iPad2 | Source: The Reader's Eye

iPads Now Driving More Web Traffic Than iPhones (Mashable)
“Smartphones and tablets — particularly the iPad — are becoming an increasingly significant source of web traffic in the U.S. According to web analytics firm comScore, smartphones and tablets accounted for 6.8% of all web traffic in the U.S. in August… Shopping is also a popular pastime. In August, 56% of tablet owners looked up product or price information from a specific store, and 54% read customer ratings and reviews. Nearly half of tablet owners actually completed a purchase on the device.”

India Vows to Open Up Luxury Market (WSJ)
“Global luxury brands have been testing the Indian market for years – but with very limited success… Indian Minister of Commerce Anand Sharma, speaking at a luxury conference in New Delhi on Tuesday, hinted that this may soon change… Big global brands would like India to lower import taxes on luxury goods, which at the federal level are between 30%-40%, and to remove the 51% cap on the foreign ownership of their Indian units.”

Burberry sees no sign of slowdown for luxury spending (Reuters)
“British luxury goods group Burberry is not seeing a slowdown in demand for its trademark raincoats and leather goods despite an uncertain economic outlook, it said on Wednesday as it beat quarterly sales forecasts. ‘No evidence of any slowdown … What we have seen is consistent strong brand momentum and business growth,’ Finance Director Stacey Cartwright told reporters after the 155-year-old group posted a 29 percent rise in second-quarter revenue.”

Levi profit rises as demand in India, China grows (Reuters)
“Levi Strauss & Co posted a bigger quarterly profit as demand in growing markets like India and China grew, offsetting the effects of rising costs of cotton and discounts on its flagship brands. For the third quarter, the company earned $32 million, compared with $28 million last year. Revenue grew 9 percent to $1.20 billion, led by a 20 percent rise in the Asia-Pacific region.”

U.S. Fashion’s First Voice (WSJ)
“New York has its own forgotten, or almost, stars and tastemakers, though their legacies live on. Eleanor Lambert was one such person… She was the greatest fashion publicist of her time, and one of the greatest publicists, period. Among her accomplishments was helping to create the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute and, starting in 1948, its glittering annual gala… And she championed the careers of Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Anne Klein and Perry Ellis when they were still fresh-faced kids.”

London Fashion Week, Somerset House | Source: Zimbio

Battle of the catwalks as Milan clashes fashion week with London (Telegraph)
“Milan has announced that its fashion week next September will overlap those of New York and London, meaning that if no solution can be found, department store buyers and fashion magazine editors would be forced to choose one city over another.”

Burberry slumps on fears of end to Asian boom (Guardian)
“Shares in the British superbrand Burberry took a fresh pummelling as investors worried that the sun was setting on the luxury goods sales boom in Asia. Nearly £2bn has been wiped off Burberry’s market value in the past three months on fears that the Chinese economy has started to splutter.”

Stella McCartney Keeps It in Perspective (NY Times)
“Ms. McCartney also does not have that designer problem of reducing a woman’s life to one or two moments: work, a fancy party. She also makes outfits that strongly hint of home, like a piped pajama shirt worn with a matching foulard-dot pantsuit, or a loose sweater or easy all-in-one to wear to a casual dinner. And they are done with a slightly wacky sense of humor that one assumes reflects her own life and those of the people on her staff.”

H&M Targets Expansion in Asia (Bloomberg)
“Hennes & Mauritz, Europe’s second- largest clothing retailer, plans to step up the expansion of its new brands in Asia, anticipating that Chinese consumers will favor more-expensive labels such as Monki and COS… H&M is adding stores in China more rapidly than anywhere else, turning to the world’s fastest-growing major economy to help reverse falling profit.”

Christian Louboutin retrospective to open in London (Telegraph)
“Launching at the end of March 2012, London’s Design Museum will host an exhibition detailing the story of the shoe designer’s rise to the top of the glamorous footwear game, from his launch in 1991 to the present day, when he dresses the feet of everyone from Victoria Beckham to Lady Gaga.”

Burberry S/S 2012 Details Screenshot | Source: American Vogue.com

Legendary fashion writer and BoF contributing editor Colin McDowell has been attending and reviewing fashion shows for more than 30 years. Who better to give us the lowdown on one of the best London Fashion Weeks in recent memory?

LONDON, United Kingdom — Each season, despite challenges, London continues to raise the stakes, in terms of both creativity and, dare I say it, commercial potential. Here, I’ve assembled my top choices of London Fashion Week.

BURBERRY
We were all rather shocked at the colours that first came down the runway. “Is it Spring-Summer or Fall-Winter?” my neighbour on the sardine-packed benches asked. But within seconds winter green and maroon seemed not only the most natural colours in the world for Spring, but the only colours. The conviction and strength of what was Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey’s most powerful collection for a few seasons suddenly had the same sort of rightness that Christian Dior’s New Look collection did. Women were so convinced that they came out of the show desperately trying to lower their hemlines. At Burberry there was a version of that overwhelming sense of something not just totally right for now, but also presaging the future. I loved the shapes, textures and scale of just about everything — and people who know me are well aware of how rarely I say that about a collection. No wonder this chap is where he is — he is truly exceptional.

… Continue Reading

Burberry Spring/Summer 2012 | Source: Design Scene

Burberry launches 2012 collection on Twitter (Guardian)
For the first time, the label “live tweeted” the show on Monday from backstage, posting photographs of each look on Twitter moments before the model stepped on to the catwalk… When you consider that it was not long ago that high street stores smuggled spies into catwalk shows in order to glean clues as to what might be in stores in six months’ time, this is quite a turnaround.”

Tom ‘God’ Ford has off day. Fashion world in denial (Guardian)
“This man redefined the parameters of what a fashion brand could be during his time at Gucci. He made the world rethink what it means to be sexy, replacing heroin chic with a slick, glossy aesthetic…His comeback show in New York was one of the highlights of my decade as a fashion editor: a gorgeous, glorious, life-affirming celebration… But even godlike geniuses have off days.”

eBay says Boo to the runway (FT)
“Some of the world may be obsessed with fashion that hasn’t yet happened – or the stuff now appearing on runways from London to Paris, which won’t be in-store until late February of 2012 – but the folks at eBay are much more interested in the profit potential of immediate gratification.”

London Fashion Week crisis after Gucci summon models to Milan (Telegraph)
“London Fashion Week has been thrown into crisis after heavyweight Italian fashion brand Gucci, who will show their spring/summer 2012 collection in Milan on Wednesday, ordered countless models to fly to Milan early to begin fittings for their show.”

Miuccia Prada Sitting Pretty (Because London)
“Miuccia earned her stripes slowly and after years of being regarded with skepticism from critics and fashion insiders. Untrained in design and lacking an apprenticeship in the conventional sense, she earned a Ph.D. in politics, then became a mime artist before eventually taking over the family business. 
At that point in the late ’70s, Prada was a small Milanese leather goods manufacturer.”

Zombie Boy | Source: NY Times

Designers Start to See in Triplicate (NY Times)
“With something like 250 runway shows and parties crammed into the New York Fashion Week that begins Sept. 8, a lot of designers are saying that there must be a better way to show clothes, or at least some way to grab people’s attention for more than a second or two. The latest thing, if a handful of them are correct, would be fashion shows in 3-D.”

Guess joins the queue as labels spread their wares through China (Independent)
“Guess has become the latest international brand to announce massive plans for expansion into mainland China… Guess is targeting its “lifestyle collection” of denim garments, handbags, watches and footwear at China’s ever-growing luxury goods market, one which industry insiders expect to be worth more than 84 billion yuan (13 billion dollars) this year – making it the second largest in the world after the United States.”

Burberry in step with digital age (FT)
“The luxury fashion brand Burberry has spurned glossy magazine adverts in favour of a Facebook campaign to promote the global launch of its latest fragrance, Burberry Body… On average, digital makes up 15 to 20 per cent of media spending globally. Burberry’s strategy shows how quickly the fashion industry is moving away from magazines as it seeks to interact with consumers worldwide.”

H&M and Zara Duke It Out for U.S. Online Sales (Forbes)
“Move over brick and mortar expansion tactics, retailers are finally realizing that bottom line growth isn’t always going to come by swelling square footage. Zara and H&M are taking their fast fashion competition online, while Urban Outfitters is jumping into F-commerce (making their Facebook fan page shoppable).”

First look at Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent (Telegraph)
“Ever since Carine Roitfeld stepped down from the role of editor at Vogue Paris, there have been whisperings about what is next in store for her. But now images of one of her first projects have been released and somewhat surprisingly they involve looking to the past, rather than the future.”