So, What Is a Resort Show?

From January through March every year, our screens—and, for the luckiest among us, our travel schedules—are inundated with fashion shows. Menswear and couture kick things off in Milan and Paris before New Yorkers jet back to their homebase for the first round of womenswear shows and the international circuit begins all over again. Though there is brief respite for spring break and the annual extravaganza that is the Met Gala, the next thing you know, top editors, influencers, and celebrities are hopping back onto flights, scattering to sometimes far-flung corners of the world for resort collections, forming a miniature, loosely defined season filled with jaunty renditions of signature house codes.

But what is a resort collection, or cruise as it’s sometimes called, other than an enviously Instagrammable trip? It’s a question for the ages: the New York Times was pondering “the most mysteriously labeled of all fashion seasons,” all the way back in 1989.

The tradition dates back to the 20th century, when high-net-worth, often European, customers would supplement their wardrobes with seasonally appropriate fares, often nicknamed “beach pajamas,” before embarking on ocean liners for their annual post-Christmas trips. Coco Chanel was an early profiteer of this coastal shopping, launching her jersey sportswear and opening her first boutiques in Deauville and then Biarritz, where the brand will return for its resort 2027 runway show tomorrow—you can follow along here.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, leisure travel became more accessible, widening the window of seasonal ready-to-wear opportunities. And not only that: Using the global embrace of chic getaways to promote an “off-season” offering that filled the racks in between the fall and summer collections was a neat marketing trick.

It wasn’t until 2007, when Chanel touched down in New York’s Grand Central Station, that attending the resort shows became a glamorous event of its own. (Karl Lagerfeld was an early adopter of extravagant, highly photogenic runway sets, after all.) Indeed resort shows often provide bigger experiences than their regular season ready-to-wear counterparts. Nothing quite raises the bar like securing a historic location, as when the guests of Chanel’s resort 2017 show were among the first official US visitors welcomed to Cuba in nearly 40 years. Where these collections once prioritized open-toed sandals and breezy silhouettes, more ostentatious and conceptual collections have instead followed suit.

This season, more than one European name is decamping to the States for a fresh crop of resort collections. Jonathan Anderson will take to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for Christian Dior on May 13, Demna will present his first Gucci cruise collection on May 16 in the Big Apple, followed by Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière just a few days later. While the US has often been included as a stop during resort’s global tour, it suddenly feels like this season’s defining trend. Instead of capri pants in Cannes, it’s Bermuda shorts in Brooklyn!