If you are one to keep up with designer fashion collections then you will have noticed that the days of bi-annual collections are long past us, instead of simply a Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter collection we now bear witness to so-called cruise and pre-collections. What are these additional collections, why have they become a commercial necessity for a brand and do we actually need them in 2022?

The first modern fashion week as we would recognise was held in New York City in 1943, creating a way for the press to follow the designs of the day from notable American based fashion houses. From this moment on, fashion week would be about two things, art and money. Fashion houses make ridiculous amounts of money per collection they show from the coverage myriads of journalists and publications are happy to give, be it good or bad coverage. It is a fact of life, that press generates money and money makes the world go around, so designers and houses will do everything they possibly can to milk as much from a fashion week as humanly possible. From elaborate marketing campaigns, paying celebrities to wear their new collections in public and inviting popular content creators to sit front row, if it will bring about conversation, they will do it. Every single fashion week is valuable so it’s to the benefit of all involved if there just so happened to be more than two collections in a year…or is it?

Pre-spring, resort, holiday or cruise collections are pretty much all the same thing, a fashion collection that takes place after the fall/winter collection but before spring/summer. Somewhat like a bridge connecting the two. Pre-fall is a slightly newer concept than its pre-spring cousin but it is swiftly cementing itself into the yearly calendar. Not exactly a hard concept to grasp, pre-fall is after spring/summer and before fall/winter. Probably the sort of clothes for that weird September and October time where you can struggle to know how many layers you need! But why bother with these extra collections? Money. The gap between seasons generally means a loss in sales for a brand as the hype around the most recent collection fades away. You may think that only the very popular, and loud, brands such as Gucci or Dior hold interim collections, many houses are now following suit. And while the big brands go all out for these pre-collections and treat them like any other, smaller brands may just opt for a lookbook or simply release images to the press instead of staging a runway event. However they go about it though, there is no question as to how lucrative the pre-collections have become.

Stella McCartney Pre-Fall 2022 collection.

Image: Stella McCartney

The real question, however, is are these pre-collections necessary and could they even be damaging? The fashion trend cycle has been consistently getting shorter and shorter every year to a point where we soon may find the cycle is all but gone. The rapid growth of social media and technology has led to an increase in fashion consumption. Fast fashion has invaded the globe, encouraging all of us to overconsume, something that has become so streamlined that we can shop all of our favourite collections from the comfort of our own sofa. As a species, our attention span has dwindled greatly and we need constant new stimulation to feel sane, so it makes sense that brands are aiming to keep up with each other by producing and producing over and over again. Even if the designer believes in a slower, circular fashion economy, they find they’ll lose out on valuable income if they don’t keep up in one way or another. We’ve become trapped in a cycle of our own making, and these pre-collections aren’t helping anything.

Brands that keep creating needlessly are beginning to lessen the quality of their product, not just physically but also in an artistic sense. You cannot keep having incredible, unique and innovative ideas for collections if you are burning yourself out. Not to mention, of course, the vast amount of extra work being needed by brands chosen factories and garment workers. While it can be fun to look at the designs of these collections because, after all, we all enjoy fashion and want to be aware of what’s happening at different brands and how that will impact other collections, no one is really enjoying it. Runway models are being worked literally off their feet, designers are frazzled and the press can’t keep up. At first, the idea seemed rather genius. More collections = more press = more money. But all it’s causing us is a headache!

Surely if we revert back to the tried and tested model of just Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter, a multitude of troubles would be fixed in some way. It has worked for decades and may help us all fall back in love with the fashion industry.