11 March, 2013
“For some designers, the route to producing a clothing line doesn’t go through, say, a course at Central St Martins in London, and an internship at Calvin Klein. Instead, it goes hand-in-hand with a related day job: working as an editor or stylist at a fashion magazine.”
“Rent the Runway, a website that rents out high-end clothing and accessories to consumers for a few days at a time, has announced a new $24.4 million round of financing, led by Advance Publications, parent company of Condé Nast, with participation from American Express, Novel TMT Ventures and existing investors Bain Capital Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.”
“She has always designed for herself, a strength in an industry where many womenswear creative directors are male. ‘It’s true that I am my own muse. I don’t like this word but when I studied fashion at Studio Berçot [the Paris fashion college] the director said, ‘You shouldn’t want others to wear things that you won’t wear yourself,’ and that’s something that never left me.’”
“The recently released annual Hurun report usually contains fascinating insights into the antics of the super wealthy in China and this year is no exception.”
“The past four weeks have seen designers from New York to Paris take their bows as the autumn/winter womenswear season played out across the fashion capitals. But right behind each of them is an entire atelier’s worth of pattern-cutters, making the forms that become the frocks that make up the trends.”
“On the surface, free luxury merchandise sounds like a pretty sweet deal. But it’s not that simple. The clothes have often been the only way models are paid for their professional services. Insiders call this form of payment ‘trade,’ and it’s leading some models down a path of debt, forcing some to hawk the clothes on eBay and in consignment shops to recover the cash.”
“After only eight months in business, everything at online fashion company American Giant was going according to plan last year… Then American Giant got the type of positive publicity many companies can only dream off. Orders rocketed, and the firm was sent into emergency mode. ‘Four days later we had nothing left,’ says Mr Winthrop. ‘We were down to the sticks in our warehouse.’”
