Selfridges Christmas Signage, Oxford Street | Source: flyingpinkelephants

Christmas clothing gift market to surpass £2.25bn (Drapers)
“Spending on Christmas gifts clothing is expected to surpass the £2.25bn recorded last year and hit it’s highest value in five years, according to market research firm TNS Worldpanel Fashion.”

Luxury prices: To cut or not to cut? (CNN Money)
“Step into Nordstrom a year ago for handmade Italian pumps and flats from designer Anyi Lu and you’d be shelling out as much as $595 a pair. This season, everything in the spring collection that hits stores next month goes for under $400. For CEO David Spatz, adjusting prices downward simply made sense: ‘The days of conspicuous consumption are over,’ he says.”

Customers and designers interact to create 2010’s fashion lines (Independent)
“A new trend is emerging in the fashion world, likely to influence the way collections are conceived for the year to come: designers are increasingly calling on their followers for help.”

The future is Nowness: eLuxury to be relaunched in 2010 (Independent)
“Former online shopping portal eLuxury, which closed earlier this year, has been transformed into a web magazine called Nowness, due to be up and running by beginning of January.”

Dressing for Success, Again (NY Times)
“The runaway phenomenon that is ‘Mad Men,’ with its stylish depiction of Kennedy-era New York, where men dressed with style and philandered with impunity, has handed modern men their very own ‘Sex and the City’ fantasy.”