paris is not that hard; it does not have to be a runway show. When Paul Smith held his first formal womenswear show at New York Fashion Week in 1990, he admitted he was nervous, because "after all, I had only ever presented in Paris."

Smaller brands, such as Acne and visvim, rent private showrooms for static presentations, and at the bigger trade fairs you will find hundreds of small labels.

Note that Paris also has a haute couture fashion week, which has existed since at least 1945.

Versace's Autumn/Winter 2014 collection, shown at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week

Established brands no longer confine their launches and shows to the two ready-to-wear seasons. Beyond spring/summer and autumn/winter, the ones you have probably heard of most are the resort (cruise) collections and the Métiers d'Art collections. We once wrote about how many shows Chanel actually puts on in a year; you can read it here.

So why did we write this piece? Spring/Summer 2016 Shanghai Fashion Week is under way (and by now you should no longer ask why the models wear sleeveless clothes just as the weather turns cool). Shanghai Fashion Week began in 2001 and has run for only a dozen or so years. What should you expect from it?

Let's review the history once more. New York Fashion Week was first dominated by the New York Dress Institute; more than ten years after the CFDA gradually gained a voice, it realized that holding events worked better than handing out awards within the trade. London Fashion Week's early fame rested on the shock Alexander McQueen delivered, though London seized the moment to launch NEWGEN to support new designers.

As for Shanghai, it is still working to make itself presentable, with no bold declarations and no mature platform yet. How to judge its future is something we will keep reporting on.