David Beckham for H&M | Source: Zap 2 it

David Beckham Fetes H&M Launch in London (WWD)
“It takes an unusual amount of sex appeal for a man to make a pair of long johns look good — and David Beckham has pulled it off. After serving as the face and body for Armani Underwear, Beckham decided to develop his own range together with his business partner and manager, the entertainment mogul Simon Fuller.”

Yoox Chief Marchetti Raises Stake, Forecasts Strong U.S. Growth (Bloomberg)
“Yoox Chief Executive Officer Federico Marchetti raised his stake in the online retailer of fashion and luxury goods after exercising stock options, saying the Italian company is being undervalued by investors.”

Fashion Changes, and So Do the Magazines (NY Times)
“Glamour’s newsstand sales were down substantially last year, by 17 percent through June and (as submitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulation) 9.9 percent in the second half. Most women’s titles were down. Part of the problem, it would seem, is that by exploiting a winning formula, fashion magazines have made themselves indistinguishable.”

Fashion Tech Boom: Why It’s Happening  (Fashionista)
“Last year saw a major influx of new fashion-focused tech startups. With the early success of pioneers like Gilt Groupe and Ideeli, an industry that has typically been slow to embrace new technology has spawned a burgeoning community of game-changing ecommerce sites, mobile apps and social networking and discovery platforms.”

An Intellectual Fashion | Scott Schuman (AnOther)
“Scott Schuman is the founder and editor of the iconic fashion blog The Sartorialist which he set up in 2005. He achieved considerable influence with his photographs taken in the streets, a selection of which was published as a book by Penguin in 2009.”

Salvatore Ferragamo store Huhehaote China | Source: Moda Online

Luxury brands turn cautious on China (FT) 
“Watching three malls open within a square mile over the past year and a fourth preparing to follow, all with their share of luxury boutiques, Beijingers may think that soon their city will have as many Louis Vuitton and Salvatore Ferragamo stores as bank branches or McDonalds restaurants. But things might be on the verge of changing.”

Prada Poised to Extend Slump as China Shoppers Cut Back (Bloomberg)
“Prada is falling out of fashion six months into its Hong Kong trading debut as investors brace for Chinese shoppers to curb spending. Shares of the maker of $2,000 bags and Miu Miu shoes, which gets more than 42 percent of sales from Asia, have dropped 34 percent from its July peak.”

Paris Reignites Brouhaha Over Fashion Schedule (The Cut)
“After Milan, London, and New York finally compromised on their respective Fashion Week dates for 2013 and 2014, France’s Chambre Syndicale — which has been relatively quiet on the matter until now — announced that they’re unhappy with the proposed arrangement.”

H&M Nov comparable sales lag consensus (Reuters)
“Sweden’s Hennes & Mauritz, the world’s second-biggest apparel retailer, posted on Thursday a one percent drop in local-currency turnover at established stores in November, missing a consensus forecast for a narrow rise.”

Building an Empire of Her Own (NY Times)
“It’s a distinctive pedigree, all right, lofty enough to have secured the younger Ms. Roitfeld a flurry of modeling gigs, invitations to the coolest parties and the fawning attention of scores of bloggers. But not lofty enough, evidently, for Ms. Roitfeld herself. ‘I want to be known as me,’ she insisted the other evening… ‘I want to be known for what I can do on my own.’”

Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2011 | Source: Victoria's Secret

NEW YORK, United States — In recent years, the main fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris have attracted unprecedented interest from end consumers, with brands live streaming their shows and bloggers reporting from the runway in realtime on their sites and social channels like Twitter and Instagram. But in most cases, the actual clothes showcased during fashion week aren’t available to consumers until many months after the shows have finished.

In short, fashion’s communication cycle has become wildly out of sync with its retail cycle. Would the film industry ever hold a movie premiere 6 months ahead of its release to the public? Would Apple make its buzzy product announcements a half-year before said products were available for sale?

By shortening lead times, planning production in advance, and using other lean manufacturing techniques, fashion brands may be able to get product to consumers more quickly. But these kinds of structural changes could take years to implement, especially as many fashion brands do not control the means of production.

One solution has been to let consumers order — but not receive — products immediately after the shows. Mega-brands like Burberry have offered pre-ordering for several seasons now, while a number of mid-sized and emerging brands have collaborated with ‘pre-tail’ trunk-show start-up Moda Operandi to do the same. But market reports suggest that the sales volume of pre-orders has been limited. There are only so many consumers who are willing to plonk down money in advance to guarantee they will get a specific garment in their size months later. Most consumers still seem to prefer to purchase in-season, close to the time of need.

So if enabling consumers to pre-order clothes is not the ideal solution, why not engage consumers just before the collections arrive in store? Based on the evidence of blowout events from Victoria’s Secret and H&M for Versace in New York earlier this month, consumer appetite for this kind of engagement, and the impact it has on sales, seem very promising indeed.

… Continue Reading

A Marriage of Economic Convenience (NY Times)
“More than a decade since Target first popularized collaborations between high-end designers and mass retailers, and seven years since H&M introduced a collection with Karl Lagerfeld, there is still allure in the concept of cheap and chic… Such collaborations are proving to be both a reliable business model for retailers and a business in themselves.”

Marc Jacobs’s Entire Spring / Summer 2012 Collection Stolen (The Daily Beast)
“Call it the case of the missing dresses. Marc Jacobs’ entire Spring/Summer 2012 collection has been stolen from a train en route from Paris to London for the brand’s European press day, the company has announced. According to the e-mail circulated to press on Wednesday morning, the PR team wrote ‘our press day tomorrow in the Marc Jacobs store is cancelled, due to the theft of the spring/ summer 2012 collections during its transfer from Paris.’”

PPR to follow PUMA’s green accounting lead (Business Green)
“The parent company of some of the world’s biggest luxury and sporting brands, including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and PUMA, is to embark on one of the world’s most ambitious green accounting programmes, after announcing it will create a group-wide environmental profit and loss statement (EP&L)… By placing an economic value on its environmental impact, the company hopes to improve its reporting of a wide range of green metrics.”

Missed profit forecasts hurt Abercrombie (FT)
“Shares in Abercrombie & Fitch plunged more than 13 per cent as the US teen fashion retailer missed Wall Street profit forecasts and was put on the defensive over its strategy in Europe. Abercrombie executives were grilled by analysts over falling sales at its international flagship stores after it reported a 1.8 per cent rise in net income to $50.9m, or 57 cents per share, which fell short of market expectations of 72 cents a share.”

Benetton Retries Provocation (WSJ)
“Italian clothing chain Benetton is trying to drum up attention for its flagging brand with ads showing global leaders kissing… Now, after having lost ground over the last decade to competitors such as Inditex SA’s Zara and Hennes & Mauritz AB’s H&M, Benetton is trying for publicity.”

Albert Kriemler of Akris | Source: Estilo Moda

The Discreet Charm of Akris (WSJ)
“Perhaps it is Kriemler’s understated, reluctant approach to anything overt or loud—fashionable or otherwise—that attracts women as powerful and talented as Condoleezza Rice, Angelina Jolie, Susan Sarandon and Nicole Kidman to his clothes… Kriemler works extensively with artisans from Akris’s hometown of St. Gallen. The town is renown in the business for its skilled craftsmanship in linen, cotton and embroidered fabrics, and has long been a focus for fashion houses including Chanel, Marc Jacobs and Giorgio Armani. Akris has proper form and heritage, too.”

World’s Biggest Fashion Brands Invest in The Fancy (BetaBeat)
“The Fancy, one of the consumer facing projects under the thingd umbrella, has secured a $10 million round of financing at a valuation north of $100 million. Interestingly, the big bucks don’t come from a typical venture investor, but from a new lead investor PPR, the $16 billion French multi-national run by Francois Henri-Pinault, which owns the globe’s biggest fashion brands… The Fancy is about visual discovery and has become a natural home for fashion brands, which see a high level of engagement from tastemakers around their goods.”

Richemont cautious after H1 beats expectations (Reuters)
“Richemont, the maker of Cartier jewelry and Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, struck a cautious note for the luxury goods industry outlook as growth rates are starting to ease from the strong performance seen in its first half. Between April and September, sales at the world’s second biggest luxury goods group jumped 36 percent at constant exchange rates and October sales were up 26 percent, in a sign consumers could be turning more hesitant about treating themselves to pricey timepieces.”

Nordstrom full year profit outlook below St view (Reuters)
“Upscale department store operator Nordstrom Inc did not raise the upper end of its full year profit forecast even as it reported a jump in sales and profit in the third quarter, and its shares fell more than 3 percent… The department store chain said it now expects fiscal 2011 sales at stores open at least one year to rise about 6 percent, up from an earlier range of 4 to 6 percent.”

Versace: What’s the bright idea? (Independent)
“‘Iconic pieces for young people – the essence of Versace’ is how Donatella Versace describes her collection for H&M… H&M’s link-ups with some of fashion’s biggest names began in a blaze of publicity in 2004 with Karl Lagerfeld – and that sold out in a matter of hours. Its creator – who starred in the accompanying advertising campaign – has since said the experience was responsible for making him a household name.”