Mickey Drexler | Source: Bu

Lunch with the FT: Mickey Drexler (FT)
“My lunch with Millard S. Drexler, the 67-year-old chief executive of J. Crew, the American clothing brand made world famous by its First Client Michelle Obama, turns out not to be a lunch. Or to be more specific: not just a lunch. It’s lunch, followed by a short walk, a couple of emails and two phone conversations… Typically I find that chief executives of $1.7bn companies such as J. Crew… Are happy to give you the allotted hour and a half or so, then cross you off their to-do list. But Drexler, it turns out, is very consciously not that sort of chief executive.”

Readjusting Our Eye, Again (On the Runway)
“We have at the moment a strong crowd of designers not merely believing in clothes with a modern attitude but also showing us what they mean — and without turning craft into some fetishistic pile of stuff that no intelligent person would consider wanting for a second.”

Online shoe store Spartoo.com projects €100 million turnover this year (TechCrunch)
“This ‘Zappos of Europe’ was founded in France by three young entrepreneurs in 2006, and is now active in 20 countries, including United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands. Today, the company revealed that its internationalization efforts have led to significant growth. In fact, Spartoo.com says it sold more than one million pairs of shoes in Europe in the first months of 2011 (the company offers about 15,000 models and 400 brands).”

Why are we so cuckoo about Coco? (FT)
“There is, it appears, an endless appetite for Chanel (and I am not talking about the quilted bags or the tweed jackets, though those are very covetable) – one that is exponentially greater than for any other fashion designer… What Chanel has that other fashion designers don’t is as basic as the little black dress: a really fantastic narrative. And if history teaches us anything, it’s that narratives – stories that can be passed on through generations – are what lasts.”

A Golden Touch Without the Glitter (NY Times)
“Rather, the shy woman with enviable rocker-messy hair who was sitting, largely unnoticed, in the NoHo restaurant the Smile on a recent sunny Friday morning is Charlotte Ronson, the clothing designer, who in the last few years has quietly and somewhat surprisingly evolved into one of the most successful retail entrepreneurs of her generation.”

Michael Kors by Mikael Jansson | Source: Interview

Michael Kors By Lauren Hutton (Interview)
“It’s hard to pinpoint when Michael Kors first became a fashion designer. It might have been the moment when Dawn Mello, then-fashion director at Bergdorf Goodman, stopped by Lothar’s, the boutique on 57th Street where Kors was working as salesman/window dresser/in-house designer after dropping out of the FIT, and told him that if he ever went out on his own, she’d love to take a look at his collection.”

Valentino Boost (Vogue UK)
“Valentino has reported a revenue boost of 24 per cent in the past six months, helping it to return to the black. The Italian label posted first half net profits of €2.6 million euros (£2.28 million), compared with a loss of €7.4 million (£6.50 million) during the same period the year before.”

J.Crew settles investor lawsuits for $16 million (Reuters)
“Investors agreed to a $16 million settlement of lawsuits stemming from the buyout of clothing retailer J.Crew Group Inc by two private equity groups, according to an investor attorney. The settlement is based on an earlier $10 million agreement that collapsed in January, according to Stuart Grant of Grant & Eisenhofer PA, which represents shareholders.

Fashion’s Great Confusion (WSJ)
“If looking fashionable is your goal, you can’t go far wrong this season, even if you don’t give a fig for sartorialism. Why? Well, fashion—the designers, manufacturers, marketers and retailers of clothes, and the stylists, editors, commentators and photographers who bring it all to you—don’t seem to have a clue as to what’s going on. There’s a schizophrenic element to this season’s looks and collections.”

Helmut Lang to Put on Its First Fashion Show Since 2005 (The Cut)
“Nicole and Michael Colovos started as creative directors of Helmut Lang in 2006 after Theory bought the label from Prada, but they never put on a fashion show. This spring they’ll do their first one for the label at New York Fashion Week.”

London cityscape | Source: Chelsea Trans

Why London deserves to be the fashion capital of the world (Telegraph)
“London fashion now has an explosion of internationally bought talent, an array of serious businesses, is a significant contributor to national exports, and is bolstering UK manufacturing into the bargain. Ten years ago, the despairing moan was that everyone was leaving London to show abroad: nobody talks about designers defecting any more, only about how we’re going to fit in everyone who wants to show.”

Dept. Stores, M-Commerce Leading the Social Media Way (WWD)
“It’s the year of the department store. The category posted growth in retail market share for the first time in nearly three decades — and it just might have something to do with innovative digital strategies… the average Digital IQ for department stores grew 14 points from 2010 — coming in second to e-tailers for highest category IQ — a telling statistic about the impact of digital, given that the latter are native to the medium.”

The Fastest-Growing Private Company of 2011 (Inc)
“Flash-shopping sites, a decade-old phenomenon in Europe, took root in this country around the time of the recession, when ideeli and its three best-known competitors launched. Members receive e-mail alerts about sales, and the clock starts ticking. For customers, the appeal is brands at a discount, which at ideeli can reach 80 percent.”

J. Crew launches online in the UK (Telegraph)
“J. Crew’s success – it’s valued as a $3 billion company – comes from filling the gaping hole between affordable fast-fashion, which the British high street has in abundance, and luxury designer labels… Fashion insiders point to the huge choice the label offers customers, making a single label store more like a boutique.”

At 90, Fashion’s Latest Pop Star (NY Times)
“Mrs. Apfel, the subject of a string of museum exhibitions, a coffee table book and even a fashion advertising campaign, has long been a magnet to aficionados, those devotees of fashion who dote on her style — a more-is-more mix of haute couture and hippie trimmings that appears at a glance to have been blended in a Cuisinart.”

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.”

Barneys' new team photographed by Jason Schmidt | Source: NY Magazine

Barneys’ Fall Line (NY Magazine)
“Like many of its clients, Barneys has had its ups, its downs, and its great many in-betweens, and it is, at right this very moment, engaged in that most New York of pursuits: a reinvention… Last summer, Mark Lee was hired as Barneys’ new CEO. His reputation is as golden as it gets in the fashion world: He’s spent his career in Europe occupying high-level positions at important fashion houses—­Armani, Yves Saint Laurent, and, most recently, Gucci.”

On the Phone: M-Commerce Is the Word (WWD)
“… Along comes m-commerce, capturing sales on the go. It’s quickly becoming a digital priority for the fashion industry, and accessories are rising as a hot category… Net-a-Porter’s accessories buying manager, Sasha Sarokin, reports that with m-commerce, more ‘everyday’ and ‘wear-now’ accessories, like friendship bracelets or small pendant necklaces, are big sellers. Higher-ticket items sell as well, particularly those that pack a strong photographic punch.”

Saks says market turmoil warrants caution (Reuters)
“Luxury department store operator Saks Inc forecast same-store sales growth and better margins for the rest of the year even as the volatile financial markets give it reason to be cautious about fall sales.Shares were down 28 cents, or 3.1 percent, at $8.79 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Stock market volatility has made the company more careful about expenses and how much inventory to carry to be prepared in the event shoppers cut back.”

J. Crew finally treks to Canada (Calgary Herald)
“After being sought out for years by Canadians as a favoured cross-border shopping destination, J. Crew is set to open its first set of fashionable doors in Canada in less than a week…J. Crew’s marketing, which is handled internally, has evolved over the years from a catalogue-driven business into an evolving social-media force.”

RISE: Lisoka (Dazed Digital)
“Lisoka is the creation of Swedish menswear designer Lisa Våglund. Having graduated with a Master’s degree from the prestigious Danish Design School in Copenhagen, she went on to start her own fashion line of clothes with an eco-consciousness… A dream would be to work for a brand like Raf Simons or Kris Van Assche.”