21 February, 2013
“Fashion has always been an industry populated with wonderfully colourful characters and self-promoters alike, but in the glare of fashion’s growing ‘circus,’ differentiating between the two is rarely as simple as whether their native medium is digital or analogue.”
“Designers are common enough in London, even visionaries and stars like Mr. Ford, but just now the city is full of young talent making relevant clothes. For a while, it was the curse of British designers to be misfits. It meant that anyone grounded in a normal life had to struggle against the assumption that they were not as seriously gifted as Vivienne Westwood or Alexander McQueen.”
“Porta Nuova is expected to present an alternate luxury pole, where tourists, like Chinese with cash in their pockets, can spend a day shopping, walking and lunching along nearby Corso Como. Mr. Rosso confirmed that stores for Margiela and Dsquared2 would open before June on Via Vincenzo Capelli, the pedestrian street that links the top of Corso Como with the Piazza Gae Aulenti, where the UniCredit Tower stands.”
“In the latest move to bolster up-and-coming European talent, luxury giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton said today that it is buying a minority stake in the label of young French designer Maxime Simoëns.”
“Small wonder, then, that thriving alongside confirmed eccentrics is a new breed of self-promoters: editors, stylists and bloggers fanning out their plumage in the hope, it would seem, that a bit of canny self-packaging will secure them a place in fashion’s front ranks.”
“In yet another indication that big media powerhouses are starting to refocus their businesses on driving new models like commerce, publishing giant Condé Nast has made what is understood to be its first investment in an e-commerce startup in Europe.”
Imran Amed started his blog The Business of Fashion about five years ago on his sofa. ‘I had no idea where it would lead,’ he said the other day in London. Mr. Amed, a Harvard Business School graduate and a former McKinsey consultant, had decided to turn his career in another direction, or rather, perhaps, expand it. He is one for taking on several hats, including writer and teacher, at Central Saint Martins.
