Benetton Unhate campaign | Source: Foto Telegraf

Benetton to make decision on delisting (FT)
“The Benetton family will decide at a board meeting on Wednesday whether to delist the Italian knitwear group known for its brightly coloured jumpers after the company posted another plunge in profits as it struggles to compete with Inditex and H&M.”

Luxury Companies That Can Bring You Closer to the Good Life (Money Morning)
“A lot of consumers are hurting right now, but you wouldn’t know that looking at the earnings of major luxury companies. Many luxury companies like LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Hermès, and Coach Inc had a stronger-than-expected 2011 campaign.”

Bright Young Things (Vogue)
“The British Fashion Council has announced the launch of International Fashion Showcase – a platform for international emerging designers – which will take place during London Fashion Week. Nineteen embassies and cultural institutes across London will display work from over 80 rising designers, spanning the world from Belgium to Botswana.”

The Finnish Fashion Blogger Who Landed A Deal With Diesel (Business Insider)
“Sandra Hagelstam, 24, is the founder of the hot fashion blog 5inchdesandup.com. She started blogging to create a daily log of what she wears… ‘(The blog) has opened up doors for me I never would have imagined in terms of being able to design my own collection and collaborate with others.’”

Divided they stand: the new extremists (Telegraph)
“This may look like a classic case of Roundhead versus Cavalier. Or Minimalist meets Maximalist. But that’s too simplistic.Neither Mary Katrantzou or Osman Yousefzada can be that easily pigeonholed.”

Left: Mary Katrantzou’s ‘Jewel Tree’ dress, Right: A look from Christopher Raeburn S/S 2012 | Source: Style.com

LONDON, United Kingdom — Luxury casualwear and demi-couture don’t appear to have much in common. You can’t get much further from a hand-embellished crystal crinoline dress than a silk jersey t-shirt or a sporty windbreaker. But in recent seasons, many of fashion’s brightest young talents have been gravitating towards one extreme or the other. Labels like Alexander Wang, The Row and Christopher Raeburn have struck a chord with their easy, upscale styles, while the likes of Mary Katrantzou, David Koma, Rodarte and Jason Wu have attracted a healthy stream of high-end clientele with hand-worked looks that border on couture.

“This gravitating to extremes is a reflection on the way that today’s luxury-wearing women are dressing,” said Ruth Runberg, buying director at Browns, the influential London-based fashion boutique. “Very few are still living every hour of every day in a designer skirtsuit with matching heels and handbag — it is simply too formal and too stiff to be modern,” she continued. “While this client may still demand from designers the more special, high-design pieces for certain times, she also has a need for clothes to wear when she doesn’t need to be ‘dressed.’”

The rise of the dressed-down day-to-day look is also a clear response to the troubled economy. “When the recession hit, we saw demand grow exponentially for designers offering this cooler, more casual luxury look — The Row, Alexander Wang, ACNE,” said Runberg. “Generally, very formal dressing felt appropriate or tasteful at fewer and fewer occasions in the wake of the financial crisis.” But for those occasions when women do need a fancy frock, they are increasingly requesting only the most exquisite, intricate pieces, she explained. “In response to this shift in demand, young designers have gone the direction of offering their clients either very special demi-couture or luxury casualwear.”

When London-based Mary Katrantzou — 2011 winner of the British Fashion Award for Emerging Talent in Womenswear — first introduced her printed lampshade skirts for Spring/Summer 2011, pieces which required hours, and sometimes days, of handwork to shape their wired frames and ensure their signature digital designs were perfectly symmetrical, she did it merely to push herself and her team. “At that stage, it was just a challenge to try and build a showpiece in our collection that really translated the theme of the season. But [these demi-couture pieces became] something that was wanted not only by people who buy privately, but also by our stores,” said Katrantzou.

Indeed, the designer sold 18 units of her £8,300 Fall 2011 Jewel Tree dress, an appliqué velvet frock, embellished with enamel flowers, lace and Swarovski crystals, that took so much work that it actually made Katrantzou’s machinist cry. “I think the customer is inundated with so many different options. They have so many things to choose from but if women who collect fashion don’t see something that really strikes them as unique, they don’t bother anymore,” explained Katrantzou. “It’s a new way of buying.”

“Customers are looking for something special,” concurs London-based designer David Koma, whose figure-flattering hand-embroidered frocks can cost up to £8000 and take up to two weeks to complete. “Now, you can buy almost anything at any price. There’s a huge market for commercial brands so I feel if [customers] are buying something expensive and buying something special, there should be a lot of handwork and craftsmanship involved to make them feel that their money is well spent.”

The customer’s desire for uniqueness and quality craftsmanship is reflected in the rise of luxury sportswear, as well. “There was a period where everything began to get very casual and I think many designers, even if they were designing sportswear, began to take a more refined approach to what they were offering. Not by changing the genre of sportswear entirely, but by offering luxe details or evening fabrics for daywear,” Daniella Vitale, chief merchant and executive vice president of Barneys New York, told BoF.

“I think there’s certainly evidence that in tough economic times, people tend to buy more unique things. They want pieces that are very special,” said luxury sportswear designer Christopher Raeburn, 2011 winner of the British Fashion Award for Emerging Talent in Menswear. “It’s very important that our garments have functionality, but our clients are really looking for something with high quality fabrics, as well as workmanship,” he added. “We’re very keen on the best levels of production that we can find,” said Raeburn, who makes his colourful anoraks crafted from reappropriated military materials and smartly-trimmed wool dress coats in England. Even his new range of jersey t-shirt dresses, featuring intricate prints and pockets, are made from English materials.

“The Barneys customer is looking for rare, exclusive product that has a strong price value and fits into their lifestyle,” said Vitale. “Frivolity is not in their vocabulary, which does not mean they will not spend money or pay a high price for something; it means they actually intend to wear it — more than once. And they want pieces that not everyone has.”

Indeed, although they inhabit opposite ends of the ready-to-wear spectrum, demi-couture and luxury sportswear share commonalities that are completely in sync with today’s luxury consumer: they both deliver high quality as well as high perceived value, either by virtue of being very special, almost one of a kind, or by being highly functional and enabling repeat usage over time.

Katharine K. Zarrella is a freelance fashion journalist.

John Galliano | Source: The Creator Blog

PARIS, France – The process of writing this season’s wrap-up left a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth. Looking back, several of the most salient themes from this round of fashion weeks involve unsavoury behaviour, gossip and highly unprofessional comments from some of the industry’s most important figures.

Whether it was John Galliano’s inexcusable anti-Semitic rant captured on video for the whole world to watch, the scrum of increasingly aggressive street style photographers hunting editors down like game before the shows, or the distasteful comments made by Patrick Thomas, chief executive of Hermès, regarding the stake built up in its business by LVMH, it seemed everywhere you looked this fashion week members of the industry were behaving badly.

With all the whispering, gossiping and backbiting going on, it’s surprising that anyone even noticed the clothes. So, let’s start with the clothes then!

1. OUTERWEAR EVERYWHERE AND A FEW FASHION PRINTS

Click here to view the embedded video.

Outerwear was everywhere this season, reflecting a growing understanding amongst designers that coats, jackets, parkas and ponchos get lots of wear and are the first statement of individual style, and therefore deliver a big bang for the consumer buck. Joseph Altuzarra, Alexander Wang, and Burberry’s Christopher Bailey were amongst the designers at the vanguard of this outerwear moment.

Thakoon showed one of the best collections of the season in a gilded hall at New York’s Plaza Hotel, with stunning contrasts of mismatched prints inspired by Masai tribes. It felt like we were in Paris, which I guess was the point as the collection also looked to French aristocracy for visual cues. The offsite location stood out from the increasingly chaotic spaces at Lincoln Center and Milk Studios. Ambience and atmosphere count for a lot when you’re trying to create a mood and put on a real show. Bravo Mr. Panichgul.

Rodarte and Proenza Schouler also delivered stellar collections, demonstrating the continued evolution of their own special design signatures. Proenza Schouler’s Navajo knits and prints were a knock-out, while Rodarte showed their second consecutive highly creative collection which one could actually envision hanging on a retail rail – and selling.

Although there were some great fashion moments in London, overall, the week was not as strong as usual. One notable exception was Mary Katrantzou, whose signature digital prints delivered massive runway impact in a tightly focused collection that for the first time expanded to new categories like knitwear, a smart way to expand her offering beyond dresses.

Jonathan Saunders’ collection of colour-blocking (and the surprise introduction of menswear!) proved he is definitely now back on firm footing in London after a hiccup during the seasons he spent in New York. And, Giles Deacon put out a focused fetishist collection that showed his more serious, sombre side. Indeed, for many an editor, his was the best show of London Fashion Week, and that hasn’t been something we’ve heard for awhile.

Ann Demeulemeester’s show in Paris was a beautiful vision of primal female warriors. Lanvin was gorgeous, as usual. Céline showed off the on-going evolution of Phoebe Philo’s “new minimalism,” with a more graphic and colourful show. And Rick Owens brought a kind of couture quality to his singular dark aesthetic of carefully constructed clothes.

2. THINK BEFORE WE TWEET

Derek Blasberg Tweet | Source: Twitter

It seemed like just another fashion month, and then, with the high-profile meltdown of John Galliano, everything changed in a matter of hours. Soon, the fashion gossip mill was in a frenzy, turbocharged by Twitter which made the whole situation more ugly as the days went by and speculation about Galliano’s successor intensified after he was first suspended, and ultimately dismissed by LVMH.

A tweet by Derek Blasberg from backstage at the Katy Perry concert in Paris, citing an anonymous source which ‘confirmed’ the widespread rumour that Riccardo Tisci would be named Galliano’s successor set off further speculation on websites and blogs, who sometimes took Mr. Blasberg’s comments as though they had come straight from an official Dior press release. I found at least one website that took the Tisci rumour and reported it as fact, without any mention of the source at all.

But Mr. Galliano wasn’t alone. Rumours about the futures of Stefano Pilati, Hannah McGibbon, and Christophe Decarnin dogged designers and lit up the internet throughout Paris Fashion Week, creating a virtual feeding frenzy of immense proportions. We were an industry feeding on ourselves.

So dear fellow members of the fashion Twitterati, let’s think before we tweet. Careers and businesses can be impacted by what may seem like an innocent bit of speculation on Twitter, but can quickly turn into boldfaced headlines on major fashion websites, a hugely destabilising force at the most critical moments during the fashion calendar. We are all still learning how to use this powerful tool responsibly.

3. STREETSTYLE PAPARAZZI

Click here to view the embedded video.

Over the past few seasons, the number of photographers outside the shows has ballooned as interest in street style photography (and street style stardom) has soared. It’s been an amazing phenomenon to observe as many previously behind-the-scenes women such as Yasmin Sewell, Caroline Issa and Taylor Tomasi now provide inspiration to hundreds of thousands of fashion lovers around the world, appearing in outfits that are often more interesting than what is on the runway.

But the rapid rise of street photography also has a darker side. The ‘bloggers walk’ in the Jardin des Tuileries, site of many major Paris shows, is now completely out of control. Indeed, it’s become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the aggressive paparazzi who stalk Hollywood celebrities outside bars and clubs and a few of the bad apples amongst the hordes of photographers that accost editors as they come in and out of shows.

Several street style bloggers told me confidentially that the competition is extremely fierce for getting the best photographs, which can then be sold on to global editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar each for as little as $200, but up to $1000 or more.

Word to the wise: if you build a relationship with the women you’d like to photograph, and treat them with a bit of respect, you’ll be much more likely to get a great shot where they look their best and aren’t running to avoid you. Chasing them around, getting in their way, and coaxing them to come out of their cars is a sure fire way of alienating the objects of your fancy.

The best streetstyle photographers are streetsmart and dashing figures who build passionate online followings for these fashion personalities through the power of their photos. They compose beautiful shots that are flattering to their subjects and still interesting enough to spark a conversation, reflected in the hundreds and hundreds of people who chime in to say what they think. And most of all, they are gentlemen (or gentlewomen.)

4. CONSUMER PARTICIPATION

New York Fashion Week | Source: Fabsugar

While there has been a general trend towards smaller shows and presentations, PR professionals tell me they have been dealing with unprecedented demand for seats, making allocations more and more difficult. At Céline, many senior editors from the UK were forced to stand and more than one front-row blogger complained to me about not having access to Givenchy or YSL.

But alongside the growing number of requests from traditional media, major retail outlets, boutiques, online retailers, bloggers, and social media managers, more and more consumers are no longer content to simply watch the livestream at home. They too want to attend the shows in person and be part of the action, a trend which was most apparent in New York.

For several seasons, American Express has been inviting its cardmembers to attend shows in its Skybox at the tents, but these attendees have been somewhat removed from view: observing as opposed to participating in the show environment.

In contrast, at the Jason Wu show, I was seated next to a section allocated to Nordstrom, which had chosen to give away most of its seats to top clients who had flown in specially for the event from across the country. Indeed, department store buyers told me the pressure to find seats for top consumers is “enormous.” If a woman spends more than $1m in a store, she has come to expect VIP treatment.

The enthusiastic ladies at the Jason Wu show asked me questions about what I did and were eager to learn about the fashion personalities in the front row. It was a refreshing conversation with people who were truly curious about fashion as a culture. That the clothes on the runway weren’t available to buy for several months was apparently not a concern.

5. IMMEDIACY VS. EXCLUSIVITY

Moda Operandi screenshot | Source: Moda Operandi

Other businesses were attempting to satisfy growing consumer interest in fashion week through pre-orders. Burberry and Proenza Schouler have been offering direct buying from the runway for a few seasons now. But this time around, there was a lot of buzz about Moda Operandi, the new fashion e-commerce business founded by Lauren Santo Domingo and my friend and former McKinsey colleague Aslaug Magnusdottir.

Their offering of high-profile flash sales of the latest runway collections from some of the industry’s most celebrated designers certainly had people talking. Having coined the term “pretail,” the Moda Operandi founders have also cleverly suggested that the insights gleaned from their sales will help brands to merchandise their stores and work with other wholesalers, knowing what styles are most popular based on real consumer data. And, because they take a 50 percent deposit on all purchases in advance, the business operates with a positive cash flow model similar to the one that made Michael Dell’s company famously successful. In the approximately 6 months between payment and delivery, Moda Operandi can use the deposits paid by consumers to finance the working capital costs of running its business, and also giving a much-needed deposit to designers, who can also benefit from upfront cashflow to finance production.

But relying on this kind of financial model also creates other restrictions. When a consumer pays for things on Moda Operandi, they can never get their cash back. According to the terms and conditions, returns are only possible for apparel and footwear products, and even then, only for store credit. Everything else is not returnable. Some women I spoke to weren’t deterred by this, and had already excitedly logged on to the website to shop, but others were bothered by having to take all the financial risk to buy clothes on Moda Operandi. Why not wait, they asked, for the clothes to arrive in store if they would have to wait 6 months for delivery anyway?

Meanwhile Tom Ford, in his usual contrarian approach, has defied the trend towards fashion immediacy and severely limited access to his collections, going so far as to having journalists sworn to secrecy and sign non-disclosure agreements about his presentation in London. Is Mr. Ford taking fashion a bit too seriously? Or, has he found a brilliant way to drum up even more interest in his clothes as they hit stores in a few months time by orchestrating a fashion media crescendo at the same time. Only time will tell.

One other website of note this season is my-wardrobe.com which has just had its first major facelift under former Grazia editor Fiona Mcintosh who joined as creative director in February. Naturally, there are flourishes of Grazia in the yellow highlighted design and snappy copy, a smart way to deliver on the company’s new everyday luxury strategy, fueled by a recent £6m investment injection from Balderton Capital.

Grazia of course is one of the most powerful sales tools for women’s fashion of the moment. Designers frequently tell me that if their designs are featured in Grazia, they sell out everywhere. As a weekly magazine featuring things that are in store now, I’ve always wondered why Bauer Media has not created an online version of its magazine to at least earn affiliate revenue for all the products it manages to sell, if not set up a full-fledged e-commerce site. It seems like a very big missed opportunity that my-wardrobe.com is now going after.

6. JUST NATALIE

Natalie Massenet and Jeremy Langmead | Source: Net a Porter

In an industry that has been named and shamed this season, there is at least one individual that is setting a good example.

Since our Fashion Pioneers interview last summer, Natalie Massenet has continued her ascent to the top of fashion’s tech elite, not by acting like a grand poobah but by focusing on building her business. Whereas so many in our industry can get complacent or become tyrants (or both!) once they are firmly ensconced in the front row, Natalie is the kind of leader who cancels a trip to New York Fashion Week to hunker down with the Mr Porter team in the days leading up to its widely anticipated launch.

The results show in her team. When they are in public, they show a stylish united front and in private they don’t backbite about each other. At work, they are professional and responsive, and show up when they say they will. If they are going to be late, they send an apology. They say thank you, and they care about the details too.

Net-a-Porter’s success is often attributed to its high quality content. But as the company builds new businesses, it is the seamless back-end operations which pick, pack and ship hundreds of thousands of fashion products and deliver them to 170 countries around the world that make a big difference. This has enabled the company to quickly launch two new businesses – The Outnet and Mr Porter –  in less than 24 months.

The lynchpin for all of this is the positive role model and force for innovation that Natalie represents in our industry. It’s no wonder that to many in the industry, she is now just ‘Natalie’ and that she has become a positive face for the fashion business to the rest of the business community and the wider world at a time when the industry has been tainted. Hers is an example we can all follow.

Imran Amed is founder and editor of The Business of Fashion

Shang Xia Cashmere | Source: Shang Xia

China’s homegrown luxury: Talking with Jiang Qiong Er (CIB)
“What does it mean to create a Chinese luxury brand from scratch? Jiang, artistic director and CEO of Shang Xia… does not bat an eye as she returns her answer: ‘I had a dream to bring about a renaissance of traditional Chinese craftsmanship.’”

New Luxury Frontier: A $5,600 Lotus Jacket (WSJ)
“Lotus jackets could further burnish the brand, which stresses textile innovation. As it competes with lower-cost production of wool and cashmere from China, Loro Piana has introduced other superluxury natural textiles, such as vicuña and so-called baby cashmere.”

Neiman Marcus Joins Borrowers Tapping Rally to Extend Loans (Bloomberg)
“Neiman Marcus Group Inc., the luxury retailer owned by private-equity firms, is offering to pay lenders more interest to extend maturities by three years on a term loan as it works to refinance $2.88 billion of debt.”

How luxury brands can move the needle with social marketing (Luxury Daily)
“No one-size-fits-all solution exists, but brand marketers need to sit down and think seriously about overall marketing strategies and which social media platforms would be the best complements.”

Katrantzou’s Crown (Vogue UK)
“[Mary Katrantzou was] named the winner of this year’s Swiss Textiles Award. The Greek-born designer… beat off stiff competition from fellow designers Jason Wu, Duro Olowu, Adam Kimmel, Juun J and Damir Doma.”

Peter Pilotto, Holly Fulton and Marios Schwab, A/W 09

LONDON, United Kingdom — Today marks the start of London Fashion Week, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the British Fashion Council and heralding the return of big brands like Burberry and Pringle and star talents who had left the city to show elsewhere, like Jonathan Saunders and Matthew Williamson.

But the strength of London has always been its emerging designers, whose creativity is born out of the unrivaled energy, top fashion schools and international fabric that make up London’s recipe for truly innovative fashion design. So, while it’s great to have the big brands back, we are also looking forward to seeing what’s in store from the newest crop of young designers.

The first place to look is Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East, which has an uncanny track record of picking out London’s future fashion stars. This season’s line up includes Heikki Salonen, who previously worked as Assistant Designer at Erdem, Central Saint Martins MA alumnus, Michael van der Ham, and Holly Fulton, who is showing for the second season under the Fashion East banner.

Fulton is excited about the coming season. “The intention is to continue the signature elements established within my first collection in order to consolidate my label. To create an association with the name which represents my design ethos,” she says.

Her key concept for Spring/Summer 2010 centres around the Eduardo Paolozzi image ‘Wittgenstein in New York’,  “when I saw this picture, it perfectly encapsulated the ideas and imagery within my head. The use of vibrant colour, skyscrapers and an homage to Art Deco.”

“There is constantly such an exciting array of designers coming out of London and over the last couple of years, they have been at the forefront of innovative print design,” says Thea Basiliou of Blonde Venus in Brisbane, Australia. “Designers like Mary Katrantzou and the amazing Peter Pilotto have been creating prints and designs that will always identify with fashion of our time.”

Katrantzou, who wowed the fashion flock with her Autumn/Winter 2009 collection of above-the-knee dresses with bold necklace motifs, delivered an aggressive feminine vision, steeped in modernity and graphic foreplay. Her collection was not for the faint of heart.

“I think print allows you to be bold. It’s more daring,” Katrantzou affirms. “Because of the recession, every piece you invest in should either be a great timeless garment or make a strong statement. A print will do that for you, it’s free spirited.” Katrantzou will show her new collection tomorrow, featuring prints inspired by “blown glass and the intensity of sound-waves.”

Print specialists Peter Pilotto and Christopher De Vos, who met whilst studying at Antwerp’s influential Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2000, will open Tuesday’s shows. “We like a modern wardrobe to be sort of timeless,” they say. “It is the woman’s spirit that attracts her to mix colour and prints.”

And finally, challenging notions of traditional knitwear has become the forte of designers like Louise Goldin, known for her short, body hugging knit dresses and swimwear, and most recently the Canadian designer Mark Fast.

“I believe that there is a growing attention to craftsmanship in fashion these days, as opposed to quick-fix disposable pieces. I am focusing on timeless classics,” says Fast.

And with that we look forward to what is shaping up to be the most promising London Fashion Week in years — for both the big brands and the up-and-coming talent — giving London a new creative and commercial edge that, with the right results, could place the city firmly back on the fashion map. Stay tuned.