NEW YORK, United States — For decades, a quick route to fashion world prominence involved a designer turning a youth culture trend into a runway-ready collection. Calvin Klein made heroin chic, Jean Paul Gaultier sampled from club culture, Marc Jacobs glammed-up grunge and Hedi Slimane turned Berlin punks into fashion plates.

The concept was simple, even if the design work wasn’t: find a scruffy outsider style that remained untapped, then spruce it up for the luxury market. But today, as high fashion becomes increasingly accessible, this approach may no longer work. Today’s internet-empowered youth have the tools, access and information to create and promote their own fashion culture.

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Rachel Whiteread’s Drawings | Source: NOWNESS

NEW YORK , United States — In recent quarters, online sales were the only bright patch in a grim luxury retail landscape. But interestingly, in January of 2009, LVMH-owned eLuxury announced that it would cease e-commerce operations entirely and relaunch as a luxury destination focused completely on content.

Fast-forward one year and the luxury industry still can’t seem to get enough of the internet. Social Media is the phrase on everyone’s lips. And so, it was with great interest that BoF took a sneak peek at the web experience that takes eLuxury’s place — NOWNESS — which will officially launch to the public on Thursday 25 February.

Tuning into a special online preview and connecting with EVP Digital of NOWNESS, Kamel Ouadi, we got the lowdown on what to expect from NOWNESS in the months to come.

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Lady Gaga by Zaldy in the Monster Ball Tour | Source: Fan site

To further explore the powerful synergy between the fashion and music industries, BoF brings you an exclusive two-part interview with fashion designer Zaldy, known for his close connection to the music industry’s biggest stars.

NEW YORK, United States — Zaldy Goco is one of those rare creative talents who moves seamlessly between music and fashion. For almost two decades, the New York-based fashion designer has been working at close range with music stars to create looks that fit with their music and amplify their personal style, taste and aesthetic to millions of fans. From Rufus Wainwright to RuPaul, Mary J. Blige to Jennifer Lopez, and Mick Jagger to the Scissor Sisters, Zaldy’s fashion-meets-music resume is impressive and diverse indeed.

And, while his first big break may have come from working with Gwen Stefani on her L.A.M.B. label, it wasn’t until 2009 that Zaldy’s career reached its apogee. Last year, in quick succession, both the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and the reigning queen of the online music industry, Lady Gaga, called on Zaldy to create the costumes for their concert tours. This is particularly noteworthy as both Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga have used costumes to project their unique, star qualities and create iconic images.

In the first part of an in-depth, two part interview, BoF spoke exclusively with Zaldy about how he got started working in the music/fashion space, collaborating with Gwen Stefani, and becoming part of the now legendary Haus of Gaga for her Monster Ball Tour.

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Gareth Pugh Spring Summer 2010 Film Installation

NEW YORK, United States — In recent seasons, digital fashion film has been gaining momentum as an emotionally charged and cost-effective presentation format. But this season is the first time designers have started using film in a way that tightly complements their runway shows and lets them extend their presence across multiple fashion weeks, in different geographic markets.

Yesterday evening, English enfant terrible Gareth Pugh, who has been showing in Paris for the last two seasons, established his first presence at New York Fashion Week by showing not one, but four short films. Created in collaboration with fashion filmmaker Ruth Hogben, the films set the tone and outlined the inspirations for Pugh’s upcoming Spring Summer 2010 collection to be unveiled on the Paris catwalks in early October.

After speaking with Ruth about her previous films for Gareth, I was especially excited to see what the two had dreamt up. Their stunning installation did not disappoint.

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Christian Louboutin Laceups, courtesy of Jak and Jil

NEW YORK, United States — In seasons past, industry-watchers have spoken of the growing presence of bloggers at the New York shows, but this is the first season where bloggers have come to New York from all over the world, gaining backstage access, front-row seats and even juicy scoops, in a full-on, international blogger invasion. Bryanboy is here from Manila. Susie Bubble is here from London. And Julia and Jessie from Les Mads are here from Germany.

What’s more, at many of the shows, bloggers and web editors have been seated together, allowing for some spontaneous exchange and an opportunity to meet the faces behind some of the finest fashion websites around. Already I have met the super-smart Tommye Fitzpatrick of Fashionologie, the stylish Christene Barberich of Refinery29 and streetstyle maven Phil Oh of Streetpeeper.

But most of all, I was delighted to meet Tommy Ton, the man behind Jak and Jil, which recently won the public vote for the best fashion blog in the Dazed Digital RAW Blog awards. If there was one blog to which BoF was happy to lose, it was to Jak and Jil’s genius photography, editing and fashion moments, as captured by this humble, soft-spoken young man.

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Saloni Lodha at BoF's Inside the Studio launch, by Alistair Allan

NEW YORK, United States — If you opened up one of those celebrity magazines — like Grazia, People or US — or clicked on any fashion website around the time of the latest Harry Potter premiere in the summer, you will have seen Emma Watson’s photo beaming back at you, in a dress by the London-based Indian designer, Saloni Lodha.

Countless magazines featured Watson’s chic look in a bold red dress, and soon enough, Saloni’s phones were ringing off the hook. Boutiques and magazines around the world were interested to know more about this emerging talent. As it turns out, Lodha had no idea that Watson was going to wear her dress, which had been bought by Watson’s stylist and then magically appeared on a red carpet one day.

The rest, as they say, is history.

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Fashiontweek.com homepage

NEW YORK, United States—Last season, the fashion flock embraced Twitter like never before, giving fashion consumers a captivating play-by-play from front rows and afterparties at fashion weeks from New York to Paris. Indeed, for a few days, New York Fashion Week became the 4th biggest trend on Twitter.

Now, capitalizing on this momentum, a San Francisco-based publishing and advertising network has launched a website called FashionTweek that today began aggregating tweets about New York Fashion Week from all over the Twitterverse, promising “realtime reaction to the shows, parties and people of Fashion Week NYC” at a single destination. … Continue Reading

In the third and final installment of our in-depth feature on the future of fashion magazines, we address the biggest online trend of all — the fashion film.

LONDON, United Kingdom — Pioneered by SHOWstudio and powered by the spread of broadband internet and the popularity of video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo, fashion film has emerged as the most influential new format for fashion editorial online. Shorts like “Black and White,” captured on set by Nick Knight and former assistant Ruth Hogben during Mr Knight’s shoots for British Vogue, use music and movement to communicate the power and poetry of fashion in a way that static editorial simply can’t.

Fashion film has taken off at Dazed Digital also. “We have been experimenting with some of these directors to shoot fashion videos direct to the web and the results are cost effective and really impressive,” said Jefferson Hack. For a recent editorial previewing the Autumn/Winter 2009 menswear collections, Dazed Digital published an online fashion film, shot by Matt Irwin and styled by Robbie Spencer, to accompany the still images.

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Images from SHOWstudio's "Dress Me Up, Dress Me Down"

Last time we surveyed the rapidly changing landscape of digital fashion media. Today, in the second part of our series on the future of fashion magazines, we explore the experimental approach that online pioneers like Jefferson Hack and Nick Knight are using to create unique content and experiences that truly bring fashion magazines into the digital age.

LONDON, United Kingdom — The internet’s ability to transmit information immediately, impossible in print and too expensive on television, has changed the way in which we create and consume content perhaps more than anything else. “Print magazines will never be the first to break any news,” said fashion blogger Diane Pernet, whose influential website, A Shaded View on Fashion, has been reporting live from fashion weeks, showrooms and studios around the world, capturing and transmitting the moment almost instantaneously with inexpensive camera phones and laptops.

In response, forward thinking magazines have done two things. Web pioneers like Dazed Digital, a fashion and culture platform launched in November 2006 by the publishers of Dazed & Confused magazine, have begun “live blogging” themselves, posting realtime reports from fashion shows in Paris, London, New York and Milan. But they’ve also learned to focus less on what’s new, a commodity that’s instantly available everywhere, and more on a unique point of view and reader experience that aren’t easily replicated. “It’s got to be more about experiencing the fashion; a stylistic point of view. It’s less and less about information,” said Jefferson Hack, founder and co-publisher at Dazed Group. … Continue Reading