Their retreat is likely a consequence of the defenestration of fashion’s multi-brand retail model that occurred over the course of the past year, which created financial instability for brands. Ssense, the Canadian retailer known for its catalogue of indie labels, filed for bankruptcy protection this past August, and at the time of filing, owed 93 million Canadian dollars to vendors, according to GQ. The merging of Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman into Saks Global led to its own bankruptcy filing earlier this year.
An independent designer and unsecured creditor I spoke to last month said they had been informed by Saks Global that the close to $100,000 they’re owed will remain in limbo now that the case is going to court. Chanel is owed roughly $136 million, and Kering, which owns brands like Gucci and Balenciaga, about $60 million. The fundamental difference is that the independent designer I spoke with has an operational budget contingent on the repayment of the debt. They are one of several designers who had to rethink their plans for NYFW, either by scaling down their presentations or canceling them altogether.
And yet financial woes are not the only dilemma the industry is facing.
Fashion has always contended with its standing within culture at large, at times failing to connect with the zeitgeist due to its positioning as a bastion of status, luxury, and access. A reticence to alienate potential customers has meant that, historically, designers often shy away from tackling political and social issues head on, opting instead for escapism and, if anything, an outdated reach-across-the-aisle-style discourse.
But in recent years, the industry found ways to engage with the political climate. In the 2016 election cycle, fashion as an industry stood united behind a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. Designers like Tory Burch and Prabal Gurung created products to support her campaign, and Vogue endorsed her, marking the first time the magazine supported a candidate in such a way. Then, in 2020, fashion once more rallied, with initiatives like Fashion Our Future 2020—created by designer Abrima Erwiah and actor Rosario Dawson, who both helm the sustainable label Studio 189, also missing at NYFW this season—which worked with names like the late Virgil Abloh plus labels including Proenza Schouler and Khloé Kardashian’s Good American to motivate customers to register to vote. In September 2024, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, with support from Vogue, organized a march at the beginning of NYFW to rally voters—it was technically a nonpartisan event, but Jill Biden made an appearance and addressed the crowds at Bryant Park.
“I don’t think that fashion is there anymore,” Hillary Taymour, the designer of Collina Strada, said when I saw her earlier this week. “We’re all talking to the same demographic. No one is crossing that bridge, except [a few],” Taymour said.
