Calvin Klein Mens by Italo Zucchelli | Photo: Karim Sadli for 032c

In Part I, we examined Italo Zucchelli’s philosophy of menswear. Today, we explore the designer’s creative process and approach to innovation.

NEW YORK, United States — A honeyed accent doesn’t give away Italo Zucchelli’s heritage as much as his ability to cut a jacket. A Wagnerian sense of color and experimental materials reveal professional stints with both Romeo Gigli and Jil Sander respectively. He may seem of a piece with European contemporaries like Prada or Raf Simons, but critic and friend Tim Blanks argues that Zucchelli is refining an entirely personal viewpoint, what he calls “subtle futurism,” an evolution sewn discreetly into every collection. Stitch by stitch it could add up to an altogether altered reality.

Everyone agrees Zucchelli has stepped into a big pair of shoes – a pair of Calvin’s as it were. He’s won respect for not kicking them off, but Zucchelli notes the paradox faced by a generation of talented designers who, like him, are breathing new life into old brands: “If all of us were strictly referential we would be criticized. It’s very important to respect the language and understand the staples, but also evolve because time moves on.”

With nearly two decades of witnessing audience reactions to every twist, fold and turn on the runway, Nian Fish warns that the pressure to innovate is ruthless: “If you are safe, they will kill you.” In her opinion, Zucchelli is moving not only the clothes, but also the whole brand forward. Forward? Fashion may innovate, but certainly not in the same way as technology, or does it?

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Calvin Klein Menswear by Italo Zucchelli | Photo: Karim Sadli for 032c

In an exclusive two part interview, courtesy of our friends at 032c, Pierre Alexandre de Looz explores the work of Italo Zucchelli, Calvin Klein men’s collection creative director, known for grafting the infallible promise of technology — the 21st century’s cultural hope — to the fibre of masculine elegance. Today, in Part I, we examine Zucchelli’s menswear philosophy.

NEW YORK, United States — Snug. Well cut. Brilliant. A smack-your-lips example of product design, it defines a point of no return in menswear that equates less with the demise of the top hat than the birth of the iPod. In the story you are about to read, nearly everyone had something to say about Calvin Klein underwear, even the bootlegged kind: MoMA PS1 Curator Klaus Biesenbach, for instance, purchased emergency briefs after losing his luggage on a trip to China and “they are still going strong,” he said, 10 years later. Minimal, clear and universally known, they are like the dark slab of Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, a portal to somewhere beyond our tatty reality. Welcome to the tailored universe of Calvin Klein Men.

Beyond the spread of new men’s fashion rags, growing menswear revenues, and greater assimilation of male customers into the larger fashion system, the Calvin Klein identity sets an ideal stage for modern menswear. If fashion historian Anne Hollander is correct, that “Male dress was always essentially more advanced than female dress throughout fashion history, and tended to lead the way, to set the standard, to make aesthetic propositions to which female fashion responded,” then menswear is the future and the Calvin Klein man is like modernity to the second degree, our escort on the red carpet to a distant horizon.

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Louis Vuitton Maison in Sydney | Source: moluxury.com.au

SYDNEY, Australia — 2011 was an extremely busy year for luxury retail expansion in Australia. In April, Burberry opened a new flagship on Sydney’s George Street. In July, Prada and Miu Miu opened flagships in Sydney’s Westfield  shopping mall, where Gucci also opened its own two-level emporium in November. Then, in a dramatic end-of-year crescendo, Louis Vuitton opened a grand Maison on George Street and Bottega Veneta and Gucci opened stores in Sydney hotel and casino The Star.

This year, store openings in Australia are set to continue at a similar pace. Chanel is planning to expand its flagship on Castlereagh Street and relocate its Melbourne store to a stand-alone building, while Christian Dior will open its first Australian boutique on the site of the old Louis Vuitton store on Castlereagh Street.

So what’s behind the flurry of store openings in Australia?

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Hermès Flagship, Mumbai | Source: skyscrapercity.com

In our second article this week focused on India, we investigate the barriers impeding the growth of India’s international luxury goods market, which go beyond the recently lifted restrictions on foreign direct investment.

MUMBAI, India — “By the end of 2015, emerging markets should account for more than 50 percent of luxury sales,” Antoine Colonna, a luxury analyst at the asset manager Carmignac Gestion in Paris, told The Wall Street Journal in the spring of 2011. “This isn’t evolution. It’s revolution,” she continued.

But in India, the revolution has yet to take hold. Despite having the world’s second-fastest growing major economy and a rapidly expanding population of high net worth individuals, the country’s market for international luxury goods, worth around $1.3 billion, remains surprisingly small. In fact, while China currently accounts for an estimated 10 percent of the global luxury market, India makes up a mere 1 to 2 percent.

So why has India’s market for international luxury goods failed to take off?

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Modcloth screenshot | Source: Modcloth

In Part I, we examined the innovations and infrastructural advances that have improved the historically poor economics of e-commerce and set the stage for a renaissance in online retail. Today, we explore some of new and exciting business models taking shape, the companies exploiting them and the challenges they face.

SAN FRANCISCO, United States — For years, e-commerce suffered from capital inefficiencies and complexities that pushed investors away. But in recent years, major infrastructural advances and the success of innovative start-ups like Gilt Groupe have rekindled investor interest and set the stage for an explosion of promising new business models including personal subscription, social merchandising, mass customisation and collaborative consumption.

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