A group of brands and retailers have been trying to reset expectations.
Fashion designers and luxury retailers have always had a complicated relationship with Black Friday. The super sale extravaganza doesn’t always fit right (no pun intended) with companies that make $890 shoes and $3,700 dresses. The pandemic only focused the issue: It wreaked havoc on supply chains and delayed the delivery of many items, potentially telescoping the amount of time products would remain on shelves at full price before the holiday sales begin. So back in May, designer Dries Van Noten and retailer Andrew Keith, now at Selfridge’s in London, convened a discussion over Zoom with other designers and chief executives to seize the moment to address long-needed change regarding when and how high-end clothes are delivered and discounted. They came up with a series of suggestions and published an “Open Letter” to the industry calling on others to join their cause: to deliver clothes in season and keep them on sale at full price until after the holidays. Over 500 international retailers and designers signed on. Yet here we are on Black Friday, and many of those signatories are conducting what look very much like sales as usual. “Cyber Deals Up to 50% Off” blares a red banner on the Nordstrom site (Pete Nordstrom, co-president, signed the letter). There are also sales at Tory Burch, Bergdorf Goodman and the Webster, to name a few other brands whose executives were among the signatories.
