10 Magazine The Winter 2014 Issue Starring Delfina Delettrez. On Newsstands This Friday

Editor’s Letter

Since the very beginning of the magazine we have devoted our summer and winter issues to pre-collections. Now, though, more so than ever before, these collections seem to have become the main event in terms of revenue for the majority of fashion houses, providing an estimated 60-85% of their overall sales. Like the couture collections before them, it seems that the ready-to-wear collections may eventually be superseded by the more commercially focused collections. With their earlier drops, and therefore longer shelf lives, they are outselling their more conceptually orientated ready-to-wear sister collections. These “hors d’oeuvres to the main course of catwalk”, as Alex Fury so eloquently puts it, have in fact become the main event, having developed into the biggest area of growth that has taken them far from being the poor relation in terms of creativity, and seen them adopting their own vocabulary that is more direct, but no less creative in any way.

As I embark, too, on instigating our own London pre-collection shows, starting with Roland Mouret last season showing his pre-fall for the first time in his store, I hope I can inspire more designers to do something similar to rival those existing designers that show their pre-collections already in NYC. This is an attempt to create a more intimate relationship between journalists, designers and consumers, with more low-key salon shows where you interact with the designer and develop a closer empathy with the designer’s world and the designer’s women. Will we, in the future, question the need of the ready-to-wear circus in favour of this brave new world?

We are at the crossroads of this route to the future. The fear is it will compromise creativity and make these fanciful moments obsolete. However, this is not the case at all. As more and more super-brands engage in this process, the more elaborate and far-flung these events are becoming, with them even being slightly themed to their destination. King Karl, the patron saint of this type of show, has taken us to the shores of the Lido in Venice to Japan to Texas to Dubai – everywhere! – to elaborate on his fantasies. Each place has represented an inspiration for the collection, but each show also leaves us with a lingering flavour that we savour, as well as a dialogue for the months that follow in the digital stratosphere and on the pages of our magazines and newspapers, making the whole thing a vital experience in the fashion calendar.

So, too, brands including Dior and Louis Vuitton have decided to participate and invest in this way by taking a selected few on the journey of discovery of their worlds, leaving their lasting mark on the fashion landscape.

So, as you can imagine, more than ever before, this moment MUST be recognised and discussed and no longer relegated to the realm of insignificant starter to the main event. This has become the main event!

Sophia Neophitou-Apostolou

Editor-in-Chief

Photographer: Maria Ziegelboeck

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