Dao-Yi Chow, Maxwell Osborne
The latest designer to ditch the traditional NYFW schedule: Public School. Maxwell Osborn and Dao-Yi Chow announced they’ll combine their women’s and men’s collections in a streamlined presentation shown in June and December. The brand joins others, like Vetements, who are removing themselves from the traditional calendar, opting for timing that works with retailers’ and buyers’ schedules, and Burberry and Gucci, who are consolidating men’s and women’s collections into one show. It’s also renamed its collections—pre-spring and spring will become “Collection 1,” and pre-fall and fall “Collection 2.”
“Showing twice a year with both men’s and women’s in one show will allow us to really develop our ideas cohesively throughout the year and subsequently slow the entire process down,” said Chow in a press release, Fashionista reported. “We can actually enjoy our collections as opposed to being tied to the calendar.”
“When we launched women’s it was always the extension of the men’s collections. It was a collection that our female friends could enjoy without altering the men’s pieces to wear,” Osborne said. “We feel the similar design approach made more of an impact when we showed men’s and women’s at the same time.”
The release reportedly implies that Public School will host “consumer-facing activity” during Fall and Spring fashion weeks, but gives no additional details. No word yet on whether the designers are taking the new model to DKNY too, where they took the creative reigns last year.
