Hot off the runway, ready to wear couture can now be Amazon Prime’d to your house, just like your blue light glasses and bulk toilet paper.
In the middle of September, Amazon launched “Luxury Shops,” an exclusive, waitlist guarded store within their endless conglomerate, allowing Prime customers to join via an invitation in their email inbox. It’ll be available on their app. Considering these designers will be able to launch their stores within Amazon and not just sell their merchandise with Amazon, they’ll have full reign over inventory, pricing, and more, with the massive platform that comes with the site.
Oscar de la Renta is the first couture house to open their shop on Amazon, CEO Alex Bolen telling Vogue, “I would guess that somewhere near 100% of our existing customers are on Amazon and a huge percentage of those are Prime members.”
With this move by Oscar de la Renta and the many other undisclosed designers expected to follow raises questions about the future of fashion. This is a new type of “fast fashion” that we aren’t used to; couture, ready to wear at the fingertips of consumers worldwide.
Many other luxury brands preach sustainability and are trying to move in a more economic direction, especially with induced mass losses from COVID-19. Oscar de la Renta Creative Directors Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim spoke to Elle Magazine about what sustainability means to them. They discussed their desire to lower their carbon footprint and waste by utilizing existing fabrics to reduce their outsourcing.
With two higher-ups at the company so sustainability-focused, another question arises. Why Amazon? Why jump on the bandwagon of a notoriously unsustainable organization, known for selling knock-off garments, as well as a carbon footprint the size of their 150 million square feet in warehouses.
Amazon will bring mass production to these brands that historically relied on ateliers and specialty workers. Will this tempt couture brands to crank out designer handbags like a Zara tank top? Or will they stick to the idea of small quantities that bring the exclusivity factor?
Many brands will run into moral dilemmas within our current social climate. Some choose to sacrifice cultural awareness for business, social duty for convenience, and brand expansion for originality without keeping in touch with what they once were. It’s up to us to determine if we will support these decisions and decide to purchase that brand new Spring 2021 Oscar de la Renta, rather than browsing websites like The Real Real or a luxury consignment store.
Words by Olivia Hawkins
Graphic by Camille Gonzales Barrosse