Fur stoles for spring? Sheer skirts for the dead of winter? These days, it all makes perfect sense, with fashion designers paying little attention to the season for which they’re creating clothing.
Yes, we all still need warm coats when it’s cold out and something light to wear in the heat. But in the past year, some old rules — like “thou shalt only wear sandals in summer” — have changed.
From a business perspective, fashion houses are finally considering the timing of their clothes hitting stores — and the fact that women don’t necessarily want to wait three months to be able to wear their spring or winter clothes.
“The fact of the matter is, the weather is still very cold in most countries by the time the spring collections hit. It’s a slightly old-fashioned mentality to be so controlled by the season,” Zowie Broach, one-half of the London-based design duo Boudicca says of the phenomenon some editors are calling “sprinter.” She created fur-collared wool coats for her spring line because she knew that “there are women in Russia who will buy these in March. But even if the customer is in Las Vegas, she might want to wear that coat over a beautiful chiffon dress on a chilly night.”
Global e-commerce sites like Netaporter.com further fuel the fire. “As an international business, seasonless dressing is very relevant to us,” says the site’s buying director, Holli Rogers.
