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This just might be the boldest fashion statement at the shows so far-letting shoppers actually buy the clothes.

Some designers are chipping away at one of the industry’s most elite and stubborn schedules: the six-month lag it takes for runway looks to appear in stores, if they appear at all. Driving the change, they say, is a desire to stay a step ahead of knock-offs and to win over consumers after high-end clothing sales were battered by the economy. The Web is also helping, making it possible for some designers to circumvent traditional retailers and reach their customers directly.

Designer Norma Kamali began putting her new collections up for sale on her Web site immediately after her presentation Monday. The designer Cynthia Rowley appropriated her own runway designs and put the copies up for sale immediately following her Friday show. Limited editions of dresses, skirts and handbags were printed with photographic images and patterns from her runway collection and offered at an art gallery store for $320 apiece.

Ms. Rowley also offered for sale to the public three of her 34 runway samples immediately after her show, including a tassel shell with a hand cut lace skirt, a tassel dress and a lace dress, each priced at $4,800 as head-to-toe outfits. As of late Tuesday, none of her runway originals had sold, but some of her copies had.

“You can’t go into it expecting it to be big numbers,” said New York-based designer Derek Lam, who intends to begin testing fresh-off-the-runway sales to the public later this year. “It’s just a way to get in touch with the people who are watching” the show, particularly on the Internet.

The “buy now” experiments, if they spread, could alter how the fashion industry functions. In the past, stirring demand for a designer’s collection was the role of glossy monthly magazines with long lead times, such as Vogue and Elle. The editors attended the runway shows and would feature designers’ samples in editorial spreads that hit newsstands months later. Retail buyers, meanwhile, placed bets on styles with the greatest commercial potential, and the designers put those styles into production.

The typical six-month gap has been blamed as contributing to last year’s 11% decline in global sales of designer clothing, as measured by consultants Bain & Co. Part of the problem, designers say, is that copycats and chains like H&M and Zara, called fast-fashion retailers, are able to quickly replicate styles and sell them at lower prices. For instance, the sports bra, biker shorts and the so-called “football” clutch purse all moved quickly from the Alexander Wang runway to mass market retailers last year, as did Stella McCartney’s oversized silk blouses.

Fashion has “an industry problem,” designer Donna Karan said, referring to the delay. The solution, she added, is “redesigning the whole system,” though the difficulties of that are huge. Neither her Donna Karan collection nor her DKNY lines sold styles directly from the runway this season, and she said she has no plans to do so anytime soon.

Beyond production challenges, designers also risk angering retailers by cannibalizing demand for the line when it hits stores later. “Fashion shows are for the retail buyers,” said designer Diane von Furstenberg, who said she’s not interested in direct-from-the-runway sales right now.

Ms. Kamali said she hasn’t gotten pushback from retailers such as Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman, in part because she has changed the way she produces goods so that the retailers can get them at the same time. Ms. Kamali moved all production of her high-end designer line, as well as a separate collection for eBay, to factories in the U.S., making it easier for her to have stock ready to sell as soon as she unveiled her line publicly.

Some retailers doubt the high-fashion houses will be able to pull off immediate sales, because of the elaborate nature of their designs.

“It can happen for certain vendors that can execute in a shorter time frame,” but “it won’t happen here,” said Saks Fifth Avenue’s fashion market director Colleen Sherin after Carolina Herrera’s show, which featured ball gowns and luxurious sportswear with beading-none for immediate sale.

Another question mark: Runways can feature clothing months before it is in season. “You would kind of wonder if a customer would really want something six months in advance” of the season it was intended for, said Ann Stordahl, executive vice president for women’s apparel at Neiman Marcus.

Still, experiments in moving quickly from the runways have been gaining momentum. A big leader, Burberry PLC, in September made two trench coats available for purchase via its Web site 48 hours after its London runway show. It stoked demand by sending a link to 800,000 people in Europe and the U.S., announcing that the show would be live streamed with some styles available for pre-order. Burberry invited viewers’ comments to see which looks were most popular.

The coats, priced at $3,000 and $4,000, went up for sale, and orders had to be placed within one week, creating a sense of urgency. That approach is believed to appeal to the “aspirational” drive of some buyers, who might be more willing to splurge to buy something that’s perceived as limited edition, or hard for others to get. Those who placed orders 48 hours after the show got the coats in three to four weeks, roughly three months ahead of their main arrival in stores. Burberry says it sold all of the coats made available for pre-order, but did not disclose the quantities.

“These customer orders went straight to the factory versus waiting months for our wholesale and retail teams to buy them and then placing their orders,” said Angela Ahrendts, Burberry CEO.

In the past, brands that tried the buy-now strategy had to rely on third-party retailers, such as fashion Web sites, to pull it off. Bonnie Takhar, Halston’s chief executive officer, two years ago, made available two fall styles for sale via online retailer Net-a-porter the day after Halston’s runway show. The move was an attempt to feed a desire for instant gratification and, more important, to deal a blow to knock-off artists. “We went directly to the market with styles that were iconic,” Ms. Takhar said. In so doing, “we put a rubber stamp on it, and said, ‘We own it.’ ”

The Web fashion retailer sold out of a $1,495 wool jersey shirt day dress within 45 minutes, and sold out of the other style, a $1,795 silk evening dress, within several days. Halston and the Web retailer declined to disclose how many units were available, but a person familiar with the matter estimated that there were 500 units, combined, for sale.

“People are getting into a ‘buy now’ mentality, and I’d like to be ahead of that,” said Rebecca Minkoff, who produced about 50 “Bada Boum” shirts that she began selling on her Web site the night of her show last week. Within 24 hours, her stock sold out and she had arranged for another 100 to be produced.

During her presentation to retail buyers and the fashion press, Ms. Minkoff herself wore the shirt, as did two models. “If I didn’t sell it immediately, somebody else would have it in their window in a week. At least this way, they know it comes from Rebecca Minkoff,” she said.

Gabriela Anastasio, 24, saw Ms. Minkoff’s presentation in Manhattan and ordered the shirt online a few hours later. She was motivated, she said, to support the ideal of greater “democracy” in fashion. “Usually I find the things I covet most require some waiting, so it’s great to be able to get something just after the show, or to know that you’ll get it in due time,” Ms. Anastasio said.

French designer Roland Mouret is taking it a step further: pre-selling his RM line to retailers before showing it on the runway, so that his styles will hit stores just a month after his show.

“The new reality of fashion will be to have the clothes right after the show,” he said. Shoppers “don’t want to wait six months and don’t want to see copies.”

This article was written by Vanessa O’Connell for the Wall Street Journal.