Posts Tagged ‘fashion’

Fashion Week Shares A Stage With The Opera

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

On September 9, Fashion Week will get a new look…

  • The Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week has grown too big for its former digs – this year it’s moving from Bryant Park to Damrosch Park and Lincoln Center.
  • The new hosts at Lincoln Center are using this move as an opportunity to expand the center’s reputation beyond just music, dance, and theater performance. They will complement the runway shows with a variety of fashion-related programming.
  • Designers who might have traditionally chosen to hold their shows off-site in the Bryant Park years have been encouraged to stage their events close to Lincoln Center. Some designers are showing in the promenades of Avery Fisher Hall and the David H. Koch Theater, or at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Best Quote

“I want to see fashion on par with all of the other cultural activities here—the ballet, the opera.” – Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, Director of Fashion at Lincoln Center

Keeping Up With The Millennials

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Luxury brands aspire to engage a younger generation by adapting and innovating their delivery of fashion.

  • A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that millennials, people between the ages of 18 and 28, are both turned off by more conventional and blatant marketing approaches and have a sophisticated understanding of social media and entertainment.
  • Nowness.com, launched by Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, exemplifies the new trend of companies utilizing artistic videos and images, implying exclusivity and offering cultural commentary.
  • Traditionally, magazines fulfilled the primary role of communicating fashion news to consumers; now many of the brands connect directly with their consumers.

Key Stats

  • 75 percent of Millennials regularly use social networking sites.
  • Burberry opted to make Harry Potter icon Emma Watson the new face of its brand.
  • Last month Armani gained 268,000 new “friends” on Facebook after Lady Gaga wore a space age Armani creation.

Best Quote

“Our goal is always to create a seamless brand experience, especially with our younger lines, communicating the brand wherever the customer wants to touch it – on their mobile devices, via a social network, on blogs, in store, in print and outdoor media.” – John Hooks, Deputy Chairman of Armani

Starring… The Perfumer?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

The fragrance industry takes a new approach to selling their products: promote the perfumer.

  • Previously fragrance companies linked their perfumes to the identity of designers, then celebrities, now it’s the actual maker.
  • Fashion magazines increasingly reference perfumers by name, helping drive this trend.
  • Fragrances made by large manufacturers are less likely to publicize a fragrance’s creator, as they rely on a team of art directors, consultants, clients, as well as perfumers.

Facts & Figures

  • Frederic Malle’s company, Editions de Parfum, was the first to celebrate perfumers by name.
  • Seminars are held where perfumers meet with customers and discuss the inspiration for their fragrances.
  • During the first nine months of 2009, sales of prestige fragrances were just over $1.38 billion in department stores, representing an 11% decline.

Best Quote

“Makeup did it with the makeup artist. Skin care did it with doctors. What’s happening is the fragrance industry is realizing the perfumer is the ultimate celebrity of fragrance.” – Karen Grant, Analyst at NPD Group

How Do You Get a $2,000 Dress for $100? Rent it!

Friday, November 13th, 2009
Will rental haute couture be all the rage?
  • Rent the Runway is a new website that lets women rent dresses from high-end designers for about a tenth of their retail asking price.
  • Although the launch has been met with enthusiasm, the business model does face a few risks. Fashion tends to have a short shelf-life compared to rental DVDs. The site is also invitation-only, which limits its customer base. There’s also the enormous customer service risk. If your Netflix movie arrives a day late, that’s one thing, but if the dress for your Saturday wedding comes the following Monday, Rent the Runway has a big problem.
  • Retail stores in big cities have rented dresses for years, but the company believes its online convenience will create a surge in the market even though women won’t be able to try dresses on beforehand.

Facts & Figures

  • The rentals run $50 to $200 for a four-night loan and are shipped directly to the customer.
  • Each dress order includes a duplicate dress in a back-up size for no additional charge.
  • More than 20,000 women signed up for the service for its first week.

Best Quote

“Here was this young girl who loves fashion and was willing to spend a good portion of her salary on a dress that she’s only going to wear once or twice, and I thought, there has to be a solution for this.” – Jennifer Human, Co-Founder of Rent the Runway

Punk Rock Pearls

Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Jewelry designer Tom Binns opens his first boutique mixing goth and glam and making it work…
  • When designers bring old styles back into fashion, they usually miss the mark – like bringing back daisies and bell-bottoms from the ’60s without any mention of Vietnam.
  • Tom Binns doesn’t white-wash his ’80s inspiration: studded leather cuffs with heavy sterling fasteners and emerald-cut crystals, sterling slave collars and spiked bangles, and a silver bullet necklace, to name a few. It’s rock n’ roll jewelry ready for the red carpet.
  • Binns was trained as a fine artist and welder, and signed up for jewelry classes to get girls, which is probably what makes his jewelry such obscene fun.

Facts and Figures

  • Michelle Obama has been seen sporting pieces by Tom Binns.
  • A big silver heart pendant held together by safety pins and bent nails, hung on long strings of tiny pearls goes for $325.

Best Quote

“Here’s the thing: It’s, like, $30,000, so if you feel comfortable with that responsibility, that’s fine.” – Boutique Manager(in response to the journalist’s request to try on a unique necklace)

Rainforest Action Network Targets Fashion Houses

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Would you want a beautiful shopping bag if it meant clearcutting a section of rainforest in Indonesia?

  • Rainforest Action Network, an activist group (and TILE Cause) that focuses on corporate responsibility when it comes to rainforests, seems to have made a major victory in the fashion industry by targeting a supplier of high-end shopping bags.
  • In a letter to 100 fashion firms, RAN explained that paper goods supplier Pak 2000 had very close ties with Asia Pulp and Paper, a company notorious for damaging the environment in order to harvest wood pulp. (Pak 2000 has since indicated that it may soon cut ties with the company.)
  • Several large clients have since ended their relationships with Pak 2000, many citing normal business relations. But some companies, like H&M, credited the supplier shift to RAN’s letter specifically, and RAN says it is talking to 20 additional companies about switching to sustainable bag suppliers.

Facts & Figures

  • Some current and former clients of Pak 2000 include: Barney’s, Billabong, Cartier, Chanel, Coach, Estee Lauder, Gucci, J.Crew, Marc Jacobs, Montblanc, Movado, and Ralph Lauren.
  • Deforestation is responsible for a fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions.
  • The United States and China are the largest producers of greenhouse gases, followed by Indonesia, where Asia Pulp and Paper does much of its wood harvesting.

Best Quote

“Because Pak 2000 is selling to very high-profile companies, it’s a good place to start our work, to introduce this issue to a new sector, the fashion industry.” – Lafcadio Cortesi, RAN’s Forest Campaign Director

Exploring Fashion Trends with Randy Federgreen

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

randy-federgreen.png Randy Federgreen is a business advisor at Neiman Marcus and President at Bamford. He took some time (out of the middle of Fashion Week) to answer a few of our burning questions about luxury goods and the latest trends.

TILE: Where do trends start – on the street or the runway?
Randy:
It’s kind of a circle. The trends start on the street and on the runway. The street inspires the designers because the design teams are out on the streets of the major capitols – the shops and the boutiques of Paris, London, Milan, New York, and Tokyo. It comes from the street but then runways inspire the street as well. Really, the colors and the textures and the fabrications start even earlier because the mills spin and color the yarn and make the fabrics show at the yarn, fabric, and leather fairs. The design associates go to these fairs, and bring them back to the designers. Right now, they say it’s all about red but the reason is that 10 months ago the fairs may have been showing red so that all these design assistants who pulled the fabric to show the designers all pulled things being driven by the mills. That’s why there’s so much consistency in the market.

TILE: So, it’s really a chicken and egg scenario?
Randy:
It’s circular because the street inspires the designers and designers inspire the street. And then you have the mills and producers of the yarn that are really dictating colors, textures and patterns that you start seeing everywhere.

And if there’s something really hot, let’s say there’s a mill making a tweed that has a silver yarn running through it and several designers get inspired by it. Let’s say Armani picks it up, Prada picks it up, and Ralph Lauren picks it up, they all interpret it in their own different ways. Ralph might make a riding skirt, Armani might make a gown, and Prada might make a jacket and boots in it. Each designer puts their own handprints on it, but it’s the fabrics and yarns that run through all these different collections.

TILE: How is fashion dictated by the economy? Can fashion trends reflect the markets?
Randy: Yes, they say the length of a skirt tends to go down when business is bad. Today, watch sizes are getting smaller on men and women maybe to say enough with the excess, enough with the flash. The watch faces are getting smaller because people are getting more conservative and more tasteful. Watches were getting larger and larger for years (in the boom) and now we’re seeing a shift. This current fall season, we are seeing more conservative clothing for both women and men, it just feels right. You will see all shades of greys, dark purples, reds and of course, a lot of black. Going into spring, I expect you will see more feminine and soft fashions for her. You will see luxury brands lowering their prices and I expect that will get her out to shop.

TILE: How about purchasing behavior? Are people buying different items?
Randy: One of the trends is that a woman will spend more money for a few key piece in her wardrobe, like a Chanel jacket and wear it with a Theory trousers or a simple skirt. A new pair of Louboutins will certainly spice up a simple black suit or dress from last year. And she may wear a beautiful scarf from Hermes and throw it over a sweater from J. Crew. She’s certainly not buying the skirt, the jacket, and blouse from one designer anymore. She’s buying a few pieces. And I think that is a trend to stay because I think the head-to-toe dressing in one designer has become excessive. We won’t see those days again for a long time.

TILE: How does fashion inspire the way you live in your life?
Randy:
I think something new or something exciting added to someone’s wardrobe or home gives them a little boost, makes them feel happy, energized. Rarely do people go out and buy something new and think “God I look horrible in this.” Especially now, people get inspired by beautiful things because they’re really looking at them. That whole consumerism thing that was going on for so long where women would pick up a new pair of Manolo’s once a week – those weeks are gone. And that’s kind of been crippling to the industry but the reality is that it never should have been like that. Everyone is thinking through their purchases; whether you’re Amy Butte (CEO of TILE) or someone with a $40k a year assistant’s salary. You’re looking at every purchase you make whether you are shopping at Anthropologie buying a $180 dress or shopping at Chanel. Purchases are made out of emotion and necessity and you think about them before you buy.


TILE: How has the recession changed the modus operandi of stores?
Randy: Now, the biggest challenge and opportunity in the fashion business is to inspire men and women to come in and see something new. Designers have done a lot to realign their prices and to come up with new and exciting things. It’s now up to the stores to get the customers back. But stores have cut their budgets for things like marketing and advertising so far down that they really don’t have the luxury to do that kind of outreach anymore.


There is also far less inventory in the stores. A few years ago, if you wanted an Armani jacket and shirt there would be 2 on the floor and a dozen more in the back stockroom. Today there are 2-4 pieces on the floor in that jacket and that’s all. So, if a customer is holding off on a purchase and hoping – like before – that it will go on sale… well, there is not going to be that much to go on sale. It’s going to be like buying Christmas ornaments the day before Christmas and having the store be completely out of ornaments or going to buy a Halloween outfit on Halloween, and there is nothing left but candy corn, Dracula capes, bunny ears and a nurse uniform. I like the saying, “you snooze, you lose.”


TILE: What is the best piece of advice you’ve received in the fashion industry?
Randy:
Know who you are. You can’t be everything to everybody.

TILE: How about the best compliment?
Randy:
The best compliment I ever received was when Ralph Lauren told me I inspired him. I worked at Ralph for 22 years. That was one of the most memorable moments, which I will never forget.

>> TILE brings you exclusive opinions, explanations, and interviews from experts in every industry. To read more, click on Ask the Experts in the TILE Library.

Have a burning question or an expert you’d like to see interviewed? Just Ask TILE!

Short Skirts and Stocks – From History’s Hidden Engine

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Pervy market analysts have studied the “hemline indicator” for decades.

Just as your personal finances say something about who you are, financial markets can reflect seemingly unrelated phenomena in society. This video reveals a correlation between fashion and finances that is really quite cool.

This three minute clip from the new documentary History’s Hidden Engine reveals the real significance of what’s in style. You can watch the full-length documentary for free by clicking the link above.