Photo: Imaxtree

Who knew New York would prove to the be the least stubborn fashion capital?  The almost year-long debate over which spring 2013 fashion week would be when has finally ended thanks to New York’s decision (and London’s agreement) to move their shows up by a week. The catfight started when New York and London claimed a calendar decision made three years ago in a meeting of the four fashion councils was in fact a three year agreement.  Milan claimed otherwise and refused to push their show dates later in September.  As a result, Milan and London would have overlapped by three days—one publishing company went so far as to reprimand Milan by swearing none of their editors would attend the city’s major shows. Thankfully, that’s been avoided.  The dates will be as follows: New York Fashion Week, September 6 through September 13; London Fashion Week September 14 through September 18; Milan Fashion Week, September 18 through September 25, and Paris Fashion Week will run from September 25 through October 2. Steven Kolb, the CFDA’s CEO gave Milan a slight slap on the wrist through his praise of New York and London in today’s WWD, “People are anxious and need to know the dates. There’s no value for the cities to compete. In the spirit of working together, London and New York are in agreement that we will go in the earlier period, but with the hope that the four cities will come out of this confusion and work together to plan future show weeks. We need to begin to look at the fashion season not as individual fashion weeks, but very much as a global business.”