From runway to ready-to-wear in record time

These dresses by Anna Sui were at the New York fashion week last month and the look is already in the shops here.

Once upon a time, there was an established "trickle down" effect in the fashion industry. The inexhaustible source of the fashion river was the pret-a-porter runways. The garment designs were then modified by mid-range and boutique designers to be wearable even for those women who weren't Amazonian models wearing wigs or novelty make-up. Then finally, months down the track, the trends were found at a chain store near you, all corners cut so they were cheap as possible.

If you were in Australasia, six months were added on to the entire process for our weather to catch up to the season for which the garments were made. But nobody really cared how long it took fashion to get here because nobody was aware of the delay. Travel was expensive, fashion magazines were shipped not flown, and the internet was just a gleam on some geeks' monitor screens. The whole fashion system meandered leisurely like the flutes in the pastoral Peer Gynt Suite.

But now, the fashion trend trickle doesn't have time to be absorbed by the boutiques before it's splashed all over Glassons for a 10th of the price in a matter of weeks. Over the past three years, someone has planted techno beats right underneath the flutes.

That someone is the customer. Thanks to Magazzino and the internet, she knows what she wants and she wants it now. For example, "I was in our Chadstone store [in Melbourne] and a customer came in with a magazine tear of the latest designer bag and asked us if we had anything in like this," says Portmans chain merchandising manager Peta Rooney in Australia.

Ironically, it is the large "vertical operators" — the manufacturers who have their own chain stores and who have traditionally been seen as the slowest on the uptake — who can react the quickest and give the customers what they want. Unlike the high-end designers or those labels that wholesale to boutiques, the vertical operators are not tied to producing two ranges a year and waiting for retailers to see the samples and make their orders. Instead, they often introduce new items into their stores every week. Cue marketing manager Kirsty Brockhoff calls it "knee-jerk reaction".

In a market where everybody is copying to some extent, "chain stores are reacting as quickly, or sometimes even more quickly, to fashion trends than most designers," says canvas fashion editor Alice Rycroft. "They're definitely snapping at the heels."

Venecia Martin, buyer for New Zealand-owned chain Max Fashions, goes overseas six to seven times a year to see what's in the shops in Europe and guestimates that 10 years ago designs took three months to get from the drawing board to the stores. Now it's six weeks, or an incredible 21/2 weeks if the garments are made locally. Portmans have trimmed two weeks off their delivery time over the past five years.

How? Martin says Max has been using the same factories in China for the past decade, which is enough time to have fine-tuned the systems to the company's requirements. More garments are now air freighted as well. Without specifying why, Peta Rooney also credits Portmans' off-shore manufacturing.

"It's very stressful," says Martin. "There's no time anymore for anything to go wrong. The last few seasons have been heavily embellished [with sequins and embroidery] so there's no time for faulty fabric. It's high risk." If something does go wrong, Max either cancels the order or starts again.

Store designers get around the unsuitable seasonality of their Northern Hemisphere inspirations by using similar colours and prints but changing the weight of the fabric. Anyway, "look at the winter we've just not had in Auckland, look at the lateness of summer," says Laurinda Sutcliffe, design director for wholesaler High Society's four labels. You can place a sleeveless top in a winter season these days, when you couldn't have a few years ago - and if it does get cold, people simply layer.

Season timings aren't as cut and dried as they used to be anyway. Venecia Martin says a few years ago Max might have dropped about a few dozen pieces into its stores at the beginning of a season, and then topped that collection up with, say, five or 10 new items a week. These days, the stream of items is steadier, rather than ebbing and flowing, with around 15 new items going into stores most weeks year round.

Meanwhile, stores in Australia are starting to clear their stock with discount sales four times rather than twice a year, a trend imposed by department stores Myers and David Jones. This makes things difficult for New Zealand fashion exporters, such as High Society. "We're dictated to a lot more by retailers in Australia — they hate doing it but they have no choice," says Sutcliffe. "Winter [stock] has to be in by February because customers will be sniffing around for sales by the end of March." High summer stock now goes into stores mid-October, whereas five years ago, it would have gone in right up until the beginning of December — a staggering six-week timetable change. Independent stores are now refusing to stock labels also sold in department stores — there's no point having stock on the shelves that is on sale elsewhere in town.

So how do the wholesalers keep up? Sutcliffe says they have to order fabric and even start production before all their retail orders are in, so they're working from projections rather than knowing for sure. "You have a gut feel but there's still a huge amount of risk."

Can the fashion machine's spin cycle get even faster? When being "fashion forward" is the compliment everyone covets, fashion fast forward is the only way to go.

* Read more about what's happening in the world of food, wine, party places and entertainment in canvas magazine, part of your Weekend Herald print edition.