Editorial GIF by Reed + Rader | Source: V Magazine

LONDON, United Kingdom — Instagram, Barbour, vinyl records, artisanal butchers, moustaches, and the biography of your potatoes lovingly detailed on chalkboard signs at Whole Foods. What is wrong with this picture? As London-based writer and entrepreneur Russell M Davies puts it, “most of Shoreditch would be wandering around in a leather apron if it could. With pipe and beard and rickets. Every new coffee shop and organic foodery seems to be the same. Wood, brushed metal, bits of knackered toys on shelves. And blackboards. Everywhere there’s blackboards.”

For the last few years, the stylistic purview of much of the creative class in places like Shoreditch in London, the borough of Brooklyn in New York, and Berlin’s Mitte district has been curiously backward-looking. Perhaps this retreat into retro nostalgia is a reaction to economic uncertainty and technological change. Maybe it’s a craving for what we imagine were simpler times or a search for authenticity in a world that is increasingly artificial. Whatever the reason, the backward-looking trend extends to fashion, as well. In fact, perhaps more than any other design discipline, fashion is engaged in an intense dialogue with the past. “There’s so little innovation in fashion in its current state,” Susanna Lau, widely known as Susie Bubble, told BoF. And indeed, from Belstaff to Moynat to Schiaparelli, reviving dusty heritage brands is undoubtedly the business model du jour.

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JCPenney Mother's Day 2012 | Source: Adrants

J. C. Penney Posts Big Loss as 3 Retailers Gain (NY Times)
“While retailers including Home Depot, Saks Fifth Avenue and TJX Companies reported solid profits on Tuesday, J. C. Penney, in the midst of an ambitious turnaround plan, posted a big loss and said its quarterly sales had dropped 20 percent.”

Strong Asia demand keeps Richemont optimistic (Reuters)
“Richemont, the world’s second-largest luxury goods group, said on Wednesday it was cautiously optimistic for the future despite the unstable economic environment as it posted forecast-beating results, driven by strong Asian demand.”

Young, broke and spending on luxury (Fiscal Times)
“Though some millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, are launching promising careers, most are burdened with large student loans, and thousands are unemployed. Despite this, they are making luxury purchases a priority.”

Jewelry designer Alexis Bittar in expansion mode (LA Times)
“Fashion jewelry design is in the midst of a renaissance the likes of which we haven’t seen since the 1980s. And Alexis Bittar blazed the trail. In the last two decades, the New York-based jewelry designer has gone from selling his signature colorful, hand-carved Lucite pieces on the streets of SoHo to bejeweling leading ladies in Hollywood and beyond.”

Fashion Insider, Jess Hallett (AnOther)
“Hallett has become one of the most influential casting directors working today. Besides her enduring 10-year collaboration at Alexander McQueen, last season alone she worked on shows such as Kenzo, Mugler, Mary Katrantzou and on editorials for AnOther Magazine, Another Man and W.”

Looklab Screenshot | Source: Looklab.com

NEW YORK, United States — Finding fashion products online that fit personal parameters like taste, style, size, body shape, eye colour, hair colour and skin tone; are right for a particular mood or upcoming event; and can be nicely mixed-and-matched with the existing contents of a user’s closet, all while quickening the pulse and providing a feeling of discovery, is a problem that offers tremendous opportunity for would-be innovators.

In a detailed blog post last month, leading movie subscription service Netflix, known for having one of the world’s most effective personal recommendation engines, revealed a remarkable statistic. “We have adapted our personalisation algorithms… in such a way that now 75 percent of what people watch is from some sort of recommendation,” wrote Xavier Amatriain and Justin Basilico, who work in the company’s personalisation science and engineering department. But in the complex market for fashion, with its subjective tastes, trend cycles and gatekeepers, many debate whether Netflix-style recommendation algorithms are the answer.

The failure, last September, of Google’s Boutiques.com — a fashion site that promised perfectly personalised product selections powered by “machine learning” — seemed to sound something of a death knell for purely algorithmic recommendations in fashion. And yet, despite the spectacular rise of social curation sites like Pinterest, which features thousands of fashion products hand-picked by humans, simply presenting users with items shared by the people they follow is also an imperfect solution to the personal relevance problem.

Now, a number of ambitious start-ups are aiming to offer consumers more sophisticated personalised product selections and styling advice by building expert curation into their online business models.

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Janet Kataah Museveni for L'Uomo Vogue | Source: NY Times

Rebranding Africa (IHT)
“Africa is in the news — but not just for the sad and familiar reasons of conflict and suffering. The continent is entering the fashion arena, with the quality of its handwork, artistic creativity and its potential for economic growth bringing Africa literally in vogue.”

Italy’s Ferragamo Q1 net rises 10 pct (Reuters)
“Italian luxury shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo said on Monday its net profit including minorities in the first quarter rose 10.2 percent to 17 million euros boosted by higher sales.”

Fairchild Fashion Media Acquires Blogger Network (WWD)
“Fairchild Fashion Media has acquired Fashion Networks International, best known for NowManifest, a curated blog portal with 1.2 million unique visitors a month that showcases some of the biggest names in the fashion blogosphere.”

Chanel Resort 2013: King Karl’s seriously frivolous Versailles rhapsody (Telegraph)
“France is poised to inaugurate its new Socialist president with all the pomp and ceremony the Republic can muster. So tonight in Versailles Karl Lagerfeld nipped in first, with a majestic, pomp-aplenty Chanel Cruise collection, as encrusted with courtly references as a Louis XIVth folly, yet determinedly 21st-century too.”

Alber Elbaz: ‘I hate the word cool’ (Independent)
“There are not many surprises left in fashion – you name it, someone, somewhere has done it – which perhaps accounts for the ovation that followed being more heartfelt than most. Let’s face it, this is a world that boasts its fair share of these too. But then M Elbaz is a highly individual designer and easier to love than many for that.”

Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin | Source: VLMstudio

NEW YORK, United States — In hindsight, it seems remarkable that there was once a moment when combining digital technology and fashion photography was a radical move. But when Dutch photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin first began to manipulate their images, they were among the first to see and seize the tremendous potential of these new digital tools in a fashion context.

“We saw a demonstration of what Paintbox could do,” van Lamsweerde recalled, referring to a Quantel-produced precursor to Adobe’s Photoshop. “At that point it was used to straighten lines and shine up the wheels of a car for advertising. It hadn’t really been used for fashion or for images of people. We were like ‘Oh my god’ – it was so unbelievably exciting. It just opened up the whole world for us.”

Working as a team, Lamsweerde and her husband, Vinoodh Matadin, have forged a unique personal and creative union which has given rise to a remarkable body of work that seamlessly spans global campaigns for advertising clients including Balenciaga, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, editorial assignments for magazines such as American Vogue, French Vogue and W, classic black and white portraiture for the New York Times’ annual Oscar portfolio, music videos for the likes of Björk and fine art pieces that have been exhibited in some of the world’s most influential galleries and museums.

This 25 year partnership has firmly establishing the duo, known simply as “Inez and Vinoodh,” among the most successful and powerful imagemakers in the fashion industry.

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