Chloe Raises the Roof at the Tuileries Tent in Paris | Photo: BoF

LONDON, United Kingdom — It was a fashion season of extreme weather. After the New York Fashion Week schedule was upended, first by an earthquake and then by the State of Emergency declaration that came courtesy of Hurricane Irene, an unprecedented heat wave in Paris threw buyers, editors and bloggers into a wardrobe tailspin.

The American editors were worst off, having packed for the European shows two weeks before Paris with no prior notice of the heat wave that was to come. After a few days of shows in impossibly hot venues, some of them resorted to ripping the sleeves off their outfits or just wearing their ‘airplane clothes.’

Brands tried to ease the pain. Fans were distributed at shows alongside champagne and much to everyone’s relief, Chloe arranged for the roof of the Tuileries tent to be removed for their show, letting in the sun and much welcome breeze. Meanwhile Net-a-Porter, always on top of a new market opportunity, delivered heat wave friendly clothes to editors caught without weather-appropriate attire.

But of course the real action was on the runway and in conversations between BoF and the good and the great of the global fashion tribe at a season filled with its fair share of events and parties.

Without further ado, it’s time to look back at Spring/Summer 2012, the season that was.

… Continue Reading

Steve Jobs | Source: Wired.com

Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011 (Wired.co.uk)
“The full legacy of Steve Jobs will not be sorted out for a very long time. When employees first talked about Jobs’ “reality distortion field,” it was a pejorative — they were referring to the way that he got you to sign on to a false truth by the force of his conviction and charisma. But at a certain point the view of the world from Steve Jobs’ brain ceased to become distorted. It became an instrument of self-fulfilling prophecy. As product after product emerged from Apple, each one breaking ground and changing our behavior, Steve Job’s reality field actually came into being. And we all live in it.”

A Sea Change in Style (IHT)
“The carousel of horses — and maybe the merry-go-round of the fashion world — twirled through the Louis Vuitton show on Wednesday, as the models stepped off the white horse roundabout, and the audience debated whether this would be the last LV show headed by Marc Jacobs.”

No sombre mood allowed on Paris catwalks (Reuters)
“Ending a month-long marathon of fashion shows which started in New York, fashion critics said the mood on the catwalk was upbeat and relaxed – in contrast with the gloomy media headlines they read in the papers while waiting for the show to begin. ‘I find this spring/summer season to be much lighter and uplifting than the others,’ said Linda Fargo, senior vice-president in charge of fashion at Bergdorf Goodman.”

SuperGroup fires off shock profit warning (Guardian)
“SuperGroup, the company behind the fast-growing Superdry brand, has fired off a shock profit warning after a computer glitch at its warehouse… The shares dropped 25% in morning trading on Wednesday after a misfiring IT system resulted in products being dispatched in small and extra large but not the sizes in between, leading to depleted sales. The company said the upset would wipe up to £9m off this year’s profits.”

Kanye West, Designer (Yawn) (NY Times)
“‘I gave you everything that I had,’ he said, one of his few printable remarks. If that is true, Mr. West faces bigger obstacles in life than credit-card debt. His show was described by those who attended as, at best, a disappointment, and yet the rapper could be found almost everywhere during Paris Fashion Week defending himself.”

Gucci Museo | Source: Oyster Magazine

Gucci Feeds Its Florentine Roots (IHT)
“The museum, housed in a 14th-century building in the Piazza della Signoria, is designed to honor the company’s leather goods legacy and to bring it into the 21st century by juxtaposing the innovation of bamboo-handled bags or luxe sports equipment with modern art… The idea of facing off past with present — under the slogan “forever now” — was the brainchild of Frida Giannini, the creative director of the famous brand.”

Paris fashion week strutting under cloudy economy (Reuters)
“Paris Fashion Week kicked off on Tuesday under a cloud of economic pessimism mixed with uncertainty about the creative direction of some of the world’s biggest fashion brands… After New York, London and Milan, Paris closes the season of presentations for next spring and summer with nine days of shows at which designers will be fighting for buyers and media attention amid worries about a possible economic slowdown.”

Cavalli Chief Sees Luxury-Goods Slowdown (Bloomberg)
“Luxury-goods companies should brace for weaker growth in 2012 asEurope’s sovereign debt crisis leads to a slowdown in spending, according to Gianluca Brozzetti, chief executive officer for designerRoberto Cavalli… ‘The luxury sector is not immune,’ CA Cheuvreux analysts including Pierre Lamelin, wrote in a note this month. They estimate that so-called organic sales growth across the industry will slow to 9 percent in 2012 from 15 percent in 2011.”

Hearst Passes 300,000 Monthly Digital Subscribers, Takes a Bow (All Things Digital)
“Hearst, which is about to sell its digital magazines via Amazon’s new tablet, wants the world to know it’s selling its digital magazines on plenty of other gadgets, too: The publisher says it is now racking up more than 300,000 paid digital downloads per month.”

20 Q&As: Gareth Pugh (Dazed Digital)
“In 1991, Gareth Pugh and Katie Shillingford were ten years old. They’re a bit older now – one is a successful fashion designer, and the other works as his stylist and senior fashion editor of Dazed. Graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2003, Dazed was the first to celebrate his work, featuring the red and white balloons from his BA collection on the cover in April 2004… Shillingford talks to her friend about life in 1991, and how the past 20 years have shaped their worlds.”

Bonnie Brooks by Norman Wong | Source: Montecristo Magazine

Room for Change (Montecristo)
“This encapsulates much of what has been transpiring at the Bay stores across Canada the last few years, a signal that Canada’s iconic department store is entering a new era. It follows the sale of the Hudson’s Bay Company to Richard Baker of the U.S. retail chain Lord and Taylorin 2008, and his appointment of Ms. Brooks to the leadership position at the Bay. Her assignment is to breathe new life into the company; founded in 1670, it is the oldest existing in the world.”

Letting the Light Shine Through (IHT)
“As hazy, or even dark, as the future might appear for the stock markets or in the international news, in fashion, at least, designers are letting the light shine through. ’Nacre at night time,’ said Giorgio Armani referring to the French word for mother of pearl, the gleaming natural underwater treasure that was the inspiration of a show that started with a projection of waves and ended with an image of moon on water.”

Specifications for the way we live now (FT)
“Ms Facchinetti, 39, has teamed up with Pinko, an Italian fast fashion/low luxury brand, to create Uniqueness, a brand predicated on the idea of affordable clothes that can be worn at any time, in any season, and that will be available online as they appear on the catwalk… She is part of a generation of talented and critically acclaimed designers, including Jil Sander and Olivier Theyskens, who fell foul of corporate politics in renowned fashion houses.”

How Street Style Changed the Frontier of Fashion Photography (The Cut)
“Tomasi Hill is a member of a new, elite class of fashion celebrities whose pictures (and shoes and bags and outfits) are fanatically snapped outside of fashion shows and events by street style photographers… These photographs, seemingly casual and snapped on the fly, now appear regularly on retail websites, blogs, and in ad campaigns and print magazines to demonstrate how “normal” people incorporate certain looks into their everyday outfits.”

Paris goes Gaga as international crowd gears up for new collections (Independent)
“At Thierry Mugler tomorrow night, creative director Nicola Formichetti will be showing a short film courtesy of superstar photographer duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, with his friend and collaborator Lady Gaga in the star role and releasing a new soundtrack… Paris is anything but parochial.”

Grace Coddington | Source: DKNY Times

Grace Coddington: Creative Indeed (Intelligent Life)
“Grace Coddington, the creative director of American Vogue, who turns 70 in April, has been a quietly revolutionary presence in the fashion world—first as a model, then as an editor—for half a century. But only since the release of the film “The September Issue” in 2009 has she been recognised in public—greeted by strangers who witnessed some of her creative battles and now see her as a reassuringly human face of fashion.”

Consumers: We want Gucci or Target. Forget the Gap (CNN Money)
“‘They are more high and low in the way that they are spending… High-end brands are holding ground among consumers, while spending at value oriented stores has also been pretty stable. It’s a tough place for mid-tier right now,’… referring to retailers like the Gap, Chico’s and Ann Taylor.”

How the Luxury Industry is Using the iPad (Luxury Society)
“Brands began developing applications to showcase collections and product ranges, and to communicate brand values and heritage. Gucci and Stella McCartney took the next step and released applications full of bespoke content: interviews with designers, creative directors, city guides, music recommendations… designed to fully engage the new digitally-driven consumer.”

Exit Paris, Winking (NY Times)
“My guess is it was a clever provocation. Mr. Jacobs would hardly be the first designer to have watched ‘The Night Porter’ or to allude to the obsessive and ultimately objectifying nature of high fashion. But he made no attempt to back away from this imagery in the wake of the Galliano scandal.”

Yohji Yamamoto’s London Moment (WWD)
“Thirty years after Yohji Yamamoto first presented his collection in Paris, the designer is having a moment in London… Yamamoto’s first solo exhibition in the U.K. will open at the Victoria and Albert Museum, along with two smaller shows dedicated to his work at the Wapping Project and the Wapping Project Bankside galleries in South London.”