http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/fashion/everything-you-need-to-know-about-this-fashion-week.html 2016-09-07 11:07:21 Everything You Need to Know About This Crazy, Mixed-Up, (Maybe) Very Good Season From designer debuts to “seasonless” collections and see-now, shop-now disrupters, here is your crib sheet to the ready-to-wear circus. === Gather ye memories while ye may: Fashion week as it has been for the last 50-plus years may, finally, be over. This is not crying wolf (pelts). This is real. What are you talking about? This season, for the first time, designers and brands have stopped debating (and complaining about and whining about) the Instead, a handful have simply decided to do something about it. But not the same thing. And not everyone. Why do I care? It is going to be even more complicated for armchair viewers and potential shoppers (that’s you) to parse what you see on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook as you dip in and out of the women’s shows for the next month to figure out what? Maybe what you can go online and get tomorrow. (Told you some things had changed.) Maybe what you could buy your partner (ditto). Maybe what to put on a wish list. Maybe what your favorite celebrity will be sporting on the red carpet before you can say “fashion week,” and what you could rush out and acquire for your own closet Plus, this is a season with, perhaps, more designer and brand switcheroos than ever before, which means the clothes you are about to see, and wear, may suddenly start to look notably different from what you may have expected. O.K. Let’s start with the switcheroos. Who’s going where? The biggest changes are taking place in Paris, where There’s also some city-hopping going on, with Albert Kriemler, recipient of the Couture Council’s award for Artistry in Fashion, bringing the Akris show to New York for the first time (and because his signature luxury architectural tailoring has a major American following in women in the C-suite). For his part, Olivier Theyskens — the longhaired, fragile romantic of the goth set and erstwhile Theory designer — is returning to Paris, a city he left seven years ago after stints at Nina Ricci and Rochas, to introduce a new namesake label. Thakoon Panichgul and his Thakoon line are also back after a fallow season, and with a new owner (Bright Fame Fashion) and a new approach to business: straight-to-consumer e-commerce and his own retail store. And finally, also back on schedule in New York is What is this see-now, shop-now thing? Exactly what you think it is: See it on Instagram now, then buy it (or in some cases order it) hours later. In response to the brave new world of social media and e-commerce, and the way we have all been trained to insist on immediate gratification (and consumers’ increasingly short attention spans), a small group of companies has upended normal production schedules so that everything you see in its live-stream will be available to buy either in-store or online pretty much immediately. These include: Mr. Ford; Mr. Panichgul; Tommy Hilfiger, who is also creating a funfair around his presentation on a pier and opening it to the public, the better for them to play and shop at the same time; Opening Ceremony; and the big kahuna in London that led the charge, But wait: Isn’t this season spring-summer? Why would they sell spring clothes now? It is, officially, the spring-summer season — unless you are Tom Ford, in which case you are showing fall-winter, because, well, it is fall-winter. But many of his see-now, shop-now compatriots are creating “seasonless” collections insteadthat include coats, cashmeres, silks and lingerie dresses, which is pretty much the panoply of options everyone needs anyway now that global warming has played havoc with predictable weather patterns. Another old division fast going by the wayside in response to reality: The former divide between men’s wear and women’s wear, an increasingly passé fashion throwback to a more discriminatory time. Mr. Ford, Burberry, Rag & Bone and Bottega Veneta will all show collections for both sexes concurrently this month. This makes sense, given that they are all designed to express the same brand values, not to mention the fact that shopping is not a gender-specific pastime. Anything else we need to know? Because of all this change roiling the ready-to-wear waters, some designers and brands are sitting the season out, or almost. Off the schedule entirely, because they decided to switch showing seasons, are But what does it all mean? To be absolutely honest, no one knows. Sartorial spaghetti is being thrown at the wall to see what sticks. But something will, and then the whole sparkly, chiffon-clad edifice could tip. In some ways, it depends on how you react. So be prepared. They’ll be watching.