If there’s one word to describe today’s fashion industry,  it’s immediacy. It’s a trait that is becoming increasingly apparent, especially with the popularization of the “see now, buy now” business model. The idea of “see now, buy now” is for customers to be able to buy timeless and seasonless pieces right off the catwalk. Customers can go online and watch the livestream of the show while simultaneously shopping for the pieces as they are shown on the runway.

The Spring/Summer 2017 shows saw several major brands, such as Burberry, Tom Ford, Topshop and Ralph Lauren, adopting this business model — a foreshadow for what other brands may do in the seasons to come.

Before we can delve deeper into how the model works, we need to understand how the fashion industry got to this point. The industry has long been helmed as one of exclusivity, with fashion shows being spectacles only attended by the elite. However, that structure has evolved ever since Alexander McQueen’s “Plato’s Atlantis,” the first major fashion show livestreamed online,  broke the floodgates for a system which prioritized the consumer over industry insiders. The fashion industry is no longer about pleasing the insiders. They have reached the realization that the true power lies with the consumers.

There’s no better way to look at the force of the consumers than through social media. Twitter and Instagram have been instrumental in the meteoric rise of social media models such as Gigi Hadid and Kendall Jenner. This is important to note especially since Tommy Hilfiger’s SS2017 collection featured a collaboration with Hadid herself, which as of now has limited availibility on Tommy.com after being mostly sold out. Not only was it set at full-blown carnival, it was heavily advertised on Hadid’s and Hilfiger’s social media platforms and was effectively admired by Hadid’s fans who no doubt tuned in to watch her designer debut.

While this business model is an ideal technique for persuading the consumer, it’s causing a major change in the way brands work. This model calls for a complete change in the production process, not only in the supply chain and how factories produce the pieces, but also in deciding when buyers view the actual pieces. The idea of the fashion show is no longer about showing the products so that editors can review them and buyers can decide which ones they’d like to order — it has been transformed to act as a form of advertising in itself, likely overpowering actual advertisements given that people post on Instagram, Snapchat and live-tweet shows as they happen.

There are a lot of things to consider when breaking down “see now, buy now” — how it affects production and creativity and how it will revolutionize what fashion shows or advertisements mean for the business of fashion. Will this model be beneficial to the fashion industry in the long run? There is no doubt that “see now, buy now” is only just starting to take form and will greatly affect the industry, however hard it is to see now.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Oct. 3 print edition. Email Shirley Cahyadi at [email protected].