Pakistan, Feb. 17 -- When the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) chairman Tom Ford announced earlier this year that the organisation would no longer publish an official New York Fashion Week schedule but rather an "American Collections Calendar," the news confirmed something bigger than an administrative update.

New York Fashion Week was once the main stage for American designers, but this notion has been unbuckling for years as a number of designers have chosen to show elsewhere or outside of the official calendar dates.

The coronavirus pandemic only accentuated this trend. Travel bans and other logistical and health and safety challenges associated with large events have turned the idea of a fashion week in any city into a...