Louis Vuitton Omotosando | Source: Highsnobiety

Web-Bargain Luxury Comes to Japan (WSJ)
“For decades, the model for selling luxury imported goods in Japan has been simple: plush surroundings, attentive service—and the ‘Japan premium’… But the cozy system may be cracking, [thanks in part to] third-party websites to jump in with deep discounts.”

Karl Lagerfeld cancels Paris show (Catwalk Queen)
“Instead, the designer is working on a new ‘masstige’ ready-to-wear collection in a bid to change the brand image into a more commercial line… The collection will be ready for A/W 2011, and will be sold online.”

Richemont sales beat forecast, Asian demand soars (Reuters)
“Swiss luxury goods group Richemont’s five-month sales jumped 37 percent, beating forecasts and confirming a rebound in the sector as wealthy Asians splash out again on top-end watches and jewellery.”

Phillips-Van Heusen raises outlook (Reuters)
“Apparel maker Phillips-Van Heusen Corp posted an adjusted quarterly profit that surpassed analysts’ expectations, helped by revenue gains in all three units, including its newly-acquired Tommy Hilfiger brand.”

Anna Wintour Weaves Her Web (WWD)
“Just what Anna Wintour needed: another project. On the eve of New York Fashion Week and a mere two days before her brainchild, Fashion’s Night Out… she is unveiling the new vogue.com.”

Ana Locking Autumn/Winter 2010/2011 | Source: thefashionisto.com

MADRID, Spain — This month, the BoF Spotlight turns to Spain. Despite a contracting economy, an increase in sales tax and nationwide austerity measures, it turns out that, between LVMH-owned luxury brand Loewe and fast fashion powerhouse Inditex — owners of global brands Zara, Bershka and Massimo Dutti — there’s still room in the market for a young and creative Spanish brand like Ana Locking.

Founded in 2008 by Ana Gonzalez, the label’s Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, ‘Spinning Destiny,’ incorporates bold colours arranged in a calculated progression that culminates in a unique pattern that resembles spinning paint, or spin art. Experimental jewellery made of brightly coloured paraffin wax set in brass emphasizes the perishable life of consumer goods.

Ana takes abstract ideas like “guilty beauty” or “inherent destinies” and transforms them into collections for both men and women. But for a company rooted in pure creativity, negotiating today’s economy has not been easy. “Shops aren’t thinking a lot of buying emerging brands. They play it safe and buy established brands,” said a spokesperson at Ana Locking’s studio.

The absence of strong fashion awareness in Spain further complicates the situation for the fledgling brand. “In Spain, there isn’t a fashion culture. More and more younger people are interested in Spanish fashion, but it will be ten years before they become potential buyers of our brand,” said the spokesperson.

Ana Locking for BoF | Source: Ana Locking Studio

But Ana Locking has managed to strike a delicate balance between competitive pricing and quality and been able to stay afloat by connecting with a wider, more global audience outside Spain, largely via the internet. Indeed, the brand’s e-commerce site (currently being overhauled) has been instrumental in establishing a presence in countries from the Netherlands to Kuwait. Ana Locking has also collaborated with online retailers Yoox and BuyVip.com to create exclusive capsule collections. Meanwhile on the wholesale front, the label is extending its presence in emerging markets and counts Harvey Nichols Hong Kong as a stockist.

At BoF, we wish Ana the best of luck in pursuing her vision and growing her business as we shine our Spotlight on her colourfully spun designs.

The Spotlight is BoF’s showcase for emerging talent employing creativity and business acumen to make their mark in the fashion business. This month’s Spotlight was written by Elizabeth Peng, an M.A. student in Fashion Journalism at Central St Martins, is an editorial intern at The Business of Fashion.

Manolo Blahnik at work | Source: Manolo Blahnik

Well heeled: Manolo Blahnik and his left-hand woman (Independent)
“As his exclusive collection for Liberty arrives, Manolo Blahnik talks footwear, films and fabrics with his niece and ‘left-hand woman’ Kristina…Since he set up shop in the Seventies Manolo Blahnik has become the world’s most famous artisan shoemaker.”

The Evolution of the Fashion Film (WSJ)
“‘This is the new advertising… The consumer and the audience are one…. While the Internet has facilitated the blossoming of fashion films, fashion photographers have long experimented with motion pictures.”

Cavalli back to profit (Reuters)
“Italian fashion house Cavalli, best known for animal print designs, returned to profit in the first half, as a pick-up in sales helped offset lower licence fees. As a result of a strong reorganisation at the group, retail and wholesale revenue grew 4 percent.”

Lakme Fashion Week ties up with e-commerce portal (Relax News)
“Lakme Fashion Week has entered into a strategic collaboration with fashion trade portal Fashion And You as part of its push to further the business of fashion by using e-commerce.”

The Real Harajuku Girls (WWD)
“Young Japanese women are an eclectic bunch… WWD plucked a sample of these consumers from the bustling streets of Harajuku and asked them about their personal style and shopping habits. Here’s what they had to say.”

CFDA Winner Jason Wu | Source: Jason Wu

Asian-Americans Climb Fashion Industry Ladder (NY Times)
“It was the first time that all three prizes given by the [CFDA] were awarded to designers who are Asian-American. That same night, the fashion council announced three scholarships, each for $25,000, won by student designers of Asian heritage.”

Fashion brands are turning to the lucrative homewares market (Independent)
“The trendy Swedish denim company Acne is having a go, as is the avant-garde designer Martin Margiela. Diane von Furstenberg will be launching a homeware line in 2011; Diesel started one last year, and is now moving into lighting.”

Victoria Beckham: Is She for Real? (NY Times)
“Her sinuously curvy cocktail dresses… are showcased in stores alongside luxury labels like Narciso Rodriguez and Vera Wang. ‘Don’t underestimate her,’ said Anna Wintour.”

A morning in the life of Donna Karan (National Post)
“Twenty-five years ago, Donna Karan made her first Canadian personal appearance at Holt Renfrew’s Toronto flagship store to launch her ready-to-wear label. The New York fashion designer recently returned to mark the occasion.”

Steve Madden Might End Up Owning Betsey Johnson in 2012 (The Cut)
“Madden already holds a license for handbags, small leather goods, belts and umbrellas under the Betsey Johnson and Betseyville trademarks. The collateral for the loan includes the company’s intellectual property.”

Jimmy Choo takes steps to possible IPO (FT)
“The private equity owner of Jimmy Choo plans to appoint investment banks to advise on strategic options for the maker of stilettos for the stars, including a possible initial public offering valuing the company at about £500m.”

Affluent, Generous Young Women Lead Recovery (Marketing Daily)
“When it comes to power-shopping our way toward economic recovery, a new report from American Express says well-heeled young women are leading the charge.”

Should luxury brands use twitter? (Luxury Society)
“Luxury is an intricate web of emotions… can it be captured in 140 characters (and that too with a shortened link of some sort if the company is trying to drive some traffic to a specific webpage or website)?”

Taking a page from Wal-Mart, Holt Renfrew hires greeters (Vancouver Sun)
“The luxury retailer’s new president, Mark Derbyshire, is chagrined at the mention of the company’s reputation for having sales clerks with a chilly attitude that may intimidate potential customers.”

Fashion Week Preview: The Faces (NY Times)
“Now that we’re practically on a first-name basis with Doutzen, Lakshmi and Anja, it’s time we meet Bambi, Fei Fei and Kat. They are some of the new and almost-like-new faces we’ll be seeing next week at the New York fashion shows.”

Searching for Style in Vancouver | Photos: Bronte Robertson

VANCOUVER, Canada — It’s always nice to come home. Longtime BoF readers will have noticed that each summer, BoF tends to publish a few articles on the Canadian fashion scene. But for the first time, this year’s trip home also included a wonderful event generously hosted and organised by Alexandra Suhner Isenberg, who started writing her blog Searching For Style after more than ten years of studying and working in London and Paris.

The event was held at Vancouver’s Opus Hotel and themed The Business of Fashion and the Digital Revolution, bringing the good and great of the city’s small but passionate fashion community together on a balmy Monday evening. As the room continued to fill up, it was clear that there is great interest in Vancouver in all the change currently engulfing the fashion business. After an onstage interview with Alexandra, I was delighted to meet BoF readers from Vancouver and across Canada.

I had previously met Lisa Tant in Toronto and enjoyed getting her take on what it’s like to run the Canadian fashion magazine-cum-institution, Flare. Earlier in the week, Flare.com posted a Q&A with BoF on the Canadian fashion industry and our other pet topics, including Twitter. As it turns out, Lisa is a passionate tweeter herself, having learned how to make it work in her role as editor-in-chief. She says she has discovered both great talent for her editorial team and the ability to predict which of her magazine’s issues will be bestsellers based on the Twitter buzz generated by a new cover. It’s a smart way of using social media as a tool to run a fashion magazine in the digital era.

I was introduced for the first time to Jason Matlo, one of Vancouver’s top designers and also one of the city’s most stylish denizens. When pressed on how he manages to make a fashion business work out of Vancouver, which is far away from the main centres of Canadian fashion in Montreal and Toronto, Jason acknowledges that it is not easy. But with a dedicated team, including a business person to keep him focused on the bottom line, he somehow makes it work. Matlo manufactures his collections right from his Vancouver studio and is very responsive to orders from private clients and the local retailers who stock his ready-to-wear collections.

There were several other familiar faces it the crowd including Aritzia’s Brian Hill who was featured in a CEO Talk last summer and guys from Inventory Magazine whom we wrote about just last week. Rebecca Tay, Western Editor of FASHION, Canada’s other heavyweight fashion publication, and Craig David Long and the team from local luxury magazine, Montecristo, were also in attendance.

And no BoF event would be complete without the local fashion bloggerati, including Sarah Bancroft of Vitamin Daily, May Globus, Anya from I’m the It Girl, Vanessa Hong of The Haute Pursuit, Erica Lam and Nicole Soon of The Style Spy and Kelsey Dundon of The Anthology.

Thanks to everyone for coming out and showing your support for the event and especially to Alexandra and her great team of interns Bronte Robertson and Johana Zara for making it all happen.

For a recap of the The Business of Fashion and the Digital Revolution, please visit Searching for Style.

Canal Street AF1, created to drive counterfeit awareness | Source: Kicks on fire

Copyrighting Fashion: Who Gains? (NY Times)
“Paradoxically, the payoff from free copying has been enormous.  The fashion cycle turns faster, and the industry gets richer – and creates new designs more frequently. So why on earth would anyone want to change that?”

Luxury brands wrest back China market, eye smaller cities (Reuters)
“Many piled into China over the last decade, pairing with re-sellers and joint venture partners, but with so much at stake, they are severing these ties and bringing their own considerable financial and marketing muscle as well as expertise to China.”

Lanvin to Make Clothes for H & M (NY Times)
“Lanvin, one of the oldest Paris fashion houses, announced today that it will do a collection this fall for H & M. People can have their first look at the collection on Nov. 2, in a film that will be shown on hm.com. The clothes will go on sale Nov. 23 in 200 H & M stores worldwide.”

Esprit to Double China Sales After Decline in European Revenue (Business Week)
“Esprit Holdings, the biggest Hong Kong-listed clothier, aims to at least double China sales in the next five years after reporting an 11 percent drop in full-year profit. The stock fell the most in three months.”

Should John Lewis revamp their fashion? (Telegraph)
“The department store has just announced a revamp – the word alone will send a shiver down the spines of its fans – with the aim of becoming genuinely fashionable. Why on earth does Britain’s Favourite Retailer need to get groovy?”

FashionStake Screenshot | Source: FashionStake

The FashionStake Diaries is a four-part series that gives BoF readers a behind the scenes look at the crucial first months of a crowdfunding fashion startup, seen through the eyes of its founders. Today, as FashionStake goes live, the founders reveal their initial designer lineup and reflect on their journey thus far.

NEW YORK, United States — Almost one year ago to the day, we were sitting in a classroom at Harvard Business School drawing up an idea for a new fashion website. Shortly thereafter, we began the exciting, humbling and often heart-wrenching task of building a company at the intersection of fashion and technology.

Today, we are happy to launch the fruits of our labour. And in this post, we’d like to share some important lessons we learned along the way, introduce our initial designer lineup and encourage you to test drive the new site.

10 LESSONS LEARNED

Distill your vision. Our company’s vision can be expressed in two words: “Democratize fashion.” It took us weeks to come up with a meaningful yet succinct phrase, but we now use it daily when we speak to investors, customers, employees and designers.

Partner with people who act like founders. During our first round of hiring, we looked for experts in technology, web design, marketing and designer relations. But it’s their personal drive and willingness to rally around a vision that has been of greatest value.

Double your cost estimates. We were slugged with hidden cost after hidden cost: lawyers, samples, web hosting and optimization tools… The list goes on. Be prepared.

Great ideas can come from unpredictable places. Some of our best technology ideas came from our merchandising staff. An engineer suggested a new way to run our photo shoots. Our online community manager recommended a state-of-the-art accounting package. Remember, great ideas can come from anywhere.

Establish your own brand first. We received all kinds of partnership, affiliate marketing and co-branding offers, but felt strongly about forging our own brand first, and partnering later.

Go easy on paid marketing. We found that paid marketing channels, such as SEO/SEM and PR agencies, were often low-impact. Instead, we’re focused on sharp editorial, partnering with blogs and great service early on.

Face-to face meetings still rule. We always try to meet designers in person, rather than relying on a flurry of emails and phone calls. It gives us the opportunity to establish trust, and in most instances, actually saves more time than going back and forth electronically.

Soak up feedback. We asked everyone we knew for feedback on our website, business model and value proposition, then figured out whose comments made sense. It’s important to seek feedback and even more important to filter it.

Be transparent. We openly shared bad news about designers, investors and employees with relevant people inside and outside the company, as this helped us come to a solution quickly. We also regularly shared the good news!

Joie de vivre! Startup life can sometimes seem full of endless challenges, long uphill battles and uncertain outcomes. Remembering to enjoy the day’s little victories is crucial.

INTRODUCING OUR DESIGNERS

We’d like to announce our first four designers, all of whom are producing exclusive collections for FashionStake.

Nicholas K: Respected and revered for soft leather and outerwear, Nicholas K is designed by brother-sister duo Chris and Nicole Kunz, who made waves when they first showed at New York Fashion Week in Fall 2003. This season, the label will open New York Fashion Week at Lincoln Center with a show that will feature pieces from their exclusive FashionStake capsule collection. The military-inspired collection features khaki and army-green jackets pared down with soft water camouflage prints. Six lucky FashionStake supporters will receive personal invitations to the show.

Lewis Cho: When Annie Lewis and Helen Cho met in the 90s while working for designer Anna Sui, they immediately bonded over their love for simple yet chic fashion — an aesthetic that has come to define their brand. In fact, the company’s runaway success all started with one simple, but unforgettable dress. It was a designer’s dream: in 2005, less than a year after the label’s launch, a “little white dress” from Lewis Cho’s collection was featured in Vogue. Since then, Lewis Cho has become a fashionista favourite.

AIRA: Launched in Fall 2008 by sisters and Parsons School of Design graduates Annie and Karen Lin, AIRA contrasts masculinity and femininity through structure and romance. Lauded by Women’s Wear Daily, ELLE and InStyle, their exclusive collection for FashionStake is inspired by the book “The Working Riviera” and features romantic dresses, shirts and cardigans with canvas and riveting details.

Yotam Solomon: Yotam Solomon debuted his first collection in October 2007 when he was just 20 years old, making him the youngest designer to ever show at LA Fashion Week. The Israeli-born designer has since become one of LA’s rising stars, known for his winning combination of eco-friendly fabrics and high fashion. Popular among celebrities and editors alike, Yotam continues to impress with his sophisticated, avant-garde designs. He was named LA’s “Top Young Designer” in 2009 by AOL’s Stylelist.

That’s all we can reveal for now. But we’ve already signed a host of designers — both contemporary and luxury ready-to-wear — and will be introducing a new designer on our website every week.

NEXT STEPS

Today is the first day of what we hope will be a long and exciting journey. Now that we’re in execution mode, we’ll be focusing on a few key areas: responding to initial customer feedback, releasing exciting new additions to the website and, of course, ensuring that everyone who visits the site is treated to a great experience. In our next and final post, we’ll give you a status update on the critical first few weeks following launch and touch on our plans for the future.

Vivian Weng and Daniel Gulati are co-founders of FashionStake, a new online marketplace for fashion that launches today.

MCM's Boston bag | Source: MCM

Relocated labels (FT)
“From individual consumers of luxury goods, the Chinese and Indians have become consumers of luxury companies, in a shift that has far-reaching implications for the $80bn (€63bn, £52bn) a year industry.”

When luxury brands outsource, should they tell? (Today)
“Italy’s Parliament has passed a law that [requires] manufacturers be able to prove that their products were primarily made in Italy and, if any part of the work was carried out elsewhere, a traceable location must be shown.”

Saks shares surge on report of possible buyout bid (Reuters)
“Saks Inc shares surged 22 percent… after a published report that a group of private equity firms may soon launch a bid for the New York-based luxury department store operator.”

Boomers and Zoomers: The Social Web Grows Up (Brand Channel)
“As Boomers continue to age, their social media skills are ripening. The latest Pew Internet survey reveals that social networking among Internet users in the 50+ segment nearly doubled, from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010.”

Memorial service at St. Paul’s for Alexander McQueen (Telegraph)
“The late, great British designer, Alexander ‘Lee’ McQueen, will be remembered at a Memorial Service, at St Paul’s Cathedral, on September 20th, during London Fashion Week.”

Dior's Shanghai Dreamers | Source: antbazaar

Chinese people as identical Maoist robots? (Guardian)
“If fantasy is part of the appeal of fashion, then wouldn’t it be worthwhile for Dior, Chanel, and other couture houses to figure out how Chinese people fantasise and see themselves?”

Marketing’s New Rage: Brands Sponsoring Influential Bloggers (WWD)
“Forget about just display ads. Increasingly, the future of advertising online seems to be through sponsorships, contests, giveaways, product placement, widgets and games — often with bloggers.”

How CEOs Will Use Social Media in the Future (Mashable)
“Today’s CEO is not social… Very few of the CEOs at top companies in the U.S. and the rest of the world have any material presence on the popular social media sites… all signs are pointing to a future filed with CEOs who can speak the language of the people — social media.”

Ebay redoubles marketing efforts for fashion offering (Marketing)
“Since eBay launched its Fashion Outlet site in April, it has had 30 fashion retail brands, including Superdry, Karen Millen, Ted Baker and Office, join to sell their products through it.”

How the late Corinne Day changed my life (Telegraph)
“Her style of photography, and that British Vogue shoot in particular, kicked off the whole grunge movement in the ‘90s in a blaze of controversy. No discernible make-up, natural light, girls with flaws.. Her work was so unmistakably British and effortlessly cool.”