Olivier Zahm by Terry Richardson | Source: purple DIARY

The Future Of Fashion: Olivier Zahm (Style.com)
“The French editor and founder of the twice-yearly independent publication Purple Fashion has many other passions… but in an increasingly conformist world, Zahm offers an original, entertaining, and astute voice.”

Abercrombie Will Keep Discounting (WSJ)
“Abercrombie & Fitch said… it will continue its uncharacteristically high levels of discounting through the spring in order to boost store sales… it is willing to sacrifice margins if necessary to improve sales.”

Burberry accuses TJX of selling counterfeit goods (Reuters)
“Burberry Group… has sued TJX, accusing the operator of the off-price TJ Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods stores of selling counterfeit goods.”

Céline starts from clean slate (Wealth Bulletin)
“After struggling for years to forge an identity, the label is finding influential retailers including Barneys New York, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman are clamoring to carry its collection, even as they cut back their portfolios to focus on best sellers.”

Paris: A Rounder Season (NY Times)
“Louis Vuitton seemed to provide the perfect bookend to the Milan-Paris ready-to-wear season… Between Miuccia Prada in Milan and Marc Jacobs at Vuitton we saw the return of the lush, full-hipped woman, her breasts served up like ripe fruit.”

Burberry Autumn/Winter 2010 | Source: Burberry

LONDON, United Kingdom — It was billed as the world’s first truly global fashion show, taking place on the penultimate day of London Fashion Week, beamed live in 3D to five global cities, and streamed to the rest of the world via 73 websites, including Vogue, Grazia and CNN, which all picked up the video feed in a global simulcast. It was undoubtedly the  most widely distributed fashion show a luxury brand has ever staged, potentially reaching an audience of more than 100 million users, according to Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts.

At first, I was disappointed that BoF had not been invited to attend the real event at London’s Chelsea College of Art, but in the end I’m glad to have experienced Burberry’s live internet stream. It all felt very 2010, especially as I ducked into the Regent Street Apple Store to watch the show after a late lunch. It was a fashion moment.

The stream began just after 4 pm with what Cathy Horyn of The New York Times described as an “info com” comprised of a pre-recorded presentation from Burberry’s Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey, as well as live interviews with Angela Ahrendts, models backstage and celebrity guests arriving at the show venue. “Grave doubts about this prelude of a model chatting backstage, now Twiggy arriving. A bit naff,” tweeted Ms Horyn. “Want the show to start. It’s like watching paint dry.”

Then, the lights finally went down and a series of seriously slick shearling jackets clomped down the runway, eliciting bursts of excitement from editors tweeting from the front row and viewers watching around the world. For the clothes alone, it was worth the wait.

“First look: cropped shearling,” described Joe Zee, Creative Director of Elle, who along with Bryanboy, had been given control of Burberry’s Twitter account for the Autumn/Winter 2010 show. “OMG!! Reverse shearling!!! It’s just as good inside out. Sold!!!” he raved.

Cathy Horyn, watching the 3D stream from New York’s Skylight Studios, agreed. “The shearling jackets were so ample, fluffy and round, the trousers and narrow skirts so spindly that at times on Tuesday the Burberry show resembled a lane of dandelions gone to seed,” she wrote later on her New York Times blog, On the Runway. “To be sure, Christopher Bailey’s outerwear for the British label was especially strong, with those romantic flight jackets spreading or curling at the collar and the pomp of officer coats.”

During the show Burberry appeared as one of the top ten trending topics on Twitter, but some of these tweets complained of problems with the live feed. Comments from users scrolling below the Burberry stream itself also came fast and furious. The words “Amazing” and “Love” appeared over and over again, with viewers sometimes shouting out their city of origin — Montreal, Sao Paolo, Los Angeles — underscoring the truly global nature of the event. The comments were 100% positive or neutral.

After a few minutes, my own feed crashed. I refreshed it several times, and then it crashed again. But below the black screen, comments continued to provide second-by-second commentary on the show — still overwhelmingly positive. Was nobody else experiencing the issues I was? Or was Burberry filtering out comments that were unfavorable to their global event? To explore the issue further, I entered a comment indicating that I was experiencing trouble with the feed, but it never appeared with the rest of the comments. This left me thinking.

THOUGHTS:

Expectations? My expectations were high. I’ve been calling Burberry the world’s first truly digital luxury brand, and as the leading brand in the space I fully expected Burberry to set the standard for the rest of the industry, in terms of strategy, concept and execution.

First impressions? The show was indeed amazing. It was well-orchestrated, well-publicised and generally well-executed. The issues with the live feed were frustrating at times, but these are kinks that can be ironed out in seasons to come and a brand like Burberry clearly has the technical prowess and determination to get this new phase of digital fashion communication right. It requires guts and audaciousness to attempt and achieve something no brand has done before. For this, Burberry deserves many kudos.

Most potential? The ability to buy the covetable shearing jackets straight off the runway for 72 hours after the show was a master stroke. While many brands have talked about doing this, no brand has actually put the concept into practice the way Burberry has — strategically identifying a product as a key item, ensuring it was featured front-and-centre at the fashion show, and selling the jackets at the peak of consumer interest, right after the show had finished. By limiting sales to a 72 hour window, Burberry also ensured sales opportunities for its wholesale partners down the road, while creating a sense of urgency for consumers to purchase right away if they so choose. Best of all, with the insights gleaned from which products sold fastest on the internet directly after the show, Burberry will have real consumer data upon which to base orders for normal delivery to its stores around the world — every merchandiser’s dream.

What’s missing? Greater authenticity. While maintaining the spirit and standards of the Burberry brand must have been of paramount importance, so is providing an authentic and real experience for all the participants. Since when was it acceptable for a CEO and creative director to give a PR pitch before a fashion show starts? Unfortunately, the pre-show promotion felt rehearsed and forced, and detracted from this otherwise brilliant initiative. And if Burberry was indeed filtering live comments from their internet viewers to ensure only positive feedback appeared, in my eyes this also takes away from the authenticity of the experience.

Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion

Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2010 | Source: style.com

Alexander McQueen label will survive (Times)
“Alexander McQueen’s fashion label will live on despite the designer’s apparent suicide last week, it was announced this morning.”

PPR full year net profit increases 7 percent (AP)
“Retail-to-luxury group PPR SA reported a 7 percent increase in 2009 profits Thursday and said it is launching a sales offensive to boost revenues in fast-growing markets such as China.”

Burberry Restructures In Spain (NY Times)
“Luxury goods group Burberry will restructure its loss-making operations in Spain, ceasing the production of exclusive collections and closing a facility that will likely mean 300 job losses.”

Alexa handbag joy for Mulberry (FT)
“Strong demand for the Alexa handbag, inspired by the young British style icon Alexa Chung, prompted Mulberry to upgrade its full-year expectations.”

Next in London: A New Crop (WSJ)
“Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Jonathan Saunders aren’t famous fashion designers, at least not yet. They are three of the up-and-comers expected to receive close attention starting Friday when London Fashion Week begins.”

Pringle thrown an £18m as it moves to recapture the luxury market (Guardian)
“The wealthy foreign owners of Pringle of Scotland have pumped another £18m into the loss-making brand’s continuing attempt to become a Burberry-style luxury label… accounts show the company has received injections of £10m and £8m from its owners, Hong Kong textile dynasty the Fang family.”

Luxury sales reveal return of confidence for the wealthy (FT)
“More prosperous shoppers seem to be defying continuing high unemployment levels and economic uncertainty to renew their spending on luxuries such as jewellery, fashion and cosmetics.”

Burberry show to live stream in 3D (Grazia)
“While guests will be sitting watching the ‘real’ fashion show at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London on February at 4 p.m, Fashion Editors and VIP guests in the selected cities will be putting on 3D spex to watch the larger-than-life broadcast in special ‘customized screening spaces’.”

Louis Vuitton’s emotion monitoring bags (Agenda Inc.)
“According to art director Fernando Lahoz’s website, Louis Vuitton is developing a series of emotion monitoring bags – technologically designed to ‘feel what you feel’… The bag incorporates a new HERM (heart and emotion rate monitor) in the form of a beautiful piece of jewelry which can be purchased with a bag or separately at Louis Vuitton stores.”

Sustainable fashion: what does green mean? (FT)
“‘Sustainable fashion?’… ‘What’s that?’ Good question. And here’s the truth: having spent two days in Copenhagen immersed in the concept, having thought about it over the weeks since then, and having canvassed a wide variety of fashion figures… no one knows.”

SJP in Halston Heritage for SATC2 Movie Poster | Source: imdb

Sarah Jessica Parker partners with Halston (Times)
“Sarah Jessica Parker and Halston may be banking on fashion sequels: The storied designer label reportedly has hired the “Sex and the City” star in a creative role for its newly announced Halston Heritage collection.”

Burberry beats forecasts as luxury goods come back into fashion (Guardian)
“Recession or no recession, it seems luxury goods are on the shopping lists of the rich again, judging by a good performance from Burberry. The retailer said its total sales in the three months to 31 December had jumped 12% to £380m, better than analysts’ forecasts of an increase of around 3%.”

Zegna sees growth in 2010 (Plush)
“Milan, Italy: Leading global menswear brand Ermenegildo Zegna sees a return to growth this year as it celebrates its 100th birthday, after closing 2009 with an 8 percent fall in turnover, its chief executive said.”

Texture Messaging (IHT)
“Creating fashion emotion in a digital age was the subtext of the Milan menswear season. Designers are streaming their shows and tweeting to their followers but more than anything else they are creating the desire for interactivity, mirroring touch-screen technology with sensory fabrics.”

Designers show one-offs at eco fashion show (Independent)
“Fashion designers including Thakoon, Bora Aksu, and Manish Arora have unveiled their unique creations that will be shown exclusively at EcoChic Geneva on January 21.”

Holly Fulton A/W 09, Swarovski Emerging Talent Award Winner | Source: Dazed

British Fashion Awards 2009 – The Winners (Independent)
“British fashion’s leading lights were rubbing shoulder pads last night at the prestigious annual awards which celebrate home-grown design talent and business success and are voted for by industry leaders, designers and retailers.”

Neiman Marcus sees weak luxury demand (FT)
“Neiman Marcus, the US luxury retailer, said on Wednesday it was seeing “some encouraging signs” of a recovery in parts of its high-end business, while warning that it expected overall demand to remain weak for some time.”

New York cracks down on counterfeit luxury goods (Reuters)
“New York authorities are cracking down on the sale of counterfeit luxury items, shutting down 31 stalls in raids on Tuesday and Wednesday and seizing $1 million of fake bags and watches.”

Burberry confirms London Fashion Week return (Drapers)
“Burberry chief creative officer Christopher Bailey has confirmed that the luxury British brand will stay at London Fashion Week this February.”

Alexander Wang, for Cool Kids, and Now You (NY Times)
“Don’t tell Alexander Wang that blue is the new black or that wedge-heel boots are the season’s must-have. Such airy edicts would most likely make him laugh. “No one talks like that anymore,” said Mr. Wang, whose keen sense of what young women want to wear is matched only by his no-nonsense approach to his, um, métier.”

Gucci Eyeweb versus Burberry Art of the Trench | Source: InFashionMedia

LONDON, United Kingdom — In recent weeks, two major luxury fashion brands have taken the plunge and launched social networks built around their brands and products. It’s not a new idea by any means, and indeed I wrote a piece on this very idea for the Financial Times almost two years ago. But, that doesn’t make it any less notable because, as far as I can tell, it is the first time top fashion brands have used social media in this way. Indeed, both Gucci and Burberry went to great efforts to highlight these initiatives at last week’s IHT Techno Luxury conference in Berlin.

So, have their experiments been successful? Of course we at the BoF have our own opinions, but in the spirit of democracy we thought it was the perfect opportunity to turn to the BoF community to see what you think. In our first ever BoF Twitter Poll, we asked:

BoF Twitter Poll: What do you think of Gucci Eye Web versus Burberry’s Art of the Trench?

The responses came in fast and furious from BoF’s followers around the world, including James Gardner, CEO of the industry’s leading creative agency CreateThe Group, and influential bloggers such as Bryanboy and DisneyRollerGirl. In the end, it was a no-contest knockout for Burberry which was unanimously selected as the winner.

So why did our followers feel this way? Here’s a quick summary of their thoughts:

1. Burberry shows a deep understanding of how to use social media, while Gucci just jumped on the “bandwagon” without thinking first, which feels “insincere.”

@alexanderlewis in London: “Gucci heard about something called social networking Burberry AOTT remixed and embraced it”

@subversiveglam: (aka, James Gardner, CEO of CreateThe Group) in New York: “Burberry AOT shows luxury brands how to effectively embrace social media. Gucci jumped on a band wagon and then fell off.”

@randalltodd also from New York: “Trench: engaging. Eyeweb: limited, insincere.”

@InFashionMedia in Australia: “Gucci literally places customers behind their products. Burberry features people & their products on same level.”

2. Burberry creates a “visual feast” that inspires users to explore further, while Gucci quickly loses users’ “interest.”

@bryanboy in Manila: “I prefer Art of the Trench. It’s a visual feast. Gucci on the other hand, well, I lost interest when I had to pick a city.”

@DisneyRollrGirl in London: “I prefer Art of the Trench, I didn’t even get beyond the Gucci homepage.”

@pascalgrob in Zurich: “Definitely AOT! Burberry’s approach is an art project and so pleasing to the eye…Gucci just doesn’t convince”

@lolaswij in Sydney: “Art of the Trench, based on aesthetics alone! It’s appropriate to judge a fashion www by it’s looks, non?”

3. Burberry’s offering is “fun,” functionally superior, “user-friendly” and easy-to-navigate while Gucci frustrates users.

@FearlessBG in the Netherlands: “Art of the Trench! The Gucci Eyeweb is annoying to navigate and doesn’t offer that much.”

@djuwearit in Dubai: “www.artofthetrench.com – it’s user friendly and fun.”

@xanod in London: “Definetely (sic) Art of the Trench, interactive, fun and more user friendly which is exactly what people want”

In addition, we would add two more points to Burberry’s successful social media outing:

4. Art of the Trench relies on editing by Christopher Bailey to ensure the integrity of the brand is maintained while Eyeweb’s images often have no clear connection to the brand.

Take a gander at Art of the Trench and you will find an almost uniformly style-savvy and well-dressed crowd of international fans in their Burberry trench coats. These photos have been carefully selected and screened by Burberry to ensure a good fit with the brand. On the other hand, Gucci’s site which also allows users to upload photos of themselves, is populated with a mish-mash of sometimes tacky, random images that seem to have nothing to do with the Gucci brand at all.

5. Art of the Trench is linked to a specific business objective whereas the purpose of Eyeweb is unclear.

In the same way that Ferragamo has built an identity around its shoes and Louis Vuitton has built a business around its leather goods, the trench coat has been identified by Burberry as the brand’s key item. By launching this site, Burberry further cemented ownership of the luxury trench coat category. On the other hand, Gucci’s site is highlighting sunglasses, which may be an important category, but isn’t really a core part of the brand’s DNA.

Having done such a good job, it’s no wonder that within the first week the Burberry site had more than two hundred thousand visitors and registered more than 3 million page views. The challenge for Burberry now will be to create reasons for its fans to return, without the support of the wall-to-wall press coverage that supported the launch of the site. Apparently, this will be achieved by bringing in new curators and creatives to populate the site with interesting content. But, even with all of the things that Burberry have done right, methinks that it will take a significantly more than that to draw people back again and again.

As for Gucci, it’s back to the drawing board. Kudos for experimenting and trying new things out, but perhaps next time Gucci may want to consider why it is jumping on the social media bandwagon and what it is aiming to achieve before punching its ticket.

Imran Amed is Editor of The Business of Fashion

Burberry Autumn/Winter 09 | Source: Burberry

Burberry targets India’s brand-aware middle class (Times)
“Burberry, the British luxury brand, is poised to enter a joint venture to expand its presence in India, a market in which the ultra-rich are thriving because of a soaring stock market.”

Phillips-Van Heusen 3Q profit up, raises outlook (AP)
“Clothing maker Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. on Wednesday posted a jump in third-quarter earnings, boosted by a $30.4 million tax benefit, and raised its full-year 2009 profit outlook citing factors including higher expected royalties.”

Burkle Acquires Large Stake in Barneys Debt (WSJ)
“Ronald Burkle has become a significant investor in Barneys New York in recent months, with his Yucaipa Cos. buying a chunk of the struggling luxury retailer’s debt.”

Gap profits rise 25 percent (Drapers)
“Profits at American casualwear giant Gap grew 25% over its third quarter boosted by improved sales at its value fashion chain Old Navy.”

My Techno: A Designer Viewpoint (IHT)
“Some are cyberexperts and others are technophobes, but most designers today embrace a variety of technology applications… there are all sorts of ways that designers are using technological skills without necessarily navigating through cyberspace.”

Art of the Trench | Source: Burberry

Burberry Looks Online for Ways to Gain Customers (IHT)
“Angela Ahrendts still remembers when she bought her first Burberry trench coat… Ms. Ahrendts — who now runs the company — is hoping to move the quintessentially British brand into the age of the Internet to attract a new generation of shoppers.”

Luxury Pundits: Stay Elitist Yet Youthful (Media Post)
“Luxury brands… must be elitist, empathetic, immediate, social and youthful in order to succeed… the single worst thing that happened to luxury was its democratization.”

La Perla to rationalise brand strategy (Drapers)
“Italian lingerie firm La Perla is to rationalise its brand portfolio and lower prices in a move it claims will boost its market share.”

Bond Street rings up record for shop rents (Times Online)
“Shop rents on London’s Bond Street, home to the world’s glitziest brands, are poised to defy the credit crunch and smash through £900 per square foot — a record in Britain.”

Online museum for fashion house Ferragamo (Reuters)
“Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo has taken a museum detailing its history and culture online, allowing young designers to add their creative touch to its shoe models.”

Burberry Autumn/Winter 09 | Source: Burberry

Handbags, leather goods help Burberry top forecasts (Reuters)
“British luxury goods group Burberry beat second-quarter revenue forecasts, helped by demand for handbags and leather goods, and signalled an improvement in some second-half revenue trends.”

Chinese Are the New Kings of Bling (WSJ)
“The latest to pop the champagne corks of conspicuous consumption is China. The government stimulus, rising consumer spending and 6% GDP growth has kept China’s millionaire-making-machine well oiled. It also has fueled a no-holds-barred luxury-buying binge, as the newly rich Chinese seek to show their status.”

Beauty shines through gloom for Asian dept stores (Reuters)
“Department stores in Asia that have managed to capitalize on trend-conscious consumers willing to spend on elegance and beauty are ringing in the sales as the region’s economy recovers.”

Armani presents new smart phone amid fashion mobile trend (Independent)
“Italian luxury label Armani has introduced its newest gadget, “personally” designed by Giorgio himself.”

Hong Kong invites the creative world to town (Independent)
“The Business of Design Week – designed to invigorate Hong Kong’s cultural and creative industries – has announced a line up of more than 135 of the world’s top thinkers for its programme at the end of November.”