Bottega Veneta Autumn/Winter 2011 | Source: Style Frizz

How The Uncertain Economy Is Changing The Definition Of Luxury (Forbes)
“With the emergence of new wealthy consumers from the BRIC countries and the economic downturn for most nations outside of the BRIC superfecta in the past few years, luxury has taken on a multitude of new meanings. No longer does it exclusively equate to expensive products that are mostly of French or Swiss origins.”

Fashion’s Next Frontier for Social Media (WWD)
“The fashion industry is quickly learning that men and women engage and shop differently in the digital sphere. Brands and retailers such as Coach, Mr Porter, Gilt Man, Ben Minkoff, John Varvatos and Ermenegildo Zegna have spent a lot of time studying the differences between the ways men and women approach fashion, tapping into their male audiences with a host of initiatives they feel will resonate best with their target consumer.”

Touchy-feely (FT)
“An amorphous white dress, like an alien wedding frock, crafted from 14,000 rubber gloves; a black leather ballgown bristling with 43kg of dressmaking pins; mind-boggling numbers of latex balloons hand-knotted into a floor-skimming fringed opera-coat – are they art, or are they fashion? The answer could be both.”

Paul Smith to be honoured at British Fashion Awards (Telegraph)
“Paul Smith was 15 when he left school, got on his bike, and pedalled off to his first job at a clothes warehouse in Nottingham. Now, some 50 years later, Sir Paul has been awarded British fashion’s highest honour… The Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design prize – given posthumously last year to Alexander McQueen – will be presented to Sir Paul at the British Fashion Awards.”

Q&A Carine Roitfeld (Guardian)
“At the beginning, when you’ve stayed for 10 years in one place, you do miss the people. It was like the baby blues. So immediately I did something new and I didn’t stop working. I didn’t go on holiday, I didn’t have time to regret it, and now I’m very much more positive and have a new project.”

Vogue: The Covers | Source: mostmagnific.com

LONDON, United Kingdom — There are two ways in which a fashion magazine can be successful: either by featuring clothes with which the reader can identify or by stimulating the reader’s imagination. It is the old tussle between commerciality and creativity. Except, of course, it isn’t a tussle that existed before fashion magazines became mass market and needed to chase and keep readers who, for most of the twentieth century, never even opened a ‘glossy’ magazine, which until the fifties was still a very exclusive and small circulation type of publication.

The effects of commercialisation can be seen very clearly in Vogue: The Covers (Abrams), which is a visual threnody for subtleties lost. The change happened comparatively quickly in the sixties when the clothes and the elegance they epitomised gently morphed into the woman — and normally the famous and easily recognised woman — as the face became the selling point: a clear indication of the power of the cosmetics industry over magazine publishers. The battle between clothes and make-up was largely over by the end of the decade as flawless faces and worryingly perfect teeth, seen through slightly parted lips in order to emphasise the lipstick shade, routed the clothes which had dominated the previous three decades.

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"Irreverent" by Carine Roitfeld | Source: NY Times

A Super-Stylish Vampire (IHT)
“If the definition of a vampire is a pallid, blood-sucking monster with frightening fangs, Carine Roitfeld, former editor of French Vogue and a pivotal figure in the fashion world, does not seem to fit the bill… ‘Why a book — especially for someone like me who hates looking back?’ Ms. Roitfeld asked herself… ‘It marks 30 years. The end of a chapter is a good moment — and they have been ‘belles années,’ beautiful years, when I have succeeded in work and with my family.’”

Ted Baker’s figures look smart as high street rivals falter (Independent)
“The fashion retailer’s US retail sales grew by 74 per cent to $16.7m (£10.8m) in the 28 weeks to 13 August, boosted by new concessions and strong demand for its clothes. But UK and European sales rose by a more modest 7.8 per cent over the period, to £69.2m, while gross margins were dented by a higher level of promotional activity.”

Fashion’s brave new world (Telegraph)
“Beginning with the invention of nylon pantyhose by Allan Gant Sr in 1 959, fashion and technology have gradually been brought together as new materials and techniques opened up countless possibilities for designers… One step further along the technological scale comes catalytic clothing, which… Claims could help combat the harmful emissions released by vehicle exhausts in cities.”

US Vogue is magazine of the year (Telegraph)
“There’s no denying Anna Wintour still reigns supreme as queen of the glossies. US Vogue , which she has edited – with an iron fist some might say – since 1988, was just named Magazine of the Year at the prestigious Ad Age Awards… There is hope for print, it seems, as advertising revenues have plummeted along with every other measure of economic growth across the globe; if anyone can squeeze revenues from cautious (or broke) advertisers it is ‘Brand Anna’.”

Diane Pernet On A Shaded View Of Fashion Film Festival (Huffington Post)
“Drenched in black with her ever-present lace mantilla and catseye sunglasses, Diane Pernet is one of the most recognisable figures on the fashion landscape. But it’s not just her iconic and unvarying look that has gained her recognition; she is one of fashion’s true digital pioneers.”

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.”

Marc Jacobs | Source: Fashionfreax.net

Marc Jacobs To Dior? (Huffington Post)
“The question of who will take the top job at Dior has remained since Galliano’s ousting. But WWD writes that meetings between Dior representatives from LVMH, the luxury conglomerate that owns the Christian Dior label as well as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and a host of other top brands, and Jacobs’ legal representatives are set to take place this week in Paris.”

Carine Roitfeld by Karl Lagerfeld (Interview)
“Although Carine Roitfeld is no longer the editor of French Vogue, she remains steadily at the perch of the fashion world, standing atop those super-high bondage-referencing heels that she partly made a staple of Parisian style. But la femme parisienne, which Roitfeld very much is, makes her own ground wherever she walks.”

Cut from a different cloth (FT)
“What happens when bespoke is not enough? As the ability to personalise everything from your trainers to your trench has become democratised thanks to the internet, those in search of the truly special – the ne plus ultraof made-to-order – have become frustrated. Even more so as their old go-to solution, the tailor, has been constrained by the increasing homogeneity of cloth.”

J. Crew’s Canadian shoppers balk at higher prices (The Globe and Mail)
“J. Crew has raised its merchandise prices by about 15 per cent in its Canadian store and on its new Canadian e-commerce site compared with those at its U.S. outlets. For online customers, taxes and duties raised the final price for orders in some cases by as much as 50 per cent compared with the U.S. site they previously ordered from.”

Summer Scouting (On the Runway)
“F.N.O. was a good idea when it began, back in the depths of the recession when stores were virtually empty. But now it’s become a party, an institutionalized kickoff to Fashion Week, and though it apparently raises money for some causes, I have to believe that the costs of security, crowd control and entertainment, not to mention the traffic headaches, outweigh the actual benefits.”