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There’s a new fashion week calendar for Autumn/Winter 2025.
After the big four fashion weeks agreed in June to all shift their dates back a week, New York has now decided against the changes because of a clash with a US public holiday. As a result, a nine-day gap has opened up between New York Fashion Week (NYFW) and London Fashion Week (LFW) in February.
There are mixed opinions on how the changes will impact the global industry. For press and buyers, it could mean a less hectic schedule in February (though it remains to be seen whether any brands will show off-schedule within that gap). However, some of the smaller fashion weeks are now facing clashing dates.
In June, the four biggest fashion councils — the British Fashion Council (BFC), Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (CNMI), Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode (FHCM) — shared a joint statement indicating that they had “agreed unanimously” to certain changes that would have a knock-on effect on the whole calendar, including moving Italian trade show Pitti Uomo later (starting on 14 January compared to 9 January this year) and adding a day to Milan Fashion Week.
They said the changes would “avoid overlaps and create synchrony for the fashion calendar”, and would “aim to benefit the trade audience travelling between cities as well as the on-schedule designers”. The fashion week schedule is never set in stone; it tends to shift around every few years, explains Pascal Morand, executive president of FHCM. “Mechanically, we advance by one day per year (two days during leap years), which means that every six to seven years, we have to move back a week,” he says.
But the CFDA has since decided to revert back to its original dates, so now, NYFW AW25 will run from 6-11 February (rather than 13-18 February, the dates it set out in June).
CFDA chief executive Steven Kolb says the European councils initiated the shift, and it didn’t quite work for New York. “Our original intent was to adjust our schedule to align with theirs, but because this would have placed Presidents’ Day weekend during NYFW, we ultimately decided against the change,” he explains. “The disruption would have been too significant, so we chose to keep our earlier dates. I believe the gap may actually provide a welcome break for the industry, allowing time to manage other non-fashion week business, which can often be stressful during the usual four-week marathon.”
Right now, it’s not clear how future season schedules will proceed and if the break between New York and London is here to stay. The BFC did not respond to a request to clarify future timelines by the time of publication.
The impact of the New York-London gap
The recent updates took many by surprise. The CFDA confirmed it did not issue an official press release or statement (and that it is not able to pinpoint an exact date for the decision to revert back to the first weekend in February). “I had no idea what you were talking about [when you reached out for this story] — I was like, oh!” says New York publicist Lindsey Solomon, founder of Lindsey Media, who represents indie designers including Collina Strada and Wiederhoeft.
Some showgoers are excited about the prospect of the break between New York and London. “I love fashion season but it’s such an exhausting calendar,” says Emma Davidson, fashion features director at Dazed, who attends the full circuit of fashion weeks. “You have to deal with jet lag straight into London. It’s always quite intimidating to think of how busy you’ll be for January and February. I’m thrilled about the nine-day break, I think it’s going to relieve a lot of people.”
The gap between New York and London might impact which cities press and buyers choose to attend, for better or worse. Attendees from New York might be more likely to attend LFW than they previously have been; when the dates are closer together some press and buyers skip LFW (which is known more for emerging rather than established brands) to take a break before Milan and Paris. Attendees from London might also enjoy the break at home between New York and the European shows. For European attendees, it might be a toss up; some might not want to travel home between New York and London, so they might decide to skip one. On the plus side, any attendees who commit to New York might be more likely to stay until the end of fashion week rather than leaving on the last day to make it to London, which Solomon says is common.
“I believe there won’t be a single behaviour from buyers worldwide,” predicts Stavros Karelis, founder and buying director of London-based concept store Machine-A. He thinks that most US buyers who travel internationally will continue to do Milan and Paris (where most showrooms are based), and some will start with London. “In terms of the European buyers, I believe due to many budget limitations they will decide to begin from LFW [skipping NYFW] and then to Milan and Paris. And for Asian buyers, still the latter option is easier than flying all over to NYFW and waiting until the showrooms begin in Milan and Paris. For the bigger stores and department stores worldwide, the solution is sometimes easier as they can split their teams pending on the markets.”
While Karelis doesn’t expect buyers’ budgets and ordering habits to change much, he thinks the longer fashion month period might impact production times and therefore delivery times, particularly for brands with smaller productions. “This can heavily affect a buyer’s decision if they see that the brand will deliver later than expected,” he says. “There are always ways around it, but overall and especially in a difficult financial moment for the industry, buyers will make the safest decisions and are willing to risk very little. The brands and emerging designers will need to decide when is best to show – during the men’s calendar or the women’s – as showing and selling during men’s gives a better lead time to production and secures earlier deliveries to the stores.”
The knock-on effect on smaller fashion weeks
There are implications for smaller fashion weeks. Berlin has had to shift its dates to avoid its last day overlapping with the first day of New York. Now, Berlin Fashion Week will take place 31 January to 3 February, directly after Copenhagen Fashion Week.
“If [the clash] was with a European fashion week, we could have kept it, but we spoke to some guests who said they might skip Berlin because, if they want to be in New York for the first day, they’d have to travel the day before or earlier to avoid jet lag,” says Scott Lipinski, CEO of Fashion Council Germany. “Luckily, we just started with our communication of dates so it wasn’t harmful for us at this stage because brands haven’t booked their locations yet. If we found out in a month or two, that would have been a problem.” Lipinski says smaller fashion councils weren’t involved in the discussions about the changes to the schedule, but he’d like that to change in future.
Copenhagen Fashion Week (CPHFW) is less affected by the gap between New York and London, and is sticking with its plan of showing 27-31 January. However, this now clashes with Paris couture week.
CPHFW CEO Cecilie Thorsmark is stoic about the impact. “The shifts to other fashion week dates [are] not affecting the growth and ambitions of our organisation and activations,” she says. “While we now overlap with couture dates in the AW25 editions, the crossover with international press is minimal, if any, and our SS26 edition in August continues to enjoy unparalleled exposure due to its timing. We are so grateful for the continued support of our international community who prioritise and respect our dates that have remained the same.”
With opinions divided around the calendar changes, the industry is awaiting what the AW25 season will bring. “It creates a whole lot of questions that are still unanswered,” says Solomon.
With additional reporting by Laure Guilbault and Lucy Maguire.
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