At Paris Fashion Week, longer, hotter summers pose new challenge

By Helen Reid

PARIS, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Longer, hotter summers are disrupting fashion's seasonal calendar, forcing luxury brands to adapt designs and threatening sales of higher-margin winter clothing.

The industry's traditional cycle has long depended on consumers buying autumn and winter clothing as temperatures cool. But warmer autumns are delaying demand for coats and other cold-weather clothing, leaving retailers at risk of excess stock and markdowns.

In Paris, Saint Laurent billboard ads during Fashion Week showed a model wrapped in a thick fur coat, while the sun shone and tourists wandered the streets in T-shirts and shorts.

"The whole industry should realise that with climate change and higher temperatures, the time for selling coats has shifted later," said Pau Almar, a retail industry consultant who previously spent a decade at Zara.

The disconnect was on show during Paris Fashion Week, where temperatures reached 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and many guests opted for sleeveless tops and mini skirts rather than newly released autumn collections.

Typically, guests at spring/summer runway shows held at the end of September come dressed in autumn/winter products just released in stores. At Louis Vuitton's show on Tuesday, however, coats were scarce.

"I can't believe it's October here in Paris and I was wishing I brought some of my summer clothes from Miami," said Suzy Buckley Woodward, a guest at the show.

"My sales associate was putting a lot of coats in front of me for the show, and I said that's gonna be a waste because I think it's very unlikely that I'll need a coat for the show," she added.

ADAPTING DESIGNS, RETAIL RISKS

Louis Vuitton's womenswear designer Nicolas Ghesquiere is already adapting his designs, saying Europe's record heatwaves had a "strong influence" on his latest collection, which featured thin fabrics and airy constructions.

"The focus was on how do you do clothes that are like swimwear almost, like a second skin," he told reporters after Tuesday's show.

The warm weather last week left some guests in autumn clothing overheating at Dior’s spring/summer show in the Tuileries Gardens, despite ceiling fans installed above the runway.

The continuing high temperatures also pose a challenge for mass-market fashion retailers as stores begin to replace T-shirts with jackets and knitwear, facing the risk of having to discount excess stock.

Retailers will have to adapt to selling fewer heavy coats and more transitional layers, Almar said.

Profits could come under pressure as outerwear is typically higher-margin, and a delayed winter risks more shoppers waiting until end-November Black Friday discounts to pick up a new coat.

At the Hermes runway show on Saturday, fashion influencer sisters Snehal and Jyoti Babani said the weather, rather than the fashion calendar, had dictated their outfits.

"Is this really fall/winter?" Snehal said. "If the summers are getting hotter, the line between spring/summer and fall/winter will get really blurred."

(Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)