Image via Complex Original
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With NYFW: Men's on the horizon—less than two weeks!—now seems to be the right time to look at who is literally making it a reality. Without the money behind it, NYFW: Men's would fall flat on its face and it's thanks to the likes of Amazon that we're blessed enough to have a dedicated men's fashion week here in New York for the first time in roughly forever. The Business of Fashion took a look at the giant company's plans for fashion infiltration.
The current state of Amazon's fashion business is, well, a bit of a mess and you definitely don't think of hitting up Amazon when you need to buy new clothes. But the company wants to change that. In an effort to up the company's cred, it bought ShopBop in 2006, Zappos in 2009, launched MyHabit—a flash sales site like Gilt that seems to have had mixed success—in 2011 and started East Dane, their men's fashion branch, in 2013. Despite all that, the company still doesn't have the bulk of high-end brands that would draw customers away from other outlets and that's because Amazon's low price model can cut into a designer's share or dilute the brand. This is exactly why the rumors of Amazon buying Net-a-Porter a while back were so strong.
That's where NYFW: Men's comes in, to help cater to men who want a good, convenient online clothes shopping experience. Amazon is working to bring in new, more desirable brands and taking the chance to better merchandise the gear online with a new studio in Brooklyn and plans for another in London. It's not something that will happen overnight, but more of a long haul mission. It's going to be a while before any results are actually seen and between new products, brands and editorials, Amazon clearly has a long way to go. Either way, this high-end fashion push beings next month, with us, which is fucking dope.