PARIS — Paris Fashion Week is not planning to move its calendar in response to increasingly extreme heat, but the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode is acknowledging that climate change is making the traditional fashion schedule harder to plan around.

FHCM executive president Pascal Morand said it was understandable that some in the industry were calling for summer shows to move earlier, potentially into May, after the extreme heat experienced during the most recent men’s and couture fashion weeks in June and July. But he cautioned against making a fundamental change to the calendar based on a single weather event.

“It is emotionally understandable that some voices may be advocating this course of action, given the difficult and painful period we have just experienced,” Morand said. “However, it is important not to overreact and to ensure that any decision is based on sound analysis and careful consideration.”

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However, the problem is that extreme heat is becoming both more consequential and less predictable. The industry would need to consider the probability, timing and duration of heat episodes between April and October over a five- to 10-year horizon, he said — uncertainty that does not fit easily within the planning cycles of fashion events or the wider fashion supply chain.

“At this stage, there is no evidence or compelling rationale for fundamentally disrupting the industry’s spatial and temporal ecosystem in search of a different equilibrium,” Morand said.

Instead, the FHCM is focusing on resilience and adaptability, working with public authorities and fashion houses and circulating recommendations based on France’s national heatwave plan.

That puts Paris at the center of a larger question facing fashion. It’s not necessarily that shows should be held earlier, but how an industry still organized around relatively fixed seasons can operate when weather and consumer behavior are becoming harder to predict.

FashionSights managing director Achim Berg pointed to the industry’s business calendar as the bigger underlying issue.

Fashion companies can spend nine to 12 months developing, producing and distributing collections, leaving them poorly equipped to respond when weather arrives earlier, later or more intensely than expected.

“We have a bigger issue that the cycles are still very static, and aligned with the traditional seasons, but that shopping behaviors have changed,” Berg said.

The commercial consequences are already visible. Summer markdowns can begin before consumers have experienced the weather the clothes were designed for.

“Premium, affordable luxury and luxury e-commerce went on discount for summer on the sixth of June in Germany,” Berg said. “At that point in time, the heat had not even arrived.”

Extreme temperatures can also affect the physical retail business, particularly in European cities where shoppers spend more time walking between stores.

“If you look at the frequencies in high streets and malls in the last weeks [of summer], people clearly have less interest spending time in stores in order to make fashion purchases,” he said.

Berg pointed to Zara as an example of a business model better equipped to respond to changing demand. Shorter lead times allow the retailer to get closer to the market and reduce the need to commit inventory so far in advance.

“If we look at the most successful player at the moment, Zara, you see that they have completely broken with that old logic,” he said. “They are successful for a reason because…they are avoiding exactly that stock issue, and they are avoiding the early discounts, and they are able to adapt.”

That does not mean luxury and premium fashion can simply adopt fast fashion’s model. But it highlights a structural vulnerability in an industry that has invested heavily in marketing and communications while leaving much of its production calendar largely unchanged.

“The fact that the larger parts of the industry, including luxury, that they are still working on a nine- to 12-month lead time calendar feels very outdated and is one of the anachronisms of this industry,” Berg said.

The pressure is not limited to retail. Extreme weather is already changing the practical considerations around fashion week itself, Morand said, particularly logistics, transportation and guest safety. During the latest season, attendees were given cooling accessories including umbrellas and fans, though individual houses were left to make their own decisions about venues and outdoor shows.

During the June men’s shows, Louis Vuitton staged its collection against a 25-foot-high artificial wave at Paris’ Cité Universitaire, as temperatures climbed above 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

Images of the installation drew criticism on social media, with the controversy focused not only on the apparent extravagance of using a giant water installation, but also on the use of a public park for a closed off luxury event during the heat wave.

It demonstrated a growing challenge for fashion productions that might once have been lauded for their extravagant sets and entertainment value, but look very different when they take place against a backdrop of extreme heat and unprecedented drought.

Elsewhere, very few brands acknowledged the circumstances. Maison Kitsuné creative director Abigail Smiley-Smith said the collection was designed in response to climate change and extreme heat, yet the brand still held its show outdoors at midday. At the System show, guests huddled under awnings while attendants were sweltering in full sun to escort people to seats they were too afraid to move toward until given umbrellas.

In Copenhagen, the response has been more explicitly tied to the fashion week’s sustainability requirements. Copenhagen Fashion Week introduced 19 minimum standards for brands on its official schedule in 2023.

Chief executive officer Cecilie Thorsmark said fashion weeks have influence over the wider industry and therefore a responsibility to use it.

“Fashion weeks and fashion councils — obviously we have a big influence. We are a very important part of the wider fashion ecosystem. So with that influence, I also believe that you know there comes responsibility,” Thorsmark said.

Fashion weeks can determine which brands get access to their platforms, she said, giving them a way to push the industry to change.

“We are at a critical stage in time where we need action,” Thorsmark said. “At least that was the rationale behind implementing and developing the sustainability requirements that we have at our fashion week.”

Copenhagen’s standards cover the wider production and sourcing, rather than just the environmental impact of the shows themselves.

“It’s actually a fashion week that’s asking brands to reconsider how they do business in any part of their value chain,” Thorsmark said.

Morand said Paris has also been working on the environmental impact of fashion week since 2019, when the FHCM developed the STEP.event eco-design tool with PwC. The tool focuses specifically on the event value chain, while the federation works separately on issues affecting the industrial value chain.

For Paris, he said, the goal is to improve practices without imposing rules that could constrain the creativity at the heart of the event.

But Morand also cautioned against judging fashion weeks solely by what is most visible. He said their environmental footprint needs to be considered alongside their economic and social value, while noting that travel, digital activity, showrooms and trade fairs all form part of a larger ecosystem.

“Nevertheless, they should not distract us from a fundamental objective: Paris Fashion Week must be exemplary,” he said.

Copenhagen’s approach also illustrates the difficulty of making fashion weeks themselves more sustainable as they become more international. Thorsmark said Copenhagen has measured its carbon footprint since 2020 and has reduced emissions in areas including food, transportation and merchandise. But international attendance has continued to grow, increasing emissions from travel.

“I very much acknowledge that offsetting is not the answer and it’s not the only solution, but it is what we can do now,” she said.

At the same time, Thorsmark said, the larger international audience has strengthened the fashion week’s ability to bring together brands, media, tastemakers and activists.

“While our carbon emissions from flights have increased, I hope that how we’ve broadened out the conversation at a more global scale balances it out,” she said.

The deeper climate risk, meanwhile, extends well beyond the shows. Supply chains and raw materials are vulnerable to extreme weather, while unpredictable temperatures can affect when consumers want to buy and wear products.

“We’ve seen progress on sustainability in those areas where there is a business case,” FashionSight’s Berg noted. “Cheaper and cleaner energy — that is where we see the progress.”

Climate resilience could increasingly fall into the same category, he said.

“The likelihood that [climate] is managed like a normal risk and management problem is significantly higher, and that usually leads to progress,” he added.

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