Tom Ford abandons see now, buy now after one season

Tom Ford has abandoned the see now, buy now approach to showing his collections after just one season saying the experiment didn't work as the fashion week schedules and retail drops are not in sync.

Having staged his last show at the former Four Seasons restaurant in New York, which received warm critical acclaim and led to a post-show sales spurt, Ford told WWD the see now, buy now construct doesn't work.

"The store shipping schedule doesn’t align with the fashion show schedule," he told the publication, adding that the bulk of autumn winter collections ship in August, so designers miss out on valuable selling time if they hold collections back from shop floors to show them in September. "[...] you can’t have a show with clothes that have been on the selling floor for a month," Ford explained, "We lost a month of selling. We had merchandise sitting in stockrooms all over the world."

Ford therefore is returning to the catwalk, however he will not be showing in London as he did before. Instead he will show in New York on a traditional six-months-ahead schedule and will be seeking a slot early on in the week (New York is the first of the big four fashion weeks).

The decision to show in the US has been in part driven by Ford's decision to move his primary family residence to LA from London and he has also taken a studio in LA to where the bulk of his women's design staff will relocate. The men's team will remain in London and that collection will continue to show during Milan Men's Fashion Week; Ford said there were no plans to regularly show men's and women's together.