Modcloth screenshot | Source: Modcloth

In Part I, we examined the innovations and infrastructural advances that have improved the historically poor economics of e-commerce and set the stage for a renaissance in online retail. Today, we explore some of new and exciting business models taking shape, the companies exploiting them and the challenges they face.

SAN FRANCISCO, United States — For years, e-commerce suffered from capital inefficiencies and complexities that pushed investors away. But in recent years, major infrastructural advances and the success of innovative start-ups like Gilt Groupe have rekindled investor interest and set the stage for an explosion of promising new business models including personal subscription, social merchandising, mass customisation and collaborative consumption.

PERSONAL SUBSCRIPTION

Opportunity: The model is relatively simple: consumers join a monthly club, complete a personal style survey, and are then shown a selection of products each month that they can choose to buy for a flat rate. While traditional online retailers struggle to gain and retain customer mindshare, and must constantly re-engage and convert customers to stay profitable, subscription style services generate far more predictable revenue streams. Subscription retailers also capture data on the tastes and size measurements of individual customers in order to deliver personalised product selections. This not only drives greater customer loyalty, but also enables retailers to better manage inventory risk.

Key Players:

• Shoedazzle offers personalised, stylist-selected shoes and accessories at affordable prices, delivered straight to doorsteps, and has attracted over 3 million members and over $60 million in venture capital from top tier firms.
• Beachmint has raised a total of $38.5 million and launched several subscription services across a number of verticals, working with celebrity designers, including jewelry site Jewelmint, launched with actress Kate Bosworth and her stylist Cher Coulter; Stylemint, launched with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen; skin care site Beautymint, launched with pop culture phenomenon Jessica Simpson; and shoe site Shoemint, launched with actress Rachel Bilson.
• Birchbox, an early subscription retail innovator, is a beauty subscription service that addresses product discovery and sampling and has raised a total of $11.9 million
• Manpacks is a convenience-focused men’s subscription service for staple male essentials like razors, underwear, socks and shirts.

Challenges: Competition in the subscription retail space is heating up, so we might start to see increasing churn rates. While subscription services have stickier revenues, they are vulnerable to cancellations. In order to succeed over the long term, they must continue to offer products that are constantly exciting and relevant to their customers. Multiple months of disappointment will most likely result in lost customers.

SOCIAL MERCHANDISING

Opportunity: Social merchandising enables retailers to collect consumer feedback on goods prior to buying them. Typically, consumers are asked to vote, comment or curate products (sometimes through contests), indicating their preferences in a way that generates hugely useful data that retailers can leverage to more accurately predict what will sell, better aligning supply and demand. Social merchandising also engages customers and drives greater loyalty.

Key Players:

• Threadless was one of the first online fashion retailers to let the crowd vote on their favourite t-shirt designs and determine which designs would be put into production and sold on the site.
• Modcloth, which raised $19.8 million in a Series B round led by Accel Partners in 2010, has experimented with a successful “Be the Buyer” program, which lets consumers vote on their favourite items, generating data that informs Modcloth’s merchandising strategies.
• ASOS now encourages consumers to vote on, curate and share the designers and products they fancy most, a sign that larger e-commerce sites are experimenting with social merchandising as well.

Challenges: With social merchandising, timing is a challenge. What consumers want today may not be the same as what they want in a few months time. So, for these feedback loops to be most effective, short cycle production and fulfilment are essential.

MASS CUSTOMISATION

Opportunity: Mass customisation lets businesses deliver individualised products to every single customer, based on the buyer’s choice of aesthetic, functional, or contextual components such as styles, colours, materials and measurements. The individualised tailoring of products has, traditionally, been too costly to scale. But mass customisation allows customers to participate meaningfully in the design of their goods, restoring individuality to the process, while leveraging the cost-efficiencies of mass production to make the model feasible. Customers get the exact products they want. And by offering goods that, by definition, cannot be found elsewhere, the model enables companies to differentiate themselves vis-à-vis competitors and build stronger, more engaged and loyal relationships with consumers. Plus, by getting commitment (and payment) at the top of the purchase funnel, mass customisers avoid the perennial issue of excess, end of season inventory that didn’t sell. Indeed, customers pulling — rather than companies pushing — product designs offers practical, emotional and economic advantages.

Key Players:

• Nike first launched its highly successful mass customisation platform NikeiD back in 1999, allowing consumers to add a personalised look and feel to select shoe models. Ten years later, following a 2008 redesign of the application, the company reported that the platform had “surpassed $100 million for the first time.”
• Zazzle and Cafépress, which earns over $100 million in revenue per year, are white label companies also active in the space.
• Burberry Bespoke allows customers to create trench coats to their personal specifications, choosing from a wide range of style, fabric, colour, embellishment and detail options.

Challenges: The downside of mass customisation is the increased cost and complexity of production, which is ultimately reflected in higher prices. Prices for Burberry’s custom trenches start at about $1,800, while special materials can bring the price up as high as $8,800. Customers derive greater value from personalised products and are willing to pay a premium for these goods, but it’s simply not feasible that every part of a product design will be customisable. The trick is identifying which key elements of a product to make customisable and offering the right degree of variability in order to provide a made-to-order feeling, while ensuring manageable and scalable production.

COLLABORATIVE CONSUMPTION

Opportunity: Collaborative consumption is the next generation of swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting, behaviours which are being re-energised through the growth of peer-to-peer marketplaces and other technology-enabled platforms. Sellers can get rid of used or depreciating assets, while buyers can consume the items’ residual value at a price point that is substantially cheaper than retail. Collaborative consumption also includes rental models. For high cost items, especially those that are fashionable or ephemeral, renting items often makes more sense and gives a new customer base access to products that would normally be outside of their reach. As a result of the troubled economy and the rise of flash sale and daily deal sites, consumers expect discounts as a matter of course and routinely seek out high quality or high design items at cheaper price points, creating an environment ripe for the growth of businesses built on collaborative consumption.

Key Players:

• Rent the Runway, a mail-order service which lets women rent designer fashion and is sometimes described as “the Netflix for fashion,” has attracted over 1 million members and secured over $30 million in funding from top tier firms Highland Capital, Bain Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
• Bag Borrow or Steal lets consumers rent designer bags by the week, month or season.
• TheRealReal, backed by start-up accelerator 500 Startups and other noteworthy angel investors, recently launched an online consignment store selling previously owned luxury fashion at prices as low as 90 percent below retail.
• I-Ella enables consumers to easily swap and exchange fashion.

Challenges: Peer-to-peer models faces obvious challenges around trust and quality control. And, as with any marketplace business, getting liquidity through a critical mass of products and users is essential, but challenging. The rental model is initially capital intensive, because a company has to purchase inventory upfront and absorb the depreciation and maintenance costs associated with each item, which creates barriers to entry for copycats aiming to get off the ground and achieve profitability. Overtime, the model can be lucrative, especially for companies that are able to make accurate assumptions around depreciation from wear and tear and the costs of upkeep.

Although winners are already emerging from the current explosion of e-commerce start-ups, we will continue to witness constant e-commerce innovation for the foreseeable future. Indeed, with only 9 percent of commerce currently being conducted online, there is still tremendous room for growth. Beyond the aforementioned approaches, a number of promising young companies are building businesses around innovative models like shoppable media (Joyus), multi-level marketing (Stella & Dot), curation (AHAlife), local shopping (Aisle50) and retail gaming (Lockerz and Sneakpeeq). And while venture capital investment is a symptom of a good market, not a cause, investment in e-commerce more than doubled from $1.06 billion in 2010 to $2.39 billion in 2011. This kind of interest from VCs will surely accelerate the explosion of new start-ups set to disrupt the retail industry in the months and years to come.

Elizabeth Knopf is a former investment associate and the co-founder of Sorced, an online showroom.

Nicole Farhi Ready-To-Wear Spring 2012 | Source: Style.com

Farhi Sold (Vogue)
“Nicole Farhi is on the cusp of a new wave of business expansion after private equity group Kelso Place Asset Management acquired a majority stake in the company. Kelso Place, which sold British luxury leather goods company Smythson in 2009, bought the stake from OpenGate Capital, which only acquired Farhi in 2010 for £5 million.”

High-End Brands Are Missing the Boat on Mobile, Study Finds (Mashable)
“In a ranking of 100 well-recognized fashion, beauty, hospitality, watch and jewelry, and retail brands, nearly half were deemed ‘feeble’ in their efforts. Only two-thirds of indexed brands have mobile-optimized sites, and yet a full third of those don’t allow consumers to shop from those sites, L2 noted. Many also fail to provide the full range of content available on their desktop sites, including product search and user ratings, to mobile audiences.”

Nike factory to pay $1m to Indonesian workers for overtime  (Guardian)
“A Nike factory has agreed to pay $1m in unpaid overtime to Indonesian workers in a move that could force other suppliers of multinational companies to follow suit. Nearly 4,500 employees at one of the sportswear group’s suppliers, the PT Nikomas shoe plant in Banten province, will be compensated for close to 600,000 hours of overtime clocked up over the past two years.”

Virtual dressing room eliminates need to take off your clothes (LA Times)
“At the Consumer Electronics Show this week, a Calabasas company was giving demonstrations of Swivel, a real-time virtual dressing room that takes a lot of the hassle out of shopping — no more long waits in the fitting room line loaded down with an armful of clothes, or the tedious process of getting dressed and undressed several times during one trip to the mall.”

‘Can I Help You?’ Irks the Web-Savvy Customer (NY Times)
“Self-service has long infiltrated the consumer experience, most recently with self-checkout at grocery stores. But the biggest factor affecting attitudes toward salespeople may be the amount of time people spend shopping online, which tends to be a solitary experience. In 2011, online shopping on Cyber Monday was up 22 percent over the previous year, according to comScore, which tracks Internet traffic.”

App Icons | Source: Blogversity

Online retailing: The mobile allure (FT)
“The transparency and convenience of ‘mobile commerce’ have given Americans the upper hand over retailers, according to Mr Thompson, who echoes the connect-and-inspire ideology of Silicon Valley when he says: ‘The consumer ultimately holds all the power.’ Indeed, for many traditional retailers, rising competition from the internet has capped sales growth, squeezed profit margins and forced them to re-evaluate how they use their store space.”

LVMH stake in Hermès reaches 22.3 pct (Reuters)
“The world’s biggest luxury group, LVMH, has increased its stake in leather bag maker Hermès to 22.3 percent and now has 16 percent of voting rights, according to a statement from France’s AMF stock market regulator. LVMH, which previously held 21.4 percent of its smaller rival, plans to continue buying Hermès shares ‘according to circumstances and the market situation,’ LVMH said in a filing to the AMF.”

Brand power helps Nike beat estimates (Reuters)
“Nike Inc’s quarterly results beat Wall Street estimates, as its swoosh logo attracted shoppers, especially in emerging markets, despite higher prices. Nike shares were up 3 percent at $96.65 in after-market trade on Tuesday, after closing at $93.63 on the New York Stock Exchange. Worldwide futures orders for the Nike brand, a closely watched measure of demand in coming months, grew 13 percent to $8.9 billion at the end of the quarter.”

Founder with an eye for design (FT)
“One of Mr Totterman’s ideas at the start of the business, was to ask Jean Paul Gaultier, the French fashion designer, if Inspecs could distribute Gaultier-branded spectacles in the UK. ‘At the time we had no design function – we were reliant on other people’s products and we felt we needed a big name if we were to get anywhere. To our surprise [Mr Gaultier] said, ‘Yes.’”

Sophie Theallet on Running a Fashion Business (Thread NY)
“Sophie Theallet worked under masters like Azzedine Alaïa and Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris before decamping to New York City to start her own label, which launched in 2007. Since then, she has racked up acclaim — including the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award, which she won in 2009 — and has dressed everyone from Jessica Alba to Michelle Obama.”

Uniqlo New York | Source: Covenants

Fast Retailing sets sights on US expansion (FT)
“Fast Retailing is poised to expand aggressively in the US, where it is opening its largest Uniqlo store on Friday, as part of its plan to globalise operations rapidly and reduce dependence on its home market… Fast Retailing, which made its name selling high quality, affordable, casual clothes, is accelerating its overseas build-up, with plans to open 200 to 300 stores globally each year for the next several years.”

Nike eyes $4 billion in China sales by 2015 (Reuters)
“Sports apparel maker Nike Inc has set a target of boosting its annual sales in China to $4 billion by 2015… The sportswear company had sales in China of about $2.1 billion last year, according to a market research firm cited by the Journal. In its fiscal first quarter ended Aug. 31, Nike reported China sales of $528 million.”

Is China’s elite looking for more ‘exclusive’ luxury? (Red Luxury)
“The upper echelons of society are getting a little more exclusive. Even in these demure economic times, luxury consumers need more than money to set themselves apart: patience and good taste are now more important in determining what’s haute and what’s not… The new frenzy of buying what is not just expensive but highly exclusive is being called hyperluxury…Much of Europe’s hyperluxury sector is being devoured by China, one of the fastest-growing emerging markets.”

Liz Claiborne to sell several brands, change name (Forbes)
“Financially struggling Liz Claiborne Inc. said Wednesday that it is selling its namesake brand and several others to concentrate on its Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand and kate spade fashion plates… Liz Claiborne is the latest company to adjust its business as the U.S. consumer market bifurcates into the high and low ends, essentially squeezing out the middle.”

Jean Paul Gaultier: From the catwalk to the big screen (Independent)
“It is 40 years now since Gaultier was talent-spotted by Pierre Cardin. The young would-be designer from the provinces (he was born in Arcueil) has come a very long way… Khelfa’s film is one of an increasing number of documentaries and dramatic features set in the fashion world. Whether Valentino: The Last Emperor or The Devil Wears Prada, Gaultier has watched most of them. However, he has mixed feelings about the way the camera has captured his professional world.”

Prada Spring/Summer 2012 | Source: Style.com

The Roman Spring of Ms. Prada (On the Runway)
“Miuccia Prada spent her summer vacation in northern Argentina. Karl Lagerfeld was at home in St.-Tropez, ducking camera-snapping tourists. Somehow, though, their spring collections brought us all to Italy, or at least our idea of an Italian holiday. Neither show was a movie-still occasion, but the cottony, upswept hair and glitter-coated eyelids at Fendi might make you think of a 1960s film star. The collarless, knee-length satin coats and pleated chiffon dresses at Prada did the same.”

Nike sees strong worldwide demand (Reuters)
“Nike Inc staved off margin pressure in the first quarter with strong revenue and price increases, and said it was confident about its position among peers as it heads toward the winter holidays… The world’s biggest athletic shoe and clothing maker topped Wall Street’s profit and sales estimates, and its shares rose more than 5 percent in after-hours trading.”

Milan floats a big idea (FT)
“Recently a new fashion store opened in Milan. This would not in itself be a notable occurrence, especially during fashion week, but this is a vast, 43,000 sq ft ‘directional emporium’… This is Excelsior, Italy’s first upscale concept department store in the Selfridge’s/ Barney’s mode.”

Milan fashion week: Dolce and Gabbana call an end to D&G (Guardian)
“Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, Milan fashion week’s kings of bling, can make anything look glamorous – even the usually rather downbeat business of closing a 26-year-old fashion label. Thursday’s D&G catwalk show, right, was as ever a carnival parade of bouncy, youthful glamour. D&G is the younger sister label to Dolce & Gabbana, and the D&G aesthetic has always appeared to be aimed at a woman with the taste of a cheerleader and the bank balance of a CEO.”

Kanye West recruits London students for debut fashion collection (Guardian)
“Somewhere in London, a nightclub full of fashion graduates are working for Kanye West. The rapper has reportedly recruited Central Saint Martins students to work on his Paris fashion week collection. Next week West is expected to make his prêt-à-porter debut, unveiling, er, something at the fashion world’s most important autumn/winter event.”

Taobao | Source: Jing Daily

Online shopping is growing rapidly in China (BBC News)
“Across China, online companies large and small are learning how to be effective e-commerce players – or fail like US goliath eBay, which was trounced by upstart Taobao back in 2006. In 2010, China’s online shopping industry had a turnover of $80bn, and grew 87% year-on-year. China’s 420 million internet users spend around a billion hours each day online – and last year, 185 million made at least one online purchase.”

Ferragamo shows resilience of luxury sector (Reuters)
“Up-market Italian shoemaker Salvatore Ferragamo posted first-half profits up by a third on Monday, adding to evidence that the luxury industry remains vigorous through the global financial turmoil… The Florence-based family firm, which is less profitable than its peers, said first-half core earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 59 percent to 83.8 million euros, with a margin on sales of 18.2 percent from 14.9 percent a year before.”

Combining Sports, Music and Fashion Raises Buzz for Sneaker Companies (Forbes)
“Buzz scores—which measure recent consumer perception—have been rising among 18-49 year-olds since early August for sneaker giants Adidas and Nike, corresponding to the companies’ recent advertising endeavors that combine together sports, music and fashion.”

Snapette Aims at Women Shoppers (All Things Digital)
“The majority of e-commerce sites share a single thing in common: They were built by dudes. That hasn’t escaped the founders of Snapette, a social photo-sharing app built by women, explicitly for women… The app, which launched in Apple’s App Store a few weeks back, focuses on the experience of shopping and leaves out buying altogether — for now.”

Lulu Kennedy: fashion’s fairy godmother (Telegraph)
“Kennedy is a fashion talent-spotter, founder of the venture Fashion East, which plucks emerging designers out of obscurity and gives them the chance to showcase collections to the style cognoscenti during London Fashion Week… Since 2000, star designers including Ilincic, Saunders, Richard Nicoll, Henry Holland of House of Holland and the Pringle designer Alistair Carr have all had their careers kick-started after being singled out by Kennedy’s gimlet eye.”

But what makes a good fashion film? And are these the same primary concerns that go into a good fashion photograph? While these questions have been circulating since SHOWstudio’s early experiments in moving image, this season, as the medium of fashion film matures, we saw the debate condense around two distinct points of view.

Some industry figures say that creating a successful fashion film is very different to creating a fashion photograph and underscore the primary importance of elements like narrative and acting. “What makes a good fashion film is exactly what makes any good film: direction, lighting, acting, script, sound,” said Diane Pernet, influential fashion blogger and founder of A Shaded View on Fashion Film. “These are elements that go beyond a static photo shoot,” she continued.

Ms. Pernet’s emphasis on the fundamentals of filmmaking was echoed by Alistair Allan, Digital Director at Dazed Group: “Anything near or over two minutes needs to have some form of narrative to keep the viewer engaged. The pace of editing is also important, as is the correct use of cinematography technique, which sadly a lot photographers don’t understand or sympathise with.”

Others think that great fashion films are driven by exactly the same concerns as great fashion photographs where the visual or stylistic story comes first. “I don’t think there are any rules when it comes to communicating a feeling, but for me, a fashion film is always led by the fashion — the lines, the colours,” said pioneering fashion filmmaker Ruth Hogben, who frequently collaborates with Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio. “Rather than film, it’s better to think about fashion: what makes a good fashion communication? It’s exactly the same as a photograph,” she emphasised.

Over the last two fashion cycles, we’ve brought you our seasonal ranking of the Top 10 Fashion Films. This season, the Top 10 includes powerful narrative films, like Karl Lagerfeld’s “Remember Now” for Chanel, as well as stunning films driven primarily by a stylistic story, like Ruth Hogben’s latest film for Gareth Pugh. We’ve also included “Act da Fool,” Harmony Korine’s controversial piece for Proenza Schouler, a piece that, we think, manages to place equal importance on narrative and visual storytelling. As you sit back and enjoy the films, let us know which approach you think works best.

(RSS and Email subscribers, click here to view the films).

1. Gareth Pugh S/S 2011 by Ruth Hogben

Starring a future-forward, silver-haired Kristen McMenamy, Ruth Hogben’s 11-minute geometric epic for Gareth Pugh captivated hundreds of editors, buyers and other industry insiders at Paris Fashion Week, where it was projected at giant scale in the Palais Omnisports in Bercy. Since then, it’s been beamed across the world via SHOWstudio and video sharing sites Vimeo and YouTube, entrancing thousands more. Directed by Ruth Hogben and conceived in collaboration with a close-knit team that included artist Matthew Stone, stylist Katie Shillingford and set designer Simon Costin, this is a film that puts fashion first, exploring Mr. Pugh’s S/S 2011 collection with laser-like focus. But the film also demonstrates with great effect how a designer can leverage abstract, visually-centered storytelling to perfectly communicate a collection and articulate a broader brand vision in one powerful communication.

2. Proenza Schouler “Act da Fool” by Harmony Korine

Proenza Schouler gave Harmony Korine, writer of “Kids” and director of disturbing features like “Gummo” and “Julien Donkey-Boy,” carte blanche to create this controversial film about teenage angst, resulting in what is possibly the most controversial fashion film released since the movement began a few years back. Shot in Nashville, Tennessee (where Korine lives) the film follows a group of African-American girls in as they drink, smoke, write graffiti and skulk around a schoolyard in Proenza Schouler’s Fall 2010 collection. “It’s about girls who sleep in abandoned cars and set things on fire,” said Korine. “It’s about the great things in life. The stars in the sky and lots of malt liquor.” While the film has attracted both severe criticism and praise — provoking a raging debate and discussion online — we rate it highly because it feels like an authentic piece of cultural content and perfectly integrates both narrative and visual storytelling by threading a poetic and mesmerising voiceover through a series of beautifully composed “moving stills.”

3. Chanel: Remember Now by Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld’s “Remember Now” for Chanel is a great example of a successful fashion film that’s driven primarily by narrative. Pascal Greggory stars as a veteran playboy who encounters a young and glittering group of friends played by a high-wattage cast including Elisa Sednaoui, Baptiste Giabiconi, Heidi Mount, Abbey Lee and others. We think the film nicely complements Mr. Lagerfeld’s nostalgic, Riviera-inspired 2011 cruise collection and tells a powerful brand story that perfectly captures the gilded and care-free hedonism of summer in Saint-Tropez. Mr. Lagerfeld’s cameo appearance is fun. But our favourite part is the brief intro sequence where Leigh Lezark plays Coco Chanel.

4. Iris by Barnaby Roper

Barnaby Roper’s techno-robotic “Iris,” starring Iris Strubegger, is a stunning visual experiment that dissects a range of fall looks from Stella McCartney, Miu Miu, Givenchy, Céline and Proenza Schouler. We love the way Roper — who has directed music videos for bands like Razorlight, Snowpatrol and Moby, alongside his work for fashion magazines — hypnotizes the viewer with his surgically precise editing technique. “It’s the rhythm of the edit that’s the key to the film, the key to all films,” said Roper in an interview with Nowness, where the film first appeared.

5. H&M Designer Collaboration Teasers (series)

H&M developed a brilliant short video teaser campaign to get consumers excited for the launch of their annual designer collaboration. Featuring stereotypical designer types like a man in a skinny dark suit and a woman in an extreme blouse and chunky jewelry, the series of black-and-white videos engaged viewers in a collective guessing game on the identity of the yet unannounced designer, dropping a sequence of clues specifically designed to lead fashion-savvy viewers one way, then another. Discussion raged on YouTube, spilled onto Twitter and sparked countless posts in the fashion blogosphere that named Carolina Herrera and Thomas Maier of Bottega Veneta among suspected collaborators, before the identity of the real designer was revealed to be Alber Elbaz of Lanvin. Overall, we thought this was a fun and highly effective use of the short video format that was intelligently conceived to generate positive conversation across the social web. Bravo.

5. Holly Fulton by Quentin Jones

“Holly Fulton” by London-based illustrator, animator and director Quentin Jones is a riot of flash bulbs, humming birds, lions and Manhattan skyscrapers that brought a great big smile to our faces, and recalled the signature aesthetic of one of London’s rising design talents. Commissioned by British Vogue art director Jaime Perlman for her experimental fashion platform TEST, we think the film is a perfect complement to Fulton’s bold and graphic, 60s meets Art Deco collection.

7. Burberry Acoustic (Series)

Debuting three days before the brand’s menswear show last June, the “Burberry Acoustic” series cleverly highlights the brand’s longstanding connection to British rock bands with a collection of nicely styled music videos that populate the brand’s YouTube channel and Facebook page. The short films feature Burberry product, integrate with in-store happenings and function as a kind of digital support platform for emerging British music talent. Plus, the music selection is great.

8. Chronology by Luca Guadagnino for NOWNESS

NOWNESS commissioned Luca Guadagnino, director of “I Am Love,” to create this abstract, surrealist film featuring a stunning Mariacarla Boscono in tightly edited highlights from the fall 2010 collections of luxury fashion etailer Net-a-Porter, styled by Cathy Edwards. In a characteristically sharp move from Net-a-Porter, famous for their shopable weekly web magazine and accompanying iPad app, the video content leads consumers directly to commerce opportunities. When the film launched, all the looks seen on Boscono — including fashion from Christopher Kane, Chloé, Miu Miu, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Sigerson Morrison and Azzedine Alaïa — were available for instant purchase.

9. Nike Gyakusou (Dark Edit) by Jamie Morgan

Jamie Morgan created this evocative film to launch the first collaboration between Nike Sportswear and Jun Takahashi’s cult brand Undercover: the Nike x Undercover Gyakusou performance running collection. The slow-motion visual treatment and playful yet deliberate soundtrack brilliantly capture the surreal sense of pace, stamina and inner focus that lies at the heart of performance running. We think the rain and smoke looks amazing as well.

10. Black Light by Suzie Q & Leo Siboni

Commissioned by Diane Pernet in collaboration with Vogue Italia, Suzie Q and Leo Siboni’s Blacklight appeared at A Shaded View on Fashion Film in Milan last May as part of a special series of one-minute fashion films inspired by “light.” The film plays on codes of fantasy and sporadically immerses the viewer in a blacklit netherworld to dramatic and haunting visual effect.

Did we miss someone? Which fashion films captured your imagination this season? Let the BoF community know which films you liked most.

Last month, to coincide with the start of the FIFA World Cup, Nike launched a three-minute film called “Write the Future”, featuring football superstars like Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba. According to web video analytics company Visible Measures “Write the Future” clocked a record 7.8 million online views in its debut week, underscoring the power of creating compelling digital content that consumers will voluntarily seek out and share with others.

Luxury fashion brands like Chanel have followed a similar strategy, creating their own digital content to earn attention and free media, and learning to think more like publishers in the process. But for all the recent buzz around “Write the Future,” Nike’s long-term digital strategy has focused less on marketing and communications initiatives and more on developing digital product and service platforms.

“Integrated digital technology will become what people expect,” said Mark Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nike, in a highly insightful and wide-ranging interview with Berlin-based magazine 032c. Indeed, with online running platform Nike+ (which uses digital sensors integrated into running shoes to measure, analyse and share performance data) executives at the sportswear brand have moved decisively to make digital media an integral part of their core product offering.

Since launch, Nike+ has had a meaningful impact on the company’s bottom line. So far, more than 2.5 million Nike+ kits have been sold, many to people who also purchase new Nike shoes that have a special recess to house the digital sensor. But importantly, Nike+ has done more than drive sales; it’s helped Nike fundamentally recast the relationship between brand and consumer.

“The Nike+ story is about much more than the revenues generated from product and accessory sales. What is fascinating is how the new offering catapulted Nike from being relevant to just one aspect of the runner’s exercise regime to being at the very centre of it. For a Nike+ customer, the Nike brand is no longer about just the product attached to his or her feet; it’s about the total exercise experience,” writes Harvard Business School professor Elie Ofek in a recent article entitled “Are You Ignoring Trends That Could Shake Up Your Business?”

Significantly, at the start of the recent World Cup, alongside “Write the Future,” Nike launched a new football boot called the Mercurial Vapor SuperFly II. With techie-sounding product innovations like “Nike Flywire” and “Adaptive Traction Technology,” the shoes are designed to enhance player performance. But each pair of boots also comes with a code that unlocks access to Nike Soccer+, a digital coaching program — available via web, mobile internet or iPhone app — that helps players improve their skills with insights and instruction from world-class players and coaches.

“We are creating the best performance boots available today,” said Nike Soccer general manager Bert Hoyt. “But combining this technology with the Nike Soccer+ digital coaching program means you are not just buying a boot, you are buying a total game improvement package.”

In the fashion industry, Louis Vuitton made an interesting move into digital products, back in 2008, with Louis Vuitton Soundwalk, a unique experience that activated the brand’s heritage and dedication to “the art of travel.” Designed to be played on Apple’s popular iPod and launched just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Vuitton’s Soundwalk was a perfectly synchronised audio journey through the physical streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, narrated by three icons of Chinese cinema.

But while Nike’s digital platforms endure over time and complement the brand’s primary revenue driver — shoes — Louis Vuitton Soundwalk was a more tactical initiative that was never integrated into Vuitton’s primary product: their bags.

Louis Vuitton’s on-going “Journeys” campaign — which currently features football greats Zidane, Maradona and Pele alongside Vuitton’s monogrammed luggage — suggests that travel can be an emotional and personal journey of discovery. But what if Louis Vuitton was able to integrate digital technology into its travel bags to actually make this promise a reality, enabling frequent travelers who own Vuitton to turn routine business trips into meaningful journeys through luxury digital services?

In the market for luxury fashion, the dream is most important. But today’s affluent consumers live active and digitally-enabled lives. Increasingly, there is an important opportunity for forward-thinking luxury brands to leverage integrated digital technology to help their clients experience things, not just dream them.

Vikram Alexei Kansara is Managing Editor of The Business of Fashion

Manish Arora A/W 09, courtesy of Coutorture

Indian designers make their mark with craft (IHT)
During Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, designers are making a mark through artisanship.

Nike realigns global footprint (Just Style)
Sporting goods giant Nike last week unveiled plans to reorganise its namesake brand into six regions with reduced management in a bid to make its operations more efficient and trim costs.

Tiffany’s Reports Sales Declines (Seeking Alpha)
“Tiffany’s has exceeded earnings expectations five of the last six quarters, which seems to suggest that analysts underestimate Tiffany’s ability to sell in a tough consumer spending market. However, the declines in sales are serious and a real cause for concern.”

H&M and Zara top Retail Best Brands list (H&M)
According to an Interbrand report, H&M & Zara are in the top 5 of most valued retail brands.

Inflation surprises and jumps to 3.2% (FT)
“Inflation as measured by the consumer price index rose to 3.2 per cent in the year to last month, up from 3 per cent in January.”

A difficult balancing act

Karl Lagerfeld Discusses Luxury Internet Sales with European Commission (WSJ)
“The explosion of online retailing leaves fashion houses with a difficult balancing act between exclusive image and exposure.”

Fashion Sees The End Of The Runway (Forbes)
“The catwalk’s diminishing presence doesn’t come as a major surprise considering how much the role of the runway has changed over the years.”

Inside a Fashion Label’s Scramble to Survive (WSJ)
The Wall Street Journal profiles Five Four, a menswear label that is, “scrambling to survive.”

Nike’s ongoing restructuring (Just-Style)
Nike’s 1,400 job cuts are due to its restructuring plans rather than the economy.