Mark Zuckerberg | Source: Business Week

Facebook buys Instagram: inflating the new tech bubble? (Telegraph)
“Instagram has a significant user base in its own right, of around 30 million registered smartphone owners who have been promised the favourite photo app will retain its own identitiy. But with no particularly unique technology, the cash and stock Mark Zuckerberg will lay down for the firm is eye-popping.”

Carine Roitfeld’s Initial Foray (WWD)
“The name of Carine Roitfeld’s new magazine, closely guarded for months, has been in plain sight for a decade… ‘CR,’ the handwritten initials that appeared under all her editor’s letters during her 10 years at the helm of French Vogue, will be scrawled across the matte cover of her new biannual, with the first issue slated for September.”

Tumi: An Armor-Plated Suitcase and IPO? (Business Week)
“Though it’s not as well known as Kors, Tumi caters to a similar demographic: rich people, who—in case you haven’t heard—are doing quite well these days… Will Tumi be the next hot luxury stock? Chances seem good.”

YouTube Paid Hearst $10 Million to Launch New YouTube TV Shows (Fashionista)
“Your favorite magazine features might soon become digital television shows if YouTube’s latest expansion plan takes off. According to AdWeek, a new YouTube channel called Hello Style is set to launch April 15 and will feature high-quality television content from Hearst‘s lady publications”

Phillip Lim Expands Worldwide—And Online (Style.com)
“For a relatively young company, 3.1 Phillip Lim is growing fast. The label currently has six stores worldwide, and an Asian expansion plan is on the horizon. By 2016, there are plans to open 15 more stores in China alone. But today, one of his top stores reopens with a new and improved design: the online flagship at 31philliplim.com.”

The Sicilian Baroque collection by Jason Lloyd-Evans | Source: Telegraph

The gilded world of Dolce and Gabbana (Telegraph)
“The idea that Dolce & Gabbana, both the company and its clothes, are the ‘child’ of the two men who created it recurs repeatedly… By 2002 the company/child they could have ‘killed’ in the fallout had already grown into one of Italian fashion’s most momentous commercial juggernauts.”

Luxury goods: style rises in the east (FT)
“Luxury goods executives point out that a start-up such as Sheji/Sorgere is in no position to compete with the likes of Prada… The mere fact of the launch of a Chinese luxury brand that produces in Italy is a strong indication of the profound changes the world’s second-biggest economy is bringing to the European industry.

Is H&M the new home of ethical fashion? (Guardian)
“H&M is not just a big player in ‘fast fashion’, it’s a giant… And now, in an audacious move, H&M is positioning itself as the ethical solution, the retailer that can make ethics and fast fashion synonymous. It wants to be an ethical giant, too.”

Wizards of Cos (Telegraph)
“There aren’t many high-street shops that don’t consider themselves ‘high street’; Cos regards itself as a design house that happens to have high-street stores. The London-based Swedish brand, known for its minimal clothing and accessories, celebrates its fifth birthday this month.”

Restringing a Famous Last Name (NY Times)
“You might expect the jewelry designer Jenny Lauren to have a head start in the business: She’s the niece of Ralph and the daughter of his brother Jerry, the executive vice president for men’s design at the fashion behemoth. But her big retail break came from an unlikely source: Urban Zen.”

Sperry Top-Sider Spring/Summer 2012 | Source: Bellazoon

Reviving Sperry (Boston)
“The 1990s were not kind to the Sperry Top-Sider. The iconic boat shoe blazed to the fashion forefront in the early 1980s after gaining fame and acclaim in ‘The Official Preppy Handbook’ and countless John Hughes films. But by the end of the decade, the New England-based shoe had fallen out of favor, the sartorial equivalent of Wang Chung.”

LVMH CEO says sales growth speeds up in Q1 (Reuters)
“French luxury giant LVMH saw sales growth accelerate in the first three months of this year from the last quarter of 2011, Chief Executive Bernard Arnault told its annual shareholder meeting.”

Leonard Departure (Vogue)
“Leonard has confirmed that Maxime Simoens will no longer helm the label. The young French talent was hired with much fanfare in October 2011, and now finds himself emerging from the other side of fashion’s revolving door only six months after he began his tenure”

Pushing High Heels to the Limit (WSJ)
“But with heels, many women trade comfort for style. Women spent $38.5 billion on shoes in the U.S. last year, according to NPD Group, and more than half of those sales were for heels over 3 inches high. High heels are seen as sexy and powerful.”

Personal Trainia (The Aesthete)
“Vanessa Traina’s career as a New York-based sylist started long before she moved to the east coast. Born and raised in San Francisco, she grew up at the hem of her haute-couture-collecting mother, the seminal novelist Danielle Steel… To date, her career has included roles as model, muse and what she prefers most, stylist.”

Tsai Meiyue Spring/Summer 2012 | Source: Fashion Inquisitive

When will the China Fashion Week era arrive? (China Daily)
“Fashion weeks are being staged everywhere,and there’s practically a host city for every letterof the alphabet… Beijing recently hosted China Fashion Week, which got some media mileage overseas, but it’s just not on the agenda of the global fashion industry’s movers and shakers.”

Is Pinterest going to make any money? (Telegraph)
“We have Pinterest and a range of social curation sites that enable us to search for and pin gorgeous images to virtual boards, and then share them. Eventually Pinterest will have to make money, but it will have to be from browsers, not buyers, because Pinterest won’t drive significant purchasing.”

Gap to get more teens ringing the register (Market Register)
“While Gap Inc.’s target demographic may be those ages 25 to 40, the largest U.S. clothing chain may end up benefiting disproportionately from a recovery in teen apparel spending.”

Moda Operandi’s Aslaug Magnusdottir On the Future of Online Retail (Fashionetc)
“We’re continuing to enhance the technology. That’s really important for us. We are looking at shoppable video, we’re looking at making this experience of shopping even more immediate than it has been. We will continue to broaden the selection. We’ll introduce new tools to shop, so you can shop more by trend, and shop the editorials.”

No Nail Biting as Polishes Boom (NY Times)
“In recent months, cosmetics makers have invested in lacquers a kind of daring all but unheard of a decade ago, introducing innovations from glitter and crackled surface treatments to stick-on nail art and even scents, and imbuing their products with every color known to nature. And even some that nature would abhor.”

Levi's is collaborating with Reformation | Source: B4E

Could small be the new big for the fashion industry? (Guardian)
“Small companies have proven to be leaders in innovation, particularly when it comes to re-engineering products or processes, and when trying brand new approaches. The UK trend forecasters, Index B, identify six major UK trends in its The Ones to Watch report 2012.”

Windows of opportunity open among sales rails (Marketing Week)
“Brands are using technology to help them reach a new audience on the high street without the usual associated costs involved in opening up a permanent store.Online fashion sites Net-a-Porter and MyWardrobe have both used ‘virtual shopping windows’ to create a physical touchpoint for their brands.”

Big Marketers on Campus (WSJ)
“For start-ups, college students are marketing gold. They love Web products and tell friends, real and virtual, about everything they do, see and buy. They will work, free, at a time when even nonpaying internships are harder to land. Sometimes the students identify themselves as company ambassadors; sometimes not.”

Insiders | Jane Shepherdson (AnOther)
“In her 20-year tenure at Topshop during which she rose through the ranks from buyer to brand director, it’s no understatement to say that Shepherdson helped change the way women buy and wear fashion. Take any style icon of today from Alexa Chung to Kate Moss and their effortless mix of high fashion and high street and you can trace a line directly from Shepherdson’s influence.”

Stella McCartney talks to Tim Blanks (Interview)
“There are people who are utterly galled by the good fortune of others. Then there are those who feel uplifted by it, walking away with a smile on their lips, and a song in their hearts (preferably something in the vein of The Beatles). Stella McCartney’s sane, human response to a life that has been anything but ordinary is some kind of model of how to thrive in the lowering shadow of a legend.”