Frida Giannini | Source: Vogue Taiwan

How Gucci Got Its Groove Back (Departures)
“Today she’s happy being the woman behind the brand, unlike Ford, who was ultimately bigger than Gucci, which is why, in part, he’s no longer there. (Ford declined to comment for this article.) ‘After almost ten years, it’s difficult to divide myself from Gucci,’ she says. ‘I love this company, and I have such respect for its history.’”

Azzedine Alaïa, a furious fashion talent (Independent)
“Basking in the knowledge that, more than any other designer, he occupies neutral territory – it is not uncommon for M Alaïa to be seen front row at many of his competitors’ shows, or indeed for other designers to wear his clothes – this is not a man who has been overly worried about what others might think of him and that, too, in fashion circles, is most unusual.”

The Rise of Consumption Equality (WSJ)
“It used to be so cool to be wealthy—an elite education, exclusive mobile communications, a private screening room, a table at Annabel’s on London’s Berkeley Square. Now it’s hard to swing a cat without hitting yet another diatribe against income inequality. People sleep in tents to protest that others are too damn wealthy.”

Fashion Hangover (Vogue)
“Louis Vuitton is going to war with Warner Bros: suing the entertainment giant for profits from it recent blockbuster sequel The Hangover Part II, for using fake copies of its bags in the film. Despite requests by the luxury label to not feature counterfeit bags – created by Diophy which is also being sued – the fake Louis Vuitton luggage appeared in a scene filmed at the airport.”

Cathy Horyn Recounts the Year in Fashion (NY Times)
“‘Give me time, and I’ll give you a revolution,’ Alexander McQueen once said. Like anyone born to achieve, he resented the small distractions — and the fashion business provides plenty of them.”

Michael Kors | Source: Life

Michael Kors Seeks to Raise $792.3 Million in U.S. IPO (Bloomberg)
“Michael Kors Holdings Ltd., the luxury-clothing company, is seeking to raise as much as $792.3 million in a U.S. initial public offering as the company’s founder and the biggest investor trim their stakes… Michael Kors, the designer who founded the company in 1981, is planning to cut his stake as retailers of luxury goods outperform mid-priced department stores and discounters this year.”

Gucci sales not slowing yet, has plan B ready (Reuters)
“Luxury brand Gucci has not seen any impact on its business from global economic woes but it would be prepared to react quickly and cut costs if sales slowed, its chief executive said in a newspaper interview. Patrizio di Marco told Le Figaro that Gucci, part of French luxury and retail group PPR, had a ‘Plan B’ that could see it delaying store improvement work while sticking to its store opening programme.”

U.S. retailers tailor fashions to Asian tastes (LA Times)
“As the U.S. market continues to sputter and China’s continues to boom, U.S. retailers are updating business plans to include the world’s second-largest economy as well as the rest of growing Asia. Just as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Apple have erected temples of capitalism in cities such as Shanghai and Beijing, Western apparel makers are infusing their clothing lines with Asian sensibilities in look, feel and size.”

Future Classic (WSJ)
“At the house of Roger Vivier, the buckle reigns supreme… The buckle, which has adorned Vivier shoes and handbags for more than four decades, is a signature that you recognize without realizing that you have… But Bruno Frisoni, the dashing, bespectacled and asparagus-slim Frenchman who is artistic director of the label, has quietly been masterminding another house signature: the Prismick.”

A glint in his tie (FT)
“‘Clothes maketh the man,’ goes the cliché: but what exactly do they maketh of him? What, for example, to make of the landslide of lads in spangly sweaters at the autumn/winter Prada show?… For many men the latter might seem the most likely answer, except for the fact that those metallic sweaters are currently hitting shop floors and selling out.”

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.

Memorable images of high fashion were no longer required. The fact that none of the subsequent faces remains in the memory for even the month of the magazine’s life is symptomatic of the change. Readers were not expected to recall the face. It was the shout-lines that gave the message, then as now. This book is a classic primer of the effects of chasing a mass market. I don’t think I am alone in finding the seventies and eighties the rock bottom and subsequent decades, dominated by Hollywood stars, only marginally better. This book is a cautionary cavalcade of the rise, fall and slight recovery of Vogue covers and, as such, is an elegant record of our changing tastes and needs.

But, of course, creativity still exists in magazines and it is at its best with maverick editors who keep their artistic integrity by making their publication a personal diary of their obsessions, dreams and intellectual beliefs. Carine Roitfeld’s Irreverent (Rizzoli) is the perfect example of the genre, almost perversely personal and even private, giving the reader the sensation of looking in her knicker drawer. In her years as editor of French Vogue, Roitfeld’s very Gallic aesthetic — with a little Russian from her ancestors — created an instantly recognisable style that has been dubbed ‘porno-chic’ and has influenced not only every young stylist under the sun but also how even designers actually think. Roitfeld’s youthful iconoclasm is about cultural freedom to delight through shocking. I am sure that if Cocteau, Berard and even Beaton were alive today it would be Roitfeld’s Vogue that they would devour each month and fight to work for. This amazing woman is the only modern editor who would excite the doyenne who single-handedly pushed back the barriers to enable the sort of shocking, thrilling and entertaining pages that make this book so exhilarating.

I’m talking, of course, about Diana Vreeland, whom I knew and used to visit in the late seventies, in her tiny scarlet apartment on Park Avenue. The most original thinker and memorable verbaliser I have ever met, Vreeland was illuminated — as is Roitfeld — by the sheer power of her imagination and enthusiasm. She is a legend. Everyone who knew her has Vreeland stories because everything she said was arresting, even at its most extreme, shot through with the ability to get to the essence of everything, but above all, dress. So, it is good to have a reissue of Eleanor Dwight’s convincing biography, Diana Vreeland (Harper Design) joining a new anecdotal volume Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (Abrams) which is high on pictures but low on analysis. For the growing army of Vreeland fans who are under 30 and realise she was even younger and bolder than they are, both books are essential, not only because they are ‘gala’, to use one of her highest terms of praise, but for the pure panache of her personality that comes shimmering off every page. She is in a class of her own.

But one who comes close is Glenda Bailey, who has lead Harper’s Bazaar for ten years with much of the bold aplomb that Vreeland brought to editing. She has given us amazing stories — witty, bold and often slyly debunking of the more extreme reaches of fashion’s unrealities. But, make no mistake, Bailey is besotted by the magic and mystery of the fashion world and the enthusiasm I knew and loved years ago when she first hit London are as fresh and undimmed today, as Harper’s Bazaar Greatest Hits (Abrams) admirably demonstrates. Here are The Simpsons doing the Paris shows; Marc Jacobs playing many parts — mainly naked; Jean Paul Gaultier as a nun and many other visual extravagances dreamt up by Bailey and her inspired artistic director, Stephen Gan, whose boldness matches her own. Their covers are exceptional for their elegant understatement but they certainly give full, rip-roaring scope to their imaginations on the editorial pages.

From Fifth to Seventh Avenue every American in the clothes business has reason to bless Eleanor Lambert, the woman who made American fashion a major player in the world, helped to launch such giants as Lauren, Klein and Halston and even managed to make the French designers sit up and take notice with her famous joint fashion show featuring American designers on the same runway as the French in Versailles in 1973. Eleanor, whom I knew when she was very old (she lived to be a hundred), was full of energy and determination, possibly inherited from her family who were circus folk, plus the imagination to know what was needed next long before anybody else did. In Eleanor Lambert: Still Here (Pointed Leaf Press), she emerges as the Calamity Jane of New York fashion, lassoing and branding all the talents that her shrewd eye was attracted to and promoting them with her incredible vigour. But she did more. Without her there would be no CFDA. It was she who came up with ‘The Best Dressed List’ to stimulate interest in clothes and keep sales figures climbing. And, above all, she was the earth mother of fashion PR. A copy of this revealing book should be in every fashion office, from the editor’s to the CEO’s, and on the shelves of every fashion college library.

Fashion has become the lingua franca of the world. It now affects virtually every aspect of creative life, certainly in the West, and is increasingly the thing that binds disparate disciplines together to give them a ‘cool’ credibility. Nowhere is this more apparent than in architecture, a discipline that influences fashion and is, in turn, influenced by it. So it is good to see this ever-closer link captured in a book that looks at how one of the major fashion brands, Louis Vuitton, uses many of the world’s most prominent architects and designers to create its flagship stores across the globe. Louis Vuitton Architecture and Interiors (Rizzoli) provides a stunning record of high imagination, apparently cavalier disregard for cost and, as the end product, some of the most exciting retail spaces in existence today. As most fashionistas know, the presiding genius is the architect Peter Marino, a man who, along with the Louis Vuitton project designers, has been responsible for incredible shops from Tokyo to Macao, Paris to New York. The photographs in this book are stunning but, unlike most fashion-related books, this is a text to read. Illuminating and inspiring.

Equally illuminating is Gucci: The Making Of (Rizzoli). Not another Gucci book, you may say. But this one is different. Without sacrificing in any way the glamour of this most frequently re-invented label, it gives us the low-down on the business and even the internecine struggles of the original Gucci family: betrayals and violent quarrels, including fraternal murder. It is all here, elegantly packaged in the way we expect of one of Italy’s great labels but by no means relying solely on the quality of the pictures. This is another book where the writing is as important as the images. The contents are split into 48 sections — this is a lofty tome by any standards —

that cover every aspect of the company’s history, developments and products, from CEOs, customers and social networks to perfumes, lifestyle and, of course, the loafers and bags. It is sufficiently comprehensive that a new Gucci book will not be needed for many years to come. Publishers, please take note!

And so, finally, to an amuse bouche for Christmas morning. The Elves and the Shoe-Maker (It Books – HarperCollins) is the story — or ‘fashion fairy tale memoir’ — of Manolo Blahnik, told by Camilla Morton and illustrated by the subject himself. Light as air, winningly expressed, this book is fun, not only for Manolo’s many drawings but also for the way it captures the sophisticated whimsy of this most elegant of all the world’s shoemakers. It is so good-humoured that it is the one to bury your head in whilst waiting for Christmas dinner. It will make aunt Edna’s moans about feeling hungry and uncle Joe’s spectacular downing of glass after glass of your best claret hardly seem irritating at all. Happy Christmas!

Colin McDowell is a contributing editor at The Business of Fashion

Uniqlo 5th Avenue Flagship in New York | Source: High Snobiety

Fast Retailing May Buy Bigger Rival in U.S., Europe on Yen (Bloomberg)
“Fast Retailing Co., Asia’s largest clothing chain, may buy a bigger rival in the U.S. or Europe after the yen’s advance to a postwar high against the dollar boosted the Japanese company’s purchasing power… The billionaire aims to take advantage of the yen’s climb to expand outside Japan, where an unexpectedly long summer damped demand for fall and winter clothing, contributing to a 12 percent decline in profit in the year through August.”

Calvin Klein’s largest market outside the US – China (Red Luxury)
“Outside of the US, China is Calvin Klein’s largest market with 50 percent annual sales growth for the past two years. Its China business has pulled ahead of other international markets… The company continues to expect stellar growth ahead. ‘Our business grew 50 percent in 2010, it will grow 50 percent this year and the way we’re going, we could see 50 percent again next year,’ said Tom Murry, chief executive officer and president of Calvin Klein. ‘Our global business has been growing at 10 to 15 percent, so you can see the business here is outpacing the global business by a long shot.’”

Gareth Pugh: His Dark Materials (Independent)
“‘She’s very beautiful. But she looks like she might kill you,’ says Gareth Pugh of model Alla Kostromichova, the lovely if admittedly somewhat intimidating face of his soon-to-launch, limited-edition line of make-up and accessories, designed in collaboration with Mac. And that just about sums up not only the designer’s aesthetic more broadly, but also this latest venture.”

Gucci coup: the Italian fashion house celebrates 90 years in fashion (Telegraph)
“If an essential element of a successful luxury brand is its history and heritage, then Gucci’s is more richly textured than most. In this, the 90th year since the establishment of the first Gucci boutique, the company has celebrated the opening of the Gucci museum in Florence, its founding city.”

Pierre Cardin on banks and working at 89 (BBC News)
“He began his career making costumes for the film-maker Jean Cocteau. Christian Dior took him under his wing and he launched his own label in 1950… In 1959, Cardin courted their further contempt when he launched the first ever ‘pret-a-porter’ (ready-to-wear) show for the mass market. Later he went into merchandising in a major way, with hundreds of Cardin franchises all over the world, many of them not exactly top-of-the-range.”

Gucci Museo | Source: Oyster Magazine

Gucci Feeds Its Florentine Roots (IHT)
“The museum, housed in a 14th-century building in the Piazza della Signoria, is designed to honor the company’s leather goods legacy and to bring it into the 21st century by juxtaposing the innovation of bamboo-handled bags or luxe sports equipment with modern art… The idea of facing off past with present — under the slogan “forever now” — was the brainchild of Frida Giannini, the creative director of the famous brand.”

Paris fashion week strutting under cloudy economy (Reuters)
“Paris Fashion Week kicked off on Tuesday under a cloud of economic pessimism mixed with uncertainty about the creative direction of some of the world’s biggest fashion brands… After New York, London and Milan, Paris closes the season of presentations for next spring and summer with nine days of shows at which designers will be fighting for buyers and media attention amid worries about a possible economic slowdown.”

Cavalli Chief Sees Luxury-Goods Slowdown (Bloomberg)
“Luxury-goods companies should brace for weaker growth in 2012 asEurope’s sovereign debt crisis leads to a slowdown in spending, according to Gianluca Brozzetti, chief executive officer for designerRoberto Cavalli… ‘The luxury sector is not immune,’ CA Cheuvreux analysts including Pierre Lamelin, wrote in a note this month. They estimate that so-called organic sales growth across the industry will slow to 9 percent in 2012 from 15 percent in 2011.”

Hearst Passes 300,000 Monthly Digital Subscribers, Takes a Bow (All Things Digital)
“Hearst, which is about to sell its digital magazines via Amazon’s new tablet, wants the world to know it’s selling its digital magazines on plenty of other gadgets, too: The publisher says it is now racking up more than 300,000 paid digital downloads per month.”

20 Q&As: Gareth Pugh (Dazed Digital)
“In 1991, Gareth Pugh and Katie Shillingford were ten years old. They’re a bit older now – one is a successful fashion designer, and the other works as his stylist and senior fashion editor of Dazed. Graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2003, Dazed was the first to celebrate his work, featuring the red and white balloons from his BA collection on the cover in April 2004… Shillingford talks to her friend about life in 1991, and how the past 20 years have shaped their worlds.”

Gucci Spring/Summer 2012 | Source: Style.com

Gucci at 90: ‘Hard Deco’ (IHT)
“The Gucci designer Frida Giannini, celebrating the brand’s 90th year, certainly sent out a polished and upscale collection, with shiny metallic surfaces and a focus on jazzy evening outfits — even if they were inspired by the 1920s, when flappers danced up to the edge of the Great Depression.”

Milan fashion picks glam over gloom (Reuters)
“Designers have prepared a marathon of catwalk shows and gala openings to wow shoppers and woo their wallets at a Milan fashion week… ‘This is our chance to react to the crisis,’ Mario Boselli, chairman of Italy’s National Chamber of Fashion… Fashion is a key contributor to the euro-zone’s third largest economy. Italian brands are expected to generate total revenues of almost 63 billion euros (54.9 billion pounds) this year.”

Designer-hungry China in sight at London fashion (Reuters)
“The world’s biggest luxury market within five years has become a second home for brands such Hermes, Prada and Tiffany & Co that tap Chinese appetite for sports cars, luxury handbags and diamonds. And British designers have taken note.’There’s quite a boom in the world of fashion and I believe that is mostly because of China,’ designer Vivienne Westwood told Reuters.”

The etail highway to China (FT)
“Yoox Group, the Italian company that builds and manages about half the fashion world’s etail outlets (Armani, Marni, Zegna, Dolce & Gabbana etc.) and has taken Armani and Dolce into China, is to make a move of its own into the country. Next week, thecorner.com, its high-end multi-brand boutique, will become the first multi-brand etailer to launch in China.”

Former Intermix COO Raises $33M For Fashion Brand JustFabulous (Forbes)
“Launched in March 2010, JustFabulous has a subscription fashion business built on its personalized fashion styling advice and in-house designed clothing and lifestyle brand. After just more than one year, the site already has 2.5 million members and more than $3 million in revenue per month.”

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.”

Lane Crawford Autumn/Winter 2011 | Source: Lane Crawford

Are Chinese Models Putting An End To Asia’s Colonial Mentality? (Forbes)
“If we were to take our cues from the fall 2011 advertising campaign of luxury retailer Lane Crawford, it would seem that we Asians have come to love our own. The campaign features a stunning all-Chinese cast wearing the latest threads from New York, Milan, London and Paris… Is the Chinese luxury consumer now aspiring to be like the Chinese faces modeling her favourite brands?”

The Muddy Roots of Fine Linen (WSJ)
“Linen has become a high-end staple on the designer-clothing racks… Yet these thousand-dollar linens have humble roots. Two-thirds of the world’s linen originates in a narrow belt of farmland that stretches from northern France to the Netherlands… Fashion brands are telling consumers more about the origins of their clothes. Linen, because it comes from such a limited region, is able to ride this movement.”

Frida Giannini by Dave Gahan (Interview)
“Giannini has acquitted herself ably on all fronts, crafting a new chapter in the Gucci story by embracing her own ultra-feminine take on fashion, one that doesn’t so much wrestle with what was, or the iconographic power of those interlocking Gs, as display an unbridled enthusiasm for what is and what might be if we could only find a way to chill out and live in the now.”

Adding a Splash of Luxury to Swimwear (IHT)
“The French company Eres isn’t interested in runway shows or fashion weeks, and it has always shunned the annual Miami event, deciding to keep its beachwear firmly under wraps… Instead, major global buyers and journalists make a by-invitation-only pilgrimage twice a year to the company’s headquarters in Paris to discover in which direction the swimwear fashion current is flowing.”

Kanye West steps into stilettos (Telegraph)
“Women’s Wear Daily have revealed that Mr West – who has footwear ‘previous’ as a sneaker designer for Louis Vuitton – is beavering away on a line of stilettos with help from cobbling maestro Guiseppe Zanotti… ‘Kanye is always here in my factory. In the last three years, he has come here maybe every month… [Kanye] loves learning about shoes, both the design and construction, and we’ve tried to design something together.’”

Z Zegna in Holt Renfrew's S/S 2011 Campaign | Source: Fashionising

For Holt’s, luxury regains its proper place (Globe and Mail)
“The full-price model is part of Mr. Derbyshire’s five-year business plan to strengthen Holt’s results following a period of stagnation caused by the economic slump… His efforts seem to be paying off: Privately held Holt’s enjoyed a record profit in 2010 – double that of its next best year, 2006.”

Tommy Hilfiger Changes his Stripes (WSJ)
“‘It’s my formula. It’s my vision,’ Mr. Hilfiger says. ‘But I wanted someone to come in who respects the vision but would want to maybe modernize it a bit.’ The hires are part of Mr. Hilfiger’s broader effort to refresh his 26-year-old label’s image in the U.S., particularly among luxury consumers.

Kurt Geiger sale to Jones Group (Guardian)
“‘We’ve had a brilliant ride with private equity but now we’d like to park the company for the long term and not look over our shoulders every three or four years. It’s been a great journey but we now want to think about the next 10 years.’”

Gucci Turns 90! (Dazed Digital)
“The glamorous Italian brand celebrates its 90th birthday this year in grand style as we show images from an exclusive editorial shot at the Palazzo Alberini in Rome and speak to creative director, Frida Giannini.”

A New Look at the Art of Prada (WSJ)
“Miuccia Prada the designer—she of the black nylon backpacks, whose Italian label is often called fashion’s most intellectual—keeps art and fashion separate. ‘Definitely fashion for me isn’t art… Art is a place for ideas without any other direct concerns. If I’m a good fashion designer, it’s because I sell.’”

Screenshot of Gucci on Weibo | Source: Gucci

SHANGHAI, China — In the parallel internet universe behind China’s “Great Firewall,” where search engine Baidu is Google, etailer Dangdang is Amazon, and video sharing site Youku is YouTube, the microblogging service Weibo (pronounced Way-Bwah, literally microblog) — launched in August 2009 by online media giant Sina Corp — has emerged as the country’s answer to Twitter.

According to brokerage and investment group CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, China is set to become the world’s largest luxury market with demand from “Greater Chinese” to account for 44 percent of global sales by 2020. Analysts are also seeing a surge in China’s internet usage: according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center, by the end of 2010, there were over 457 million Chinese internet users.

Set against staggering statistics like these, Twitter-like Weibo — a platform with over 100 million users (growing at 10 million users a month) and the centrepiece of Sina Corp’s transition from a Web 1.0 news and entertainment portal to a social networking service — has recently captured the attention of the world’s leading fashion brands.

Back in October 2010, Louis Vuitton became the first global fashion brand to launch a Weibo presence. But in the first quarter of 2011, we’ve seen a rapidfire build up of fashion brands on Weibo, with Chanel, Gucci and Burberry all launching accounts within the first few weeks of the year.

Much like Twitter, Weibo lets users post messages of up to 140 characters, which in Mandarin Chinese is substantial, allowing for more detailed expression than is possible in English on Twitter. Weibo also offers threaded discussions, voting and polling features, and events, as well as Tumblr-like features which make it easy to post photos, videos and audio. Indeed, Weibo’s product roadmap points towards a robust Facebook-like social networking site, with expanded profiles and location-based services, according to a highly informative presentation put together by Bill Bishop, a US-born, Beijing-based China expert, blogger, investor and advisor to several startups.

While Weibo may not be the largest microblogging service in China — Tencent claims more microblog users than Sina Weibo — according to Mr. Bishop, the platform’s users are higher quality that Tencent’s “great unwashed” and include movie stars, singers and other members of the media and business elite. Like Twitter and Tumblr in the West, fashion has also emerged as an important topic on the Chinese platform, ranking 9th overall in terms of most popular profile tags.

But Weibo is largely personality-driven and the top ten Weibo accounts are all maintained by celebrities and other prominent individuals (Chinese actress Yao Chen currently holds the most popular account in China, with over six million followers). As a result, the personal accounts of fashion industry figures often attract more followers than the accounts of large fashion media brands. For example, Vogue China’s editor-in-chief, Angelica Cheung with almost 200,000 followers, has a higher following than both of the magazine’s two official accounts — one for print, the other for online. Chinese fashion models Liu Wen and Sun Fei Fei have followings that well exceed half a million, while fashion glossies like Harper’s Bazaar and Elle  have attracted less than a quarter of a million followers.

But for fashion media brands, Weibo is more than a place to build a following. It’s also an incredibly powerful real-time research and testing tool. “You can immediately see how the market and your following will respond to something if you want to do research,” says senior fashion editor of Elle China, Leaf Greener. Indeed, Weibo is a great way to test which celebrity or model will work best for a front cover, editorial spread or ad campaign.

The value of a Weibo account depends on a brand’s objectives, emphasized Jeffrey Sprafkin, managing partner at China-based media industry consulting firm Media Pacific. “If it’s awareness, there’s probably value there … If it’s for acquisition or activation, it’s got to be a part of a broader strategy,” he continued. “Maybe it’s tied to an event.”

Chanel has done just that, launching a Weibo account specifically for Culture Chanel, the brand’s current exhibition at Shanghai’s Museum of Contemporary Art. But while the content is nicely focused, with imagery and text relating to the exhibit, the account had only attracted 18,540 followers at the time of writing.

Gucci, another global luxury fashion brand to embrace Weibo, joined the platform on January 26th and has since developed a following of 16,195 fans. But Gucci believes that there is tremendous potential in Weibo. Robert Triefus,  worldwide director of marketing and communications at Gucci, noted that “55 percent of Chinese consumers like to read the history of their preferred luxury brand online, especially European brands,” adding that “50 percent of Chinese consumers like to share images and information on luxury brands.”

At the moment, it may be too soon to predict how Weibo will evolve — and what other alternatives may surface. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Sina in Beijing over the winter holidays, sparking much local speculation on the platform’s future direction, while Sina’s CEO, Charles Chao, intends to improve the service’s “stickiness” and has hinted at a bilingual, Chinese-English offering. But according to a recent blog post by Gady Epstein, Beijing bureau chief at Forbes, “China is in a very advertising-heavy brand-building phase with a potentially outsized e-commerce market, and the momentum for both brand-building and e-commerce ad dollars is in the direction of social networks.”

With this in mind, Weibo may well be the perfect place for global fashion brands to test and learn what resonates with their Chinese internet fan base and prepare for the future.

Elizabeth Peng is an Associate Contributor at The Business of Fashion.