The 25th annual Montreal Fashion Week is set to take off – but this year, organizers are working with a different focus.

To keep up with the evolving industry, instead of targeting buyers and media like in previous years, the primary focus this year will be on the consumers.

“Using social media, you know – they know what they want to buy, they have their influencers that they want to follow,” explained festival organizer Amanda Labourot. “It’s not as much seeing it in a magazine that makes you want it: seeing it on Instagram makes you want it.”

Fashion week used to preview future trends, but Labourot said that consumers don’t want to wait six months for designs to come off the runway and make their way to racks and retailers.

Instead, they want to know what’s currently in style.

“It’s also the best way for consumers to provide the industry with feedback because it’s real time – so you present something to people and you know right away that you don’t like it,” Labourot said.

While experts say online retail in Canada is growing rapidly, so is the demand for unique, local products.

“Gone are the days where people want mass-produced items from places like Walmart,” said Bruce Winder from the Retail Advisors Network. 

“People want their own identity, people want their own designs, they want to feel unique,” he said.

Local designer Manika Gaudet acknowledged this perspective while preparing for her own debut fashion show, 12 years after she started designing.

“I chose a niche because, for me right now, the market is very saturated,” she explained. “So as a designer, the new designers that are going to do good are going to be the ones who choose something different.”

Gaudet makes most of her clothes out of silk, and hand paints on most of them. The designs are largely chosen by her customers – so showing at a client-focused fashion week, she says, is essential to growing her business.

“For me, fashion goes further than the superficial or the exterior – it reaches someone, and what’s important is to reach the personality for that person to be confident,” she said.