Screenshot of BoF in 2007 | Source: BoF

LONDON, United Kingdom — This week marks a very special milestone in the history of The Business of Fashion: our 5th birthday!

Back in January 2007, I spent one hundred dollars for an annual Typepad subscription and, with the help of a friend, set up a blog at uberkid.typepad.com. I called it The Business of Fashion, cobbled together a clumsy looking header in Powerpoint and started jotting down ideas and observations about the fashion business.

There was no plan! Looking back, it’s a little cringeworthy to see how the blog shifted haphazardly from one subject to the next: reviewing the Milan menswear shows in one post, covering a Giles Deacon party in the next, analysing the luxury childrenswear market and reporting on senior executive shuffles at the Gap, all within the very first month and without any real editorial direction or strategy!

But we’ve come a long way since then and I’ve also learned a great deal about digital publishing. A few of the media properties that I most respect, including The Atlantic and The Guardian, have been buzzing about their “digital first” strategies. But BoF was born digital from day one, which has enabled us to take a particularly lean and responsive approach to publishing.

Indeed, one of the great strengths of digital – an inherently conversational medium – lies in the on-going dialogue it enables between content creators and the communities they attract. Rather than simply broadcasting to a passive audience, BoF has slowly but surely shaped an editorial voice that reflects the feedback and interests of our growing community of readers.

Through feedback from this community and generous advice from online fashion pioneers like Diane Pernet and Jason Campbell, I quickly learned that one of the most useful things I could offer the nascent fashion blogosphere was opinionated analysis and advice for professionals working in the global fashion business. Rather than simply reporting news, which was widely published elsewhere and rapidly becoming a commodity, I focused on trying to make sense of the news. As it turned out, the timing couldn’t have been better as the fashion industry would soon find itself navigating unprecedented change driven by the forces of economic crisis, rapid globalisation, and, of course, the digital revolution.

In April 2007, a few months after launching BoF, I was invited to the Harvard Business School Retail & Luxury Goods conference to speak on a panel alongside a group of highly respected luxury experts. At one point, the moderator, Milton Pedraza of the Luxury Institute, began asking the panel about social media, in particular a website called Facebook, which by then had attracted a user base of around 20 million people. “How will these new social platforms impact the fashion and luxury world?” Mr Pedraza asked.

Having spent several months immersed in the world of blogging, I ventured that I saw some real, long-term potential for the fashion and luxury sector in social media. After all, if consumers were spending more time on these platforms, it was only logical that brands looking to reach them would need to do the same.

But suffice it to say that my fellow panelists did not see it that way. In fact, my ideas were at best politely dismissed, at worst publicly ridiculed. But when the panel had ended, Mr. Pedraza leaned over and whispered some encouraging words in my ear: “I think you’re onto something,” he said. “Stick with it.”

And so I did. It was one of many helpful pushes I have had along this journey. But, in particular, Mr. Pedraza’s gentle push helped me to realise that by exploring the exciting potential of fashion’s digital future, BoF had an opportunity to add something genuinely distinctive to the fashion dialogue. I had no budget for marketing or PR, so all I could do was create good content and hope our audience would keep coming back and spread the word about BoF to their friends and colleagues.

A year or so later, I realised that for BoF to reach its potential, I had to build a team. In the summer of 2008, Tokyo-based W. David Marx became our first correspondent and New York-based writer Robert Cordero began curating the BoF Daily Digest, a hand-picked selection of the most interesting and important fashion news stories of the day, something we started doing so that the members of our community wouldn’t have to sift through the mountains of daily fashion news themselves.

As for our original articles, we made a special effort to create content that wasn’t available anywhere else. First, BoF became known for a series on the basics of setting up a fashion business. Soon after, I launched Fashion 2.0, our popular on-going inquiry into of the powerful digital currents that are reshaping the business of fashion, and we were often the first in the fashion press to examine new platforms like Tumblr and new trends like social curation.

Next came CEO Talk, our signature series of in-depth interviews with the industry’s top business leaders. We spotted young designers early, as well, and were amongst the first to introduce Camilla Skovgaard, Thomas Tait, and Huishan Zhang to the world. And finally, our live interview series Fashion Pioneers has attracted industry insiders and consumer audiences alike, both virtually and in-person, to hear from inspiring fashion luminaries like Natalie Massenet, Jefferson Hack and Nick Knight.

So, what have we learned from all of this? In today’s environment of media abundance, the power of opinion channeled through analytical editorial, curated news and live events has made BoF a daily destination for a growing number of fashion professionals. We cut through the clutter. Compared to other websites with similar stature and audience, we produced less content, but ensured the highest quality possible, working with a small but highly agile and global network of editors and contributors, who generously contributed their time to the BoF cause.

I first met Vikram Kansara virtually, reading his intelligent feedback on BoF articles in our lively comments section. After we met for tea in London, Vikram started writing for BoF as a contributing editor focused on Fashion 2.0 and is now our managing editor. Several other individuals from the BoF community have also come on board since then, including fashion legend Colin McDowell, leading international expert in the finance of fashion Pierre Mallevays, and Divia Harilela and Timothy Coghlan, our on the ground experts in the enormously important Chinese market, building depth and breadth into our editorial voice. Many, many others have contributed articles from time to time and I am immensely grateful for the time and energy that all of these talented individuals have dedicated to BoF over the years.

But none of this would have been possible without our single greatest asset: the global BoF community. Everywhere I have traveled over the past five years, from Tokyo to Jakarta, Vancouver to Mumbai, Buenos Aires to Tel Aviv, and more than 25 other countries in between, I have been warmly welcomed and hosted by this community. Generous individuals and organisations have opened my eyes to a global industry that is filled with inspiring stories of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and shared the best and brightest of their local fashion industry with me, so that I could share it with all of you.

Over the recent holidays, this community revealed its wonderful diversity in a rather spontaneous way. When I sent out a short holiday greeting to our followers on Twitter, Sharon Caufield was one of the first to respond with a note that said she was writing from Craigavon, Northern Ireland. It made me wonder: who else was following our tweets on Boxing Day and where were they from? So I asked the community and within minutes, hundreds of tweets had poured in, representing every inhabited continent and more than 80 countries.

With this truly global community in mind, I am very pleased to announced that, alongside Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram, BoF has just launched a Weibo presence. Chinese-language readers can now stay up to date on the latest news and analysis from BoF at weibo.com/businessoffashion.

As I look ahead to 2012, the future of BoF looks brighter than ever. We aim to bring you the best analysis, the most inspiring stories and the first insight into the players, platforms and business models that are reshaping the business of fashion as we know it.

Happy New Year! And I hope you’ll stick with us, as it seems this is only the beginning of our journey.

Imran Amed,
Founder and Editor-in-Chief

Hedi Slimane | Source: Hypebeast

A Fashion Designer’s Second Act (NY Times)
“When Hedi Slimane stepped down as artistic director at Dior Homme in 2007, Fashion Wire Daily summed up his tenure this way: ‘Slimane leaves Dior with the well-earned reputation as the single most influential men’s designer this century, the most copied of his peers and the only one to achieve the status of a rock star.’… But Mr. Slimane seems to have left fashion behind with nary a second thought, reinventing himself as a photographer in the past few years, one who has produced an array of strikingly intimate portraits, nearly all of them black and white.”

Ralph Lauren margins fall, shares hit (Reuters)
“Ralph Lauren Corp posted a sharp drop in quarterly margins on Wednesday, hurt by rising costs, and its shares fell in premarket dealings. Shares fell 5.7 percent as gross margin fell dropped to 56.6 percent from 58 percent a year earlier. The clothing maker, which makes brands including Polo, Club Monaco and Chaps, said net income rose to $233.5 million, or $2.46 a share, in the second quarter ended October 1 from $205.2 million, or $2.09 a share, a year earlier.”

Online fashion retailer Yoox sees Q4 growth (Reuters)
“Italian online fashion retailer Yoox is looking to further revenue growth for the end of the year after strong sales in the first nine months confirmed the vigor of the luxury industry despite wider economic woes in Europe. Yoox, which powers sites for top brands such as Valentino and Roberto Cavalli alongside its own multibrand online stores, said core earnings rose 20.2 percent to 11.8 million euros ($16 million) in the nine months ended in September.”

Retail Site Raids a Big Closet (NY Times)
“Since its debut in February, Moda Operandi, the online retailer that sells designer clothes right off the runway, has become a surprise competitor on the lucrative trunk-show circuit. Now the site is becoming a competitor to traditional department stores and magazines for personnel, as well. Roopal Patel, a longtime executive in the fashion offices of Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, will join Moda Operandi this month as its fashion director. And Taylor Tomasi Hill, formerly the style and accessories director of Marie Claire, will become its artistic director.”

Yohji’s World (Vogue)
“Yohji Yamamoto has explained his love of the colour black – a signature that punctuates most of his collections… ‘Colour disturbs people. I am confident in black, not in light. This dark side of life is attractive to me forever and from the beginnings. I am a lazy designer when it comes to colour. The body is the important thing to me – it is the beginning of my work.’”

Emerging Designer CC Kuo, The Black Stripe | Source: Lookk.com

NEW YORK, United States — Blogging and other forms of social media are surfacing emerging designers faster than ever before, bringing greater transparency to a previously underexposed part of the market and empowering consumers to discover new names. But the emerging fashion businesses which stand to benefit most have long faced significant distribution barriers and unfavourable economic terms that make bringing their product to market problematic.

Because young labels can rarely afford the huge investments associated with opening their own bricks-and-mortar stores, their primary path to market has been selling pieces at wholesale prices to multi-brand boutiques and department stores, who traditionally mark up items 2.5 to 3 times before selling them to end consumers, taking 60 to 70 percent of the retail value. But for emerging brands, even this is far from guaranteed, as risk-averse retailers typically wait a few seasons before buying a new designer in order to first confirm that the brand has proven its ability to generate consumer demand, creating a kind of “Catch-22.”

In recent years, the growth of internet retailing has enabled smaller brands to route around retailers and earn more favourable margins by establishing direct-to-consumer sales channels online, at a fraction of what it costs to build a physical store. But for the majority of emerging fashion businesses just entering the market, the costs associated with implementing their own e-commerce presence have traditionally been too high to make a directly-owned and operated online sales channel a viable immediate option.

Now, a number start-ups are aiming to disrupt the traditional retail model by changing the way emerging fashion designers break into the market. Launched in October 2010, London-based Boticca is a curated online marketplace for fashion accessories that enables emerging designers, hand-picked by the Boticca team, to sell pieces directly to end consumers, earning 75 to 80 percent of retail value, nearly twice as much as they would make via traditional wholesale channels.

“Independent designers were really up against some major distribution barriers and facing adverse conditions in the retail environment,” said Kiyan Foroughi, CEO and co-founder of Boticca. “Platforms like Boticca are completely transforming the way designers approach distribution by making online the preferred immediate channel for scaling their brand and sales globally from the get-go, as well as by providing them with a sustainable commercial route where they enjoy the lion’s share of the retail economics and connecting them directly to a global customer base,” he explained.

In its first year, Boticca has grown swiftly. Last May, the company closed a $2.5 million (£1.5 million) Series A round led by French investment fund Isai and their site has since scaled to approximately 5,000 products from more than 210 designers in over 30 countries, including Turkey, Iran and Estonia. “Boticca truly connects customers all over the world with inspiring designers in far-flung places,” said Foroughi. “It’s not unusual for individual designers to have customers on five continents.”

Not Just a Label, a London-based marketplace that has worked with Damir Doma, Mary Katrantzou, Rad Hourani and Patrick Mohr, was one of the first and fastest growing platforms of this type. “We allow users and customers to bypass middlemen and antiquated systems that make it so hard for designers to break through,” said founder Stefan Siegel. Launched in 2008 and representing over 6,000 designers in 94 countries, the platform offers young brands easy access to e-commerce via Not Just a Label’s online store and takes a 30 percent commission on resulting sales. “The idea was to increase a designer’s profit margin,” said Siegel, who achieved break-even without seeking external investment and reported a “six-digit turnover” for 2010.

But alongside e-commerce, platforms like Boticca and Not Just a Label also offer emerging fashion businesses tools and services for marketing and PR. “By insisting that no young designer should be forced to pay a large sum to get the exposure they deserve, we provide designers with an all-encompassing digital space to kick-start their careers,” said Siegal, whose company editorialises the product it sells and even acts as a liaison between designers and press. “We also support the independent designers we work with in how they market and merchandise their work, and provide PR resources to help tell their stories to a wider audience,” said Foroughi of Boticca, which also features a blog that spotlights the designers it carries.

Still in the early stages of fundraising, New York-based Wondermode offers selected designers a fast and inexpensive way to set up their own simple e-commerce business, complete with web-based tools for managing payment, shipping logistics, analytics, email marketing and social media, in exchange for 20 percent of retail sales and a “product upload charge” of $0.50 per style per season, for up to four product images. “It’s a ‘one-stop shop’ sales and marketing platform,” said founder and CEO Aaron Duncan. Wondermode, which is still in beta, even offers designers the option of buying add-ons like a photo shoot service.

But the recently re-branded Lookk.com, a 2010 Seedcamp winner formerly called Garmz, which recently raised a seed round led by Eden Ventures and has staff in London, Vienna and Sofia, is perhaps the most ambitious and promising start-up in the space. “Each week new designers are featured in countless blogs,” said Andreas Klinger, co-founder and COO of Lookk. “New trends and names surface more often and quicker than retail and seasonal cycles could ever adapt to,” he continued. “This leaves an untapped potential: new designers with proven demand, but without the tools to follow through and reach greater parts of the market.”

Like the other platforms exploiting this potential, Lookk is a curated marketplace where selected designers can reach a global customer base. “We do not believe in completely open marketplaces as they usually leave the consumer unsatisfied with production quality and product price,” said Klinger. Similarly, Lookk also offers designers web-based tools to manage marketing and fulfillment.

But unlike other players in the space, Lookk offers emerging designers a genuine end-to-end solution that goes all the way to manufacturing, a powerful differentiator for young labels for whom sourcing reliable and cost-effective production is a constant challenge. Lookk empowers designers to not just promote and sell, but also produce pieces, using the company’s in-house production facilities and network of manufacturers. “When we enter into a contract to manufacture, the designer will receive 5 percent commission on the retail price of each piece sold — very competitive considering we handle all associated retail, distribution, marketing and customer care costs,” said a spokesperson for the company, who declined to reveal the commission the company charges brands who have already established their own production, stating only that “buying and wholesale prices are worked out on individual terms with each designer and are competitive with industry standards.”

Critically, Lookk has also far surpassed competitors in fundamentally reimagining fashion retail in the context of the open social web, harnessing the voice of the end consumer to quickly understand market demand and drive more effective business decisions. When designers upload lookbooks to the site, consumers feed back their preferences via a voting mechanism, generating valuable data that directly influences which pieces Lookk’s panel of buyers decides to put into production and sell via the online store.

“We want to build a retail model which truly leverages the possibilities of the internet,” said Klinger. “If we see market demand in a new designer’s products, we can control the full process from design to finished product up to the moment of delivery,” he added. “By directly bringing consumers and designers together and controlling key elements in the resulting value chain we can lower risk and make quicker decisions when bringing new products to market.”

Indeed, the kind of detailed consumer demand data generated by Lookk, combined with shorter production cycles, means the business can produce in smaller, demand-driven batches, significantly reducing risk and improving efficiency. But ultimately, the benefits of this approach extend beyond balance sheets alone. If adopted more widely, this type of social retail model could have powerful and far reaching positive effects on diversity and creativity in the fashion industry at large, enabling traditionally risk-averse retailers to embrace many more emerging designers and still turn a tidy profit.

Vikram Alexei Kansara is Managing Editor of The Business of Fashion.

Lanvin Spoof Video | Source:

NEW YORK, United States — At BoF, we’ve been ranking the top fashion films of the season since 2009, when the genre was still just coming into existence. But even back then, set against the staggering rise of online video consumption and the growing importance of engaging young digital consumers, the medium’s tremendous potential was clear.

Fast-forward to the Autumn of 2011 and YouTube-friendly short videos are practically de rigueur for fashion brands, large and small. But interestingly, it’s not digital “Geniuses” like Burberry who have been creating the most compelling fashion films. Despite being labeled “Challenged” by a Digital IQ report recently released by LuxuryLab, we think the Prada Group is making some of the best digital films in the industry, working with top fashion image-maker Steven Meisel.

But this season, it was Lanvin’s viral sensation (also shot by Meisel), featuring Karen Elson and Raquel Zimmermann dancing awkwardly to “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” by Pitbull, that proved to be the game-changer that propelled fashion film decisively into the mainstream. The film struck a chord with a broad internet audience, earning over 100,000 YouTube views in the first three days online, providing the spark for a real-life dance competition at a buzzed about and well-attended Fashion’s Night Out event at the brand’s Madison Avenue boutique, and even spawning spoofs, the surest sign of of viral success.

Notably, it was stills from the Lanvin video that appeared in print advertising, flipping a well-established paradigm and highlighting fashion film’s trajectory towards the very centre of seasonal marketing initiatives.

And while we continued to see some absolutely stunning examples of films that look and feel like print campaigns or magazine editorial beautifully brought to life, it’s ‘digital first’ fashion videos, conceived from first principles with the online medium in mind, that broke the mold with humour, quirky charm or unconventional visual techniques which seemed to resonate most with online audiences.

What follows is BoF’s selection of the most powerful and interesting fashion films of the 2012 Spring-Summer season. As you sit back and enjoy the videos, let us know which ones you like best.

1. Lanvin Fall/Winter 2011 Ad Campaign

Dubbed “Park Avenue YouTube,” Lanvin’s tongue-in-cheek, fall campaign video — featuring top models Raquel Zimmermann and Karen Elson dancing uncomfortably in a chic apartment to Pitbull’s 2009 smash hit “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)” and a hilarious cameo by creative director Alber Elbaz — had just the right elements to drive explosive word of mouth amongst fashion fans across the internet, while perfectly communicating the distinctive personality of the Lanvin brand. Shattering the seriousness that has often prevented fashion film from resonating with a broader audience, the Steven Meisel-shot video has already earned almost a million cumulative views on YouTube, been shared hundreds of thousands of times on Facebook, and inspired a spoof remix “starring the attendees of Fashion Week in New York” as well as a popular fan made imitation video.

2. Prada Fall/Winter 2011 Ad Campaign

Following on their first place ranking last season, Prada’s fall womenswear video, shot by Steven Meisel and featuring Antonia Wesseloh, Ondria Hardin, Kelly Mittendorf, Julia Zimmer and Frida Gustavsson, perfectly captures and communicates the delicate co-mingling of sensuality and innocence at the heart of Mrs. Prada’s collection. Set to a hypnotic soundtrack with a breathy voiceover, the slow motion film is also a seductive and transfixing digital merchandising dream, full of sequins, fur and snakeskin. We only wish it was directly shopable.

3. Mourir Aupres De Toi by Spike Jonze & Olympia Le-Tan

Set after-hours on the shelves of famous Left Bank bookstore Shakespeare & Company, Spike Jonze’s quirky stop-motion animation “Mourir Aupres De Toi” brings to life the embroidered ‘covers’ of Olympia Le-Tan’s book-clutch bags to tell the touching story of a clumsy skeleton and his lover. Using over three thousand pieces of hand-cut felt, the film beautifully communicates the handmade aesthetic and human charm of Le-Tan’s work. “I love getting performances from, telling stories about and humanizing things that aren’t human,” Jonze told Nowness, where the film first appeared.

4. “Dynamic Blooms” by Nick Knight & Alister Mackie

Recently released by experimental filmmakers Tell No One in collaboration with SHOWstudio, this succinct, visually stunning film brings to life Nick Knight and Alister Mackie’s breathtaking editorial for last season’s AnOther Magazine. Featuring Benjamin Warbis and Jac Jagaciak, the video collides dance and fashion, transforming pieces by Lanvin, Versace, Chloe, Valentino, Christian Dior Haute Couture, Jil Sander and Haider Ackermann into dynamic contemporary blossoms that explode across the screen.

5. Prabal Gurung Resort 2012 – “New Thing” feat. Rye Rye

For the launch of his first ever foray into resort, inspired by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and the portraits of George Condo, rising designer Prabal Gurung teamed up with booty-shaking Baltimore artist Rye Rye to create a viral music video as bold and energetic as the graphic black and white theme, 60s-inspired florals, polka-dots, and pops of pinks, yellows and greens that run through the collection. Directed by Kenneth Cappello, the video deploys a dynamic high-low mix to explosive effect and underscores the power of integrating fashion, film and music to earn the attention of what Gurung has called “the YouTube generation.”

6. AnOther Magazine Issue 21 featuring Rachel Weisz

Shot by Craig McDean with creative direction by David James and styling by Olivier Rizzo, this off-kilter film features Rachel Weisz, cover star of this season’s AnOther Magazine, in a series of non-narrative micro-performances, inspired by German modern dance legend Pina Bausch. While magazines have long used online videos as supplementary material to support their print content, this film is a compelling example of ‘digital first’ editorial: the images that appear in print are stills taken from this surreal film.

7. Love F/W 2011 What Lies Beneath by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott

Accompanying “What Lies Beneath,” an epic 46-page, Jeff Bark-inspired fashion story shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for Katie Grand’s Love magazine, this disturbing but compelling film collides romantic elements with a hard-edged and dangerous undercurrent. Complete with white swans, bondage gear and submerged cars, this sexually-charged and transfixing film unfolds like a classical myth reimagined for a disjointed, nightworld where Lara Stone, Mariacarla Boscono, Saskia De Brauw, Kristen McMenamy, Paul Boche, Anais Pouliot, Jed Texas, Guinevere Van Seenus, Xiao Wen Ju and Angus Whitehead play dark contemporary demigods and water nymphs.

8. Gareth Pugh S/S 2012 by Ruth Hogben

This season, East London’s enfant terrible Gareth Pugh teamed up with Ruth Hogben to create a dark and punchy film that was screened at the designer’s Paris catwalk show, as well as on Nick Knight’s fashion website SHOWstudio. Integrated into the runway event, the film both set the tone at the beginning of the show and provided a digital backdrop to the models on the catwalk, turning the presentation of Pugh’s collection into a multimedia viewing experience for the assembled press, buyers and industry insiders.

9. Twin Parallel by Justin Anderson

Directed by Justin Anderson for London-based designer Jayne Pierson and inspired by the twin paradox in physics, this beautiful film won this season’s ‘Best Styling’ prize at Diane Pernet’s A Shaded View on Fashion Film festival, which took place during Paris Fashion Week at the Centre Pompidou. The film’s immaculately styled, still life tableaux, featuring fruit, candles, a cuckoo clock and a goose that presumably lays gold, sharpen the eye and draw attention to the royal details of Pierson’s collection.

10. Kenzonique by Kenzo

This snappy and upbeat trailer for the relaunch of Kenzo, directed by Jo Ratcliffe with music by Rob Coudert, perfectly teased the energy of the brand’s first presentation under new creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim of Opening Ceremony. Dubbed “hyperdelic” on YouTube, the video’s vibrant colour palette and fun feel were totally in tune with the new collection and clearly communicated the brand’s repositioning as a playful creative force at the top end of the contemporary market.

What were your favourite fashion films this season?

Digital IQ Index 2011, Greatest Year-Over-Year Gain or Loss, 2010 vs. 2011 Digital IQ Percentile Rank | Source: L2

NEW YORK, United States — On Monday, Professor Scott Galloway’s NYU-based thinktank LuxuryLab, or L2, released advance copies of their third annual “Digital IQ” report, assessing the digital competence of 49 global fashion and leather goods firms, to a small number of media outlets, including BoF.

According to the study, which will be published later today, fashion brands are embracing digital innovation with enthusiasm and have been amongst the first to pilot forward-thinking marketing initiatives on platforms like Foursquare, Tumblr and the fashion flock’s current obsession, photo-sharing app Instagram. “Some programs could best be described as bleeding edge,” says the study, referring to Ralph Lauren’s experimentation with ‘4D’ projection mapping technology.

But a closer reading reveals that a majority of fashion companies — in a sector which trades on being perfectly contemporary and thinks in terms of trend cycles — still regard the rise of digital media as a trend to be exploited, first and foremost, for its PR and image value.

“Brands are seeking the halo of innovation that comes from inspired online programming,” says the study. “However, most fashion brands still approach digital as a series of pet projects rather than presenting a coherent multi-platform strategy.”

While digital darling Burberry claimed first place in the rankings, more revealing was the poor performance of top brands like Hermès and Prada which have failed to keep pace with innovation, falling from “Gifted” in 2009 to “Challenged” in 2011. “Hubris has infected them with complacency online,” says the study, noting that Prada still doesn’t maintain any official presence on social media, including Facebook, where a “rogue page” maintained by a Prada brand loyalist has attracted more than 800,000 fans.

Interestingly, the report also reveals that the European conglomerates which own many of the world’s top fashion houses appear to be doing little to facilitate knowledge sharing amongst their brands, evidenced by wildly uneven digital competence scores within the major groups. At LVMH, for example, Louis Vuitton is ranked “Gifted,” while Givenchy came in 48th place amongst the 49 brands included in the study. At PPR, Gucci is ranked “Genius” while Balenciaga, one of the industry’s most forward-thinking brands in terms of design, remains “Challenged” when it comes to digital.

Download the full Digital IQ Index here

Vikram Alexei Kansara is Managing Editor of The Business of Fashion

Jun Takahashi | Source: Forbes

The Experimental Designer Who Will Replace Jil Sander At Uniqlo (Forbes)
“In some ways Takahashi is a surprising choice — he’s not exactly a household name outside of Japan, and his clothes veer toward the avant garde… But Takahashi is Japanese, and he has worked with big commercial companies before — he designs a running line for Nike. Furthermore, he’s one of the most innovative, interesting designers working today.”

PPR H1 beats forecasts thanks to luxury brands (Reuters)
“French retail and luxury group PPR SA delivered first-half sales and profits above forecasts on Friday, helped by strong growth of its luxury brands in major markets such as China. PPR’s luxury brands… produced combined sales growth of 24.4 percent in the second quarter, above expectations of 19 percent and first-quarter luxury growth of 22 percent.”

Hugo Boss confident as China, Americas sales soar (Reuters)
“German fashion house Hugo Boss sees a strong second half thanks to soaring demand for its suits from Asia and the Americas… Sales in the Americas were up 31 percent in the quarter, while the Asia/Pacific region saw sales soar 65 percent.”

Tommy Hilfiger Makes Asia Inroads (WSJ)
“In August, Hilfiger will be taking over the right to sell its own brand in China, where it was previously distributed through a licensing agreement. And it said today that it poached John Ermatinger, who until recently was the president of Gap Asia Pacific, for the newly appointed role of Asia Chief Executive for Tommy Hilfiger.”

Guangzhou: No Longer A Third-Rate Luxury Market? (Jing Daily)
“It may be very much a top-tier city, with an annual GDP of over 1 trillion yuan (US$152 billion)… Guangzhou can be a frustrating market for major luxury brands… Top brands have been slow to invest heavily in their Guangzhou operations, and for good reason: local luxury consumption lags far behind other key markets.”

Bernard Arnault | Source: Fashion Pile

Bernard Arnault Rethinks the Cult of Fashion Gurus (Newsweek)
“Arnault suggests it’s time for change, time to recast his global, glittering, status-laden empire as something else. The watchwords are: intimate, Old World, artful. And the timing feels right… After all, Arnault has learned that rock-star designers come and go. ‘A good product,’ he says, ‘can last forever.’”

SuperGroup rebuts critics as sales soar (Guardian)
“… The fast-growing retailer behind the Superdry fashion brand, has hit back at detractors… Supergroup reported retail sales up 48 percent for the first 10 weeks of the financial year… They are still trading well below the high of nearly £19 but remain more than double last year’s float price of 500p.”

China and M&A keep luxury stocks strong (Reuters)
“Chinese demand for premium brands will help luxury stocks continue to outperform even in the face of a shaky U.S. recovery, inflation in Asia and peripheral Europe’s debt crisis… With demand from emerging economies helping the sector rebound from the global credit crisis, luxury companies have also been active on the IPO markets.”

Made to Measure (Marketing Week)
“…The DIY trend is about consumers using new self-service brands to achieve and create professional-quality products, goods or services… ‘As the power of the high street diminishes further, and more store groups start to disappear, people will want greater choice and bespoke offers that.’”

Nothing Sells like a Duchess (IHT)
“In the duchess’s case, much like that of Michelle Obama, every designer she wears is likely to see an immediate impact on sales… The duchess has been praised for projecting a youthful freshness without being remotely bare, for wearing the work of a number of London designers.”

Bvlgari Spring/Summer 2010 | Source: Bvlgari

Magic of the Sea (IHT)
“…It is the Parisian jewelers who are having a ball, inspired by a resurgence in global demand and by their new importance on the haute couture fashion calendar… Place Vendôme, home of sparkling brands, have thrown open their doors… To those who want to see the new trends in Haute Joaillerie.”

Debate: Luxury Goods Tax (China Daily)
“The consumption of luxury goods is already high in China. According to the latest report of the World Luxury Association, China’s luxury goods market was worth $10.7 billion in 2010, or one-fourth of the world’s total… China is likely to surpass Japan as the largest luxury goods-consuming country in 2012.”

Fresh Designs From Berlin Fashion Week (WSJ)
“Berlin may not belong to the quartet of trend-setting couture weeks held in New York, Paris, London and Milan, but the city is swiftly making a name for itself as a home for hipsters, prêt-à-porter boutique collections and fresh designers from Germany and Eastern Europe.”

All the young dudes (FT)
“The 1970s are a style decade that many would rather forget yet also one that contemporary fashion designers seem to adore… For men… The period conjures images of flared trousers, platform soles, gold medallions and jackets with outsized lapels… The look is also evident in some of this season’s best men’s wear collections.”

Philip Treacy: ‘I like hats that make the heart beat faster’ (Guardian)
“A person carries off the hat. Hats are about emotion. It is all about how it makes you feel. I like hats that make the heart beat faster.”

Madame Grès at Musée Bourdelle | Source: Styleclicker

Gone Global: Fashion as Art? (IHT)
“At any given moment there are at least a dozen museums across the world offering major fashion displays — not to mention exhibits in galleries or even department stores… Fashion exhibitions are thus the height of fashion — and omnipresent.”

India’s Not Quite On The Brandwagon (Forbes)
“The Indian luxury sector represents a dormant volcano for the international marketer who can customise a response that is uniquely Indian. The Indian luxury consumer is evolving rapidly, but…that is inherently different from those in other developing economies.”

Invasion of global labels threatens Asian brands (Gulf News)
“Asian shoppers still aspire for luxury brands, many are embracing speciality stores with higher inventory turnover and better value, especially as a new middle class emerges with more disposable income and fickle fashion tastes.”

Days of Strangeness at Dior (On the Runway)
“Things must be very strange these days at the House of Dior, judging by the haute couture show we saw… All sorts of weird vibes, along with a lack of design leadership, have a way of surfacing in clothes. A runway is like a shrink’s couch; stuff just comes out.”

Rise: Annabel Luton (Dazed Digital)
“Inspired by Mata Hari, the mysterious vixen rumoured to be a spy in the 1900s, Annabel Luton’s graduate collection at Central St Martins’… presents sumptuous hand-printed fabrics paired with kimono style sleeves and de-constructed cropped jackets.”

Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony | Source: Opening Ceremony

The ‘It’ Girl, Now a Woman (NY Times)
“No profile of Ms. Sevigny over the years has failed to note either her distinctive laugh or the impression that she is little bit coy… It also helps explain why her fashion designs, now sold in 100 stores around the world, have been so successful. They hold the promise of Ms. Sevigny: looking cool without looking like you are trying.”

Hussein Chalayan: The man of the moment (Independent)
“This looks set to be quite a month for the fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, who has long remained under the radar… Tomorrow at Les Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the largest retrospective of his work to date opens to the public.”

Gap Inc. on the Right Track (Retail Traffic)
“After a few tough years, Gap Inc. may have found the right turnaround strategy… To that end, last year the Gap launched its Web site in 90 new countries and opened its first locations in China and Italy—some of which have already become among the highest-performing locations in the firm’s portfolio.”

Kate Moss’ Controversial Gown (The Daily Beast)
“Some might think that in wearing the dress, Moss was making a symbolic statement about Galliano’s skill as a designer, his importance in the fashion industry, or even the justice—or injustice—of his being fired.”

Where Did the Fun Go? (On the Runway)
“I think in general what’s missing from the Paris and Milan spring shows is a sense of fun… The lack of pleasure is only one casualty of a system that has become absurdly pressure-filled. But its absence is evident in the collections — and what do consumers really want from fashion but something fun to wear?”