Alexander Fury: Fast fashion? We’re all speed freaks today

‘Click to buy’, ‘straight from the catwalk’ – such buzzy terminology is endemic in fashion

The Dover Street Market store in Mayfair is thriving

If patience is a virtue, I wonder when fashion became quite so unvirtuous. Because there’s nothing patient about fashion right now – lusting and lunging after the now, the new and the next. Last weekend, Dover Street Market in central London unveiled its biannual rejig to welcome new stock, in this case autumn/winter.

Well, in theory, at least – because one corner is turned over to Jonathan “JW” Anderson’s debut collection for the Spanish leather house Loewe. They’re actually terming it a pre-launch capsule collection, but, nevertheless, it’s what we saw barely a month ago in Paris, and weren’t expecting to see in shops until January.

Loewe is only the most recent example – and, although the capsule dropped “in world” at Dover Street, it’s been available from the Loewe website since the Paris presentation in June.

That approach – “click to buy” “straight from the catwalk”, and other buzzy terminology – is endemic in fashion right now, resulting in collections with increasingly premature birthdates and truncated lifespans. Last year, Donatella Versace relaunched her Versus line with a collection available immediately online. Burberry Prorsum and Louis Vuitton have offered the same. “Time is luxury,” states Louis Vuitton’s menswear head, Kim Jones.

Maybe that’s what all this speeded-up luxe stuff is all about – after all, a crocodile bag can only get so luxurious. What’s really luxurious is the opportunity to have that bag before everyone else gets their mitts on it. Simple one-upmanship. That never goes out of fashion.