We spend a lot of time here on the BoF discussing the impact of new media on the fashion industry. In fact, yesterday we weighed in on the issue over at JC Report in a full-length article about some of the new online media sites and communities that are popping up. But that doesn’t mean we don’t like flipping through a good old-fashioned magazine from time to time, as long as it brings a fresh perspective and the images and editorial are strong. Three new magazines recently landed in our mailbox and we thought we’d share them with you.

The first issue of New York Look magazine  gives a behind-the-scenes look into the S/S collections and all of the planning and mayhem that go into those 15 minutes of fame for a brand. Actually, it might not be quite 15 minutes. NYL provides a play-by-play of the seasons hottest shows with statistics like the number of models to the names of celebrities in attendance. Our quantitative nerdy side was immediately drawn to the lengths of shows. The longest was Narciso Rodriguez at 45 minutes; the shortest was a tight 8 minutes for Chloé. Apart from fun useless statistics, the magazine also has stunning photography and a tongue-in-cheek piece on Anna Wintour’s love for Roger Federer, as we witnessed at Oscar de la Renta’s show in September.

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The IHT is pumping out these videos faster than we can keep up. Each one has revelations of interest, so we’re going to keep posting them for easy reference here. Have a look at this video with Angela Ahrendts, the CEO of Burberry. Ahrendts reveals that Burberry’s wholesale and retail business is almost 70% apparel, making it quite different from many other luxury brands, whose businesses are concentrated in leather goods.

She also says that Russian consumers form a significant portion of the business. Burberry’s stores in Russia are amongst the most productive in the world and this productivity is based on fewer very large transactions as opposed to many transactions of a smaller size. Not only this, about 20% of the revenue from stores in London  and 30% of revenues in the Middle East come from Russian customers.

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We are seriously enjoying these videos from the IHT Supreme Luxury Conference being held this week in Moscow. Suzy Menkes, while not a natural television interviewer, asks all the right questions and solicits some very interesting responses from her interviewees. Today she quizzes Tom Ford on his new label and asks Bernard Arnault about the impact of the credit crunch on the luxury industry.

Bernard Arnault, Chairman and CEO of LVMH

Every 6 months during the fashion weeks held in New York, London, Milan and Paris, fashionistas grab the International Herald Tribune each morning and skip straight to the Style section to see what Suzy Menkes has said about the collections. It’s a running joke that fashion people buy the IHT, read Suzy’s reviews, and throw the rest of the newspaper out. This does not speak to the poor quality of journalism in the IHT, but rather to the high level of respect accorded to Ms. Menkes. Quite simply, there is no other fashion critic like her.

This week, Suzy is hosting the annual IHT luxury conference in Moscow, with keynote speakers like Bernard Arnault, Tom Ford and Yves Carcelle of Louis Vuitton. It’s a blockbuster event and I am very sorry to be missing it. But luckily, the IHT has created an online home for Supreme Luxury with detailed coverage of all of the ongoings, including this video interview between Suzy Menkes and Donatella Versace, who discusses the role of fabrics and minimalism in her new luxury, the role of celebrity in fashion, and the impact of professional management on the Versace business.

PPR, the Paris-based conglomerate, saw its stock price drop after Credit Suisse analyst Tony Shiret downgraded the stock from "outperform" to "neutral" in his analyst report released yesterday. Shiret reduced his target price for PPR stock by 27% from 144 euros to 105 euros and the stock closed at 110.63 euros in Paris, down 4% for the day and the lowest price since January. According to Shiret

The group is becoming less, rather than more, strategically focused. We continue to feel uneasy about the widening scope of the business.

Shiret noted that as he tried to do forecasts for PPR going forward, he was struck by how many parts there are to the business. In particular, the report singles out Redkats, Conforama and United Retail as underperforming businesses that are dragging down earnings. Adding to the confusion are persisting reports about a forthcoming PPR acquisition of Clarins, as reported on The Business of Fashion last week. Some analysts say another acquisition is the last thing PPR needs.

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On the Runway: Q&A with Giancarlo Giametti
In a fascinating behind-the-scenes look into the evolution of Valentino’s business over the past 45 years, his business partner Giancarlo Giametti provides his candid thoughts in a frank exchange with Cathy Horyn. He lambastes financial investors for thinking they can profit from the industry without understanding and respecting its creativity, admits to the over-eager (but lucrative) licensing period in the 80s, and provides a history of the various suitors and owners of Valentino over the years.

New York Times: A Cover Girl Who’s Simply Himself
We first came across Andre J. on Malcolm Harris’ Cut Sew and Blog which was featured on the Business of Fashion in September. Andre had been selected by Cut, Sew and Blog’s community as the face of Mal Sirrah’s collection for S/S 2008. Then, Andre J appeared on the cover of French Vogue in November and now, in this article from Guy Trebay, we learn how all of this came to happen.

Business of Fashion:  In the Financial Times, Style.com and JC Report
We have started publishing articles in other important publications. Our first article for the Financial Times on Italian investors in fashion has finally been published online along with the rest of the FT’s superb Business of Fashion supplement. We also shared a little tidbit about Daniel Craig’s disappearing act at the Walpole Awards with men.style.com. Stay tuned for upcoming articles in the December issue of L’Officiel India, a curated tour of new Fashion 2.0 sites in JC Report later this week, and our lowdown on how luxury companies should think about Web 2.0 in the next FT Business of Fashion supplement.

Photoclip courtesy of New York Times. Andre J/Carolyn Murphy cover courtesy of Paris Vogue.

Miriam Lahage has retail in her blood. Her retail career started in 1984 as a manager for a TJ Maxx store and then she quickly moved her way up the ranks into the executive suite. By 1996 she was the  Merchandising Director for both TJ Maxx and Marshalls, two of the biggest off-price retail chains in the US, and both owned by parent company TJX.

But don’t let this bricks-and-mortar background fool you. Back in the late 1990’s Miriam began to recognise the sea-change that the Internet would spark for retailing. In 2006 she even posted some of her thoughts on the online community Gather, demonstrating an advanced level of comfort with web 2.0 that many other executives of her generation fail to have.

Seizing on this insight and her ease with the Internet, Lahage has been proving herself to be a savvy online marketer. After a few years heading up e-commerce for TJX, she moved across the pond to London to become the CEO of koodos.com in June 2006.  Since then, she has been shaping koodos to become the premier off-price retailer in the online world. The site incorporates many of the hallmarks of a new generation of Internet sites, including a blog, embeddable widgets, and community contests.

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Invitations to private sales have long been the exclusive domain of only the most well-connected of fashion insiders. Traditionally, they have been given out by fashion companies as a way of saying ‘thank you’ to friends and supporters of a brand.  This wasn’t just to be snobby, there was also an important business rationale behind it. It ensured that the goods ended up in the hands of trusted customers rather than being sold out of the back of a truck somewhere, which can damage brand equity and reputation.

Thus, for the average consumer, getting access to one-of-a-kind runway samples and excess stock was near impossible…until now. For the first time, companies on both sides of the Atlantic are partnering with fashion brands and retailer to take this exclusive privilege online and thereby, opening it up to people who don’t run in tight fashion circles. For their part, fashion brands have started to learn that they can trust these new companies to professionally handle the private sales, while also protecting their brands — and perhaps even introducing them to new customers.

Gilt Groupe was launched by A&A, shorthand for dynamic duo  Alexis Maybank, CEO, and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, CMO. They come with great Internet and Luxury pedigree from Ebay, Louis Vuitton and Bulgari, not to mention double-Harvard degrees. In its first month of existence, Gilt has conducted online private sales for Zac Posen, Alvin Valley and Marchesa — the sales last only 24 hours, but even then the stock seems to sell out almost immediately. This A&A team is onto something.

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I was reading about the NexCen-Camuto acquisition of Shoe-Box and it got me to thinking about Tom Ford. Why, you ask? Because, unlike his tenure at Gucci where, as Fashion Inc points out, it was all about controlling everything, Tom has been using an innovative strategy similar to NexCen’s in building his eponymous business.

Nexcen (NEXC) believes that by focusing on developing the brand while outsourcing other activities to carefully chosen partners, they can capture outsize performance from their brand investments. It’s certainly not an easy proposition to "fix" brands like Bill Blass and Athlete’s Foot this way, but I have been intrigued by NexCen ever since I heard Craig Hoffman, an MD at NexCen, speak at the HBS Luxury Goods & Retail Conference earlier this year.

As I thought about it some more, Tom Ford’s model is not too different from this, i.e. control the critical branding and creative aspects, while carefully partnering with others to execute on the rest: distribution, production, and brand extension. 

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If rumours floating around Paris yesterday are on the ball, then PPR’s Francois-Henri Pinault has now got his acquisitive eyes fixed on Clarins.

The French cosmetics company saw its stock jump 7.7% on the speculation that PPR would make a bid for company in the coming days, pushing its market capitalisation to more than 2.6b euros. This rumour follows previous speculation that L’Oreal would make a bid for Clarins, after the death of its founder Jacques Courtin-Clarins in March of this year.

Acquisition rumours like this are a dime a dozen. But, this one might actually have some legs. An industry insider sitting next to me at last evening’s Walpole Awards said that attempts to reach PPR and Clarins to comment had been completely futile. Neither party had confirmed or denied the rumours - it was just radio silence and phones were just not being answered. It was precisely because of this that he was thinking twice about whether these rumours deserved more serious attention.

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