Hussein Chalayan S/S 2011 featured in Glamcult | Source: Hussein Chalayan

Hussein Chalayan: The surreal thing (Independent)
“When a designer such as Hussein Chalayan bases his collection on Japan it’s safe to presume that his interpretation will be far from literal: no opulent silk obi sashes tying flat-cut voluminous garments here.”

Marks and Spencer to return to France (Telegraph)
“The British high street stalwart has today announced that it will be returning to the French capital in style, opening a giant, three-storey floor on the fashionable Champs Elysées in the centre of the French capital towards the end of the year.”

Hermès in talks to sell 45 percent Gaultier stake (Reuters)
“Hermès is looking to sever longstanding ties with star designer Jean-Paul Gaultier as the French luxury group has begun talks to sell its 45 percent stake in the Gaultier fashion brand. Hermès… said on Friday it had been approached by potential buyers and was studying all options.”

Dolce & Gabbana acquitted of tax evasion (Telegraph)
“The news follows a preliminary court hearing held in Milan last week concerning accusations that design duo Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana had avoided paying taxes totalling $569 million each.”

Designers Face Uphill Battle When It Comes to Knock-offs (Thread NY)
“Knock offs are nothing new, but the Proenza Schouler bag situation hit a nerve — after all, the design duo has a history of partnering with Target. If they aren’t off limits, who is?”

NEW YORK, United States — Large luxury goods makers have long emphasised the cultural heritage of their brands and the provenance of their products. But in search of business efficiencies, these same luxury companies — who must ultimately answer to shareholders — increasingly source materials and labour outside their home markets, especially for their more affordable lines, creating a disconnect between consumer perception and manufacturing reality.

As consumers increasingly scrutinise luxury goods purchases, and craftsmanship, authenticity and heritage take centre stage in major advertising campaigns for brands like Gucci and Louis Vuitton, this disconnect has become more pronounced. Indeed, earlier this year, the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency banned two Louis Vuitton ads for misleading the public into thinking that the predominantly machine-made bags were handcrafted by European artisans.

Going forward, a new generation of digital tracing technologies may have the ability to pull back the curtain on materials and labour sourcing and give consumers the answers they are looking for.

Sourcemap, “an open source and open data supply chain publishing platform” created by MIT’s Media Lab offers a glimpse of a rapidly approaching future in which consumers will be able to easily discover, share and discuss where and how their products are made, down to the origin of specific materials and means of shipping.

In a note to New York Times “Consumed” columnist Rob Walker, Matthew Hockenberry at MIT describes the Sourcemap platform: “Companies (and investigative consumers, academics and journalists) can use Sourcemap to share the supply chains behind products and show us all exactly where they come from… We’re not quite there yet, but we can definitely tell you where some things come from. On the site you can find things like Ikea beds, Tesla roadsters, iPods, where Whole Foods gets some of its ingredients, bicycles, Sony PSPs — there are even a couple of planes on there (Airbus and Boeing).”

This kind of radical digital traceability presents a serious challenge to those luxury brands who have played the provenance card to be more transparent about exactly where and how their products are made. But it also presents a powerful opportunity for brands who are able to authentically differentiate themselves on materials and manufacturing standards.

Icebreaker, a New Zealand-based company that specialises in active clothing made from merino wool, has tagged its products with “Baacodes,” which when entered into the brand’s website, let consumers identify the high country sheep stations that produce the wool in their garments, watch videos of the sheep farmers, and follow the supply chain, from fibre sourcing to sewing.

Meanwhile, California-based outdoor clothing company Patagonia operates a website called “The Footprint Chronicles” which lets consumers track the journey of their products through the global supply chain and examine the identities, locations and manufacturing practices of Patagonia’s business partners, as well as calculate a garment’s carbon footprint.

Large clothing retailers are getting serious about supply chain transparency, as well. Earlier this year, as part of its high profile corporate sustainability initiative Plan A, Marks & Spencer said it would become the first major retailer to ensure full traceability of the key raw materials used in its clothing, including cotton, wool, polyester, nylon and leather.

Even the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, is investing in traceable products. For example, their supplier of organic cotton T-shirts, Greensource, tags their garments with product IDs. When entered into a search engine at Greensourceorganic.com, the codes show customers where and by whom the organic cotton in their T-shirts was grown, processed and finished.

Now, mobile phones are making it easy for consumers to instantly trace the provenance of a product, when it matters most: in-store, before they buy. In Japan, for example, consumers routinely scan QR codes on fruit to instantly call up information on where and how a particular apple or pear was grown.

As this kind of technology goes mainstream and we advance towards a radically transparent marketplace in which consumers come to expect products that carry and communicate data about their pasts, it’s clear that luxury companies will face increasing pressure to be more transparent about the provenance of their products too.

Vikram Alexei Kansara is Managing Editor of The Business of Fashion

El Palacio de Hierro luxury department store, Mexico City | Source: iluminet.com

Ferragamo Chief Norsa Says Mexico Is Strongest Luxury Market (Bloomberg)
“Salvatore Ferragamo SpA Chief Executive Officer Michele Norsa said the Italian fashion brand’s strongest sales growth among major economies this year has been in Mexico, where the wealthy spent more at home as the peso fell.”

Asos benefits from overseas sales (FT)
“In a statement ahead of its annual shareholder meeting, Asos said trading was in line with expectations for the six months to September 30. The fashion site said it had 1.2m active customers in the period, up from 890,000 a year ago, with 5.6m visitors a month.”

U.K. Retail Sales Index Rises to Highest Since April, CBI Says (Bloomberg)
“Retailers saying sales increased from a year earlier outnumbered those reporting declines by 3 percentage points, compared with a reading of minus 16 points in August, the biggest U.K. business lobby said in a statement in London today.”

M&S Sales Improving, Cautious On Outlook (WSJ)
“U.K. retailer Marks & Spencer Group PLC Wednesday reported better-than-expected fiscal second-quarter sales, driven by the introduction of more affordable food and revamped clothing and homeware ranges, but cautioned that trading conditions will remain difficult well into next year due to the economic downturn.”

Random Thoughts Before the Train to Paris (New York Times)
Cathy Horyn collects her thoughts before her arrival in Paris.

Zandra Rhodes for Marks & Spencer

LONDON, United Kingdom — She may have given up the boyfriend and lost the company, but Noelle Reno, the founder of Degrees of Freedom with ex-boyfriend Matthew Mellon, has retained her love of working in fashion. After a year hiatus in the wake of the separation (during which she filed suit against Mellon in Manhattan Superior Court), she’s back in London and hard at work on her next fashion project—trying to grow Zandra Rhodes into a global lifestyle brand.

“She belongs up there with Vivienne Westwood,” Reno told The Business of Fashion. “She set so many trends.”

Rhodes’ recent successful collaborations with Top Shop and Marks & Spencer convinced Reno that now is an opportune time to seize upon what she sees as the growing public interest in the Zandra Rhodes brand. “Zandra Rhodes is already a luxury, lifestyle brand and we are simply working on expanding product categories that offers quality and value,” Reno said. “Zandra has enjoyed working on the collaborations with major retailers and in focusing again on her core business.”

Rhodes does not currently make ready-to-wear under her own name, but she does make couture pieces for loyal customers and she has a fur license with Pologeorgis. Since 2000 she has been designing costumes for the San Diego opera, and traveling the globe giving talks on her role in fashion. “We met through one of the directors at Topshop who helped organize her collaborations three years ago,” Reno said. “I adored her from the minute I met her—she’s very humble and down to earth.”

With fashion and luxury suffering the way it is, is this really the right time for a re-launch, no matter how worthy the designer? Reno says that Zandra’s designs fit into remit of what luxury shoppers are looking for today: unique product that isn’t novelty but will last a long time.

“It’s the exact ‘lift’ we are looking for in this dismal climate,” Reno said. “Her dresses are multi-functional – they can go from day to evening to black-tie -offering consumers great potential value per wearing.” Reno describes her business plan as realistic and is negotiations with several possible strategic investors and partners at the moment.

Watch this space.

Lauren Goldstein Crowe is co-author of the critically-aclaimed book, The Towering World of Jimmy Choo.

Marks & Spencer, photo courtesy of the Sun UK.

Marks & Spencer to Cut 1,230 Jobs (WWD)
Marks & Spencer’s chairman expects its “gross profit margin to be 1.75 percentage points lower than the previous year,” and plans to cut 1,230 jobs.

New Year, bad news (Just Style)
The “disastrous holiday sales will spark a domino effect of store closures and bankruptcy filings over the next couple of months.”

Calvin Klein, Michael Kors Confirmed For New York Fashion Week (WSJ)
Not everyone is bowing out of fashion week as IMG confirms the shows of Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.

Iconix’s New Latin America Joint Venture (WSJ)
Iconix, which owns Candies and Badgley Mischka, will distribute its brands to Latin America in a joint effort with New Brands Americas LLC.