It's July - do you have your wool coat yet?

I recently went to get my daughter shoes for her graduation, or rather "moving up" ceremony from fifth grade. It was late June, the last week of school. Next year's school uniforms were out for sale. There were seven pairs of sandals left in the whole store.

This is wrong - why can't I get what I need now? Why should I be forced to think about four months from now?

There is the saying pop will eat itself. Well retail has eaten itself, thrown up, and gone back for seconds. I am a manufacturer. I make next season's clothes yesterday - I know the drill. But the people buying and needing the clothes - they don't need to. And that's part of what's wrong with retail these days - it has eaten itself. You, as a consumer, need the things when you need them, but you also know that the actual buyers for the clothing, which is often made far, far away, need to place their orders way ahead of time to be here in August, for "fall" which, due to global warming, now happens in December. Dizzying, isn't it? Yet, my daughter can't buy sandals in June. Go figure.

I've been a retailer in Connecticut for many years now, and I can tell you something I have learned from experience - women are not obsessed with next season's clothes. Some women want to know what's next, what's coming up, and maybe plan a little, but the idea that they would fork out dough and waste valuable time thinking about what they're wearing in September in May? Uh, few and far between. True, diehard fashionistas, yes. The rest? No.

That you can't buy a bathing suit in July, or a coat in January, has hurt everyone. It has hurt retailers, because people expect anything sold in October for fall will be 80% off. And you are buying so ahead of season, you cannot really 'read' the customer to know that she thinks long skirts are not her bag, and short is the future. I am in the fortunate arena to be making things within the season, but I am virtually alone in this gig. When Donna Karan told retailers several seasons ago she was not going to ship 2 seasons ahead, they balked - one person doesn't make change, and she went back to the crazy life. Marshall's and seconds and piles and piles of useless, unwanted clothing now rule the world. Which is crazy, because consumers and manufacturers should rule the world. Supply and demand. If H&M is shredding and burning its clothes as opposed to selling them, then isn't that a cry for change? If we are all so concerned about factory farming and living close to the source, shouldn't we apply that to all trains of thought, and stop producing things in China cheap that no one actually wants in the end? Shouldn't we all be creating, instead of reacting, and shouldn't we all exhale, enjoy summer, and think, you know, it's October, I should get a coat soon - the weather seems to be turning?