This post was originally published on this site

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 disconnect between how the system has evolved — clothes shown to an inside few, with images widely disseminated to the many, who can’t buy what they see for six months; men’s and women’s wear by the same designer shown four months apart — and how we all actually buy: Now! When we want it!

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, instead of just fantasizing about and forgetting.

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 Anthony Vaccarello is stepping into the creative director post at Saint Laurent vacated by the marketing genius-control obsessive known as Hedi Slimane, who remade the brand in his own image in a short three years before departing in March. Also making their debuts are: Bouchra Jarrar at Lanvin, following the controversial ouster of its long-term designer Alber Elbaz; Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior, where she will be the first woman to lead the creative team at the storied brand; and Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino, Ms. Chiuri’s former design partner, who is now stepping into the spotlight solo. Got that?

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 Tom Ford, who introduced his own women’s line in New York in 2010, decamped for London in 2011, spent a season in Los Angeles and one in the digital space, and is now trumpeting a see-now, shop-now model (also known as see-now, buy-now and see-now, have-now), among other changes.

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, Burberry. In the same model, brands like Michael Kors and Prada are also offering select show accessories for immediate sale.

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 instead that 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. Calvin Klein, which hired Raf Simons as creative director last month, is having only a small presentation designed by its anonymous in-house team as a kind of placeholder, in anticipation of Mr. Simons’s big statement-making debut in February. Oscar de la Renta, which last week named Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia of Monse as creative directors to replace Peter Copping, who parted ways with the company in July, will likewise be designed by a team. (But watch the tea-leaf reading at the Monse show, as viewers attempt to parse the designers’ intentions for the bigger house.) And Diane von Furstenberg, where Jonathan Saunders is making his debut as creative director, is managing the transition with a series of appointments rather than a runway blowout.

Off the schedule entirely, because they decided to switch showing seasons, are Public School, Vetements and Cédric Charlier, all of which opted for January and June instead of September and February. So don’t freak out if you don’t read about them over the next few weeks. This does not mean they have shut down; rather, they have placed production and distribution demands over participation in the main show circus.

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.