Instant Fashion’s Changing Tides: Thakoon Venture ‘on Hold’

The see-now-buy-now movement, which launched to great fanfare a year ago but has since slowed, has lost another convert. Silas Chou and Thakoon Panichgul said Monday they have put their direct-to-consumer, see-now-buy-now venture on hold, and are considering restructuring the business. Thakoon’s model was one of a handful of companies that experimented with the see-now-buy-now concept, to varying degrees of success. Those that showed entire see-now-buy-now collections were Rebecca Minkoff, Tommy Hilfiger, Burberry and Ralph Lauren. Other companies offered capsules of see-now-buy-now merchandise to complement the following season’s offering. A year ago, the model was seen as the way to reignite consumer demand for designer fashion after several years of generally lackluster sales. Retailers and designers blamed the out-of-kilter fashion calendar for shoppers’ blahs, saying consumers no longer wanted to wait six months between seeing images of a collection and being able to buy it. In the age of Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, retailers contended, consumers wanted what WWD dubbed “instant fashion” — clothes they would see on the runway and would be immediately able to buy. That was then — and this is now. Retailers queried about the see-now-buy-now movement after the most recent round of New York shows last month were decidedly less

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