While so-called “seasonless” fashion and licensed brand apparel has been an emerging trend within the fashion industry for several years – designers adding boots for spring/summer collections and lightweight coats for winter – COVID-19 is accelerating it. Retailers and suppliers, saddled with spring/summer seasonal apparel inventory that didn’t sell at stores closed during the pandemic, are either packing their collections into warehouses for Q1 2021 launches or preparing to sell them at markdown prices.

“Wear it now” sales

For example, Ralph Lauren is focusing on its core year-round apparel in the wake of COVID-19 and readying seasonal items for “wear it now” sales that will run June-August at its full-line and outlet stores as well as off-price retailers, to “maximize” full-price while “mitigating markdown risks,” CFO Jane Nielsen said in releasing earnings on Wednesday. At the same time, the company is re-designing parts of its seasonal collections for spring 2021 and has cancelled more than 60% of its seasonal fall purchases, Nielsen said.

“With the majority of the spring/summer season lost to COVID-19 our merchants are taking the opportunity to better align with what consumers are looking for,” Nielsen said. “Many of our iconic styles resonate with consumers season after season.”

Eliminating waste

The fashion industry has long been pushing for all-season apparel as a way to increase profit and lower costs, while also eliminating waste from the supply chain, said Lauren Wilner, Chief Merchandising Officer at NOW///with, during Licensing International’s recent Licensing VRoundtable.

“The consumer is 1,000 percent behind this, where you can wear 95 percent of your closet 100 percent of the time and talk about spring sandals in May, June, July,” Wilner said. “The hope is that everyone gets on the same bus and follows along with the consumers. Forget about the seasons when consumers are wearing t-shirts, hats, sneakers and denim until they are ready to go shopping again.” 

Inventory Overload

Off-price retailers, long the destination for 20-70% markdowns and clearance sales, are bracing for a market “loaded with inventory,” TJX Companies CEO Ernie Herrman said earlier this month. For its part, TJX will make “surgical buys” that will be sold starting in late June when its Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods, HomeSense and other stores are clear of existing inventory, Herrman said. Another portion of seasonal inventory that TJX buys will be moved to warehouses for spring 2021 introductions, said Herrman, whose chain has re-opened about 1,600 of its 4,695 global stores since May 2, including 798 in the U.S. as of May 11. For the first time, some of TJX Companies’ 21,000 vendors also will be shifting unsold inventory to their warehouses for Q1 2021 launches, Herrman said.