Prada's Spring/Summer Covers | Source: Fashionista

Prada’s Spring Collection Lands 48 Covers (Fashionista)
“Last season it was Miu Miu, specifically that one appliqued dress, that kept appearing on cover after cover. This season, Prada’s spring 2011 is sweeping the glossy covers… So far Prada’s colorful stripey bananas collection has seen 48 covers (that we’ve counted) and starred in countless editorials.”

He’s Only Just Begun to Fight (NY Times)
“To many, Mr. Charney is not only a somebody but even something of a hero: finding a new niche in a saturated market for cotton basics by refusing to make them overseas… crusading for workers’ rights; and successfully marketing the idea that young adults should embrace their natural sexuality… But to others, he is a morally challenged provocateur.”

D&G Will Die; Long Live Dolce & Gabbana (WSJ)
“When Dolce & Gabbana said recently that it is folding its younger, less expensive D&G brand into its high-end line, many retailers were bewildered… But there’s another way to look at this wager: Consumers—savvier and more confident than ever about fashion—no longer pay as much attention to narrow tiers of brands…. what consumers really care about is the designers who stand behind them.”

Asos apprenticeships will keep us in fashion that’s made in Britain (Telegraph)
“It’s not something that can happen overnight: setting up training, let alone new factories, is a long and laborious process which has to be overseen by people who are qualified, understand quality, and know how to direct a fashion business. But how great that the likes of Asos are already kicking things off.”

Insiders | Chanel Metiers D’Arts – Lemarié (AnOther)
“Ever since Marie Antoinette added exotic plumes to her headdress to get herself noticed in 18th century French society, feathers have come to represent the ultimate in fantasy and female frivolity. But this recherché craft has dwindled over the years from nearly 500 ateliers in Paris in the 1920s to barely a handful now, chief of which is Maison Lemarié.”

LONDON, United Kingdom — This season, fashion brands embraced fashion film like never before, integrating digital videos more meaningfully into a wide spectrum of communications strategies, from Nicola Formichetti’s formidable social media machine for the House of Mugler to Tom Ford’s contrarian approach that defied the industry trend towards greater access and immediacy.

In past seasons, fashion films have often been geared at editors, buyers and other industry insiders, accompanying — and sometimes even replacing — runway shows and presentations. But as brands grappled with the tug-of-war between digitally-enabled consumers with real-time expectations and the challenging realities of syncing the physical atoms of their supply chains with the virtual bits of their digital communications, momentum swung in the direction of consumer-facing fashion films designed to coincide with the retail schedule and build intrigue around new collections, just as they hit stores.

Chanel launched a robot animation with terrific viral appeal to support its Spring 2011 makeup line, while Tom Ford synced the arrival of his first womenswear collection in stores with the debut of a film that captured his ultra-exclusive fashion show held last September. But our top honours go to Prada, which released an irresistible fashion film with just the right energy to match the stripes and monkeys of Miuccia Prada’s current collection and accompanying ad campaign.

The following is a BoF selection of what we think were the most compelling fashion films of the Spring 2011 season. As you sit back and enjoy the films, let us know which ones you like best.

… Continue Reading

Laura and Kate Mulleavy | Source: Displaced Bones

Rodarte Steps Up to a Widening World (IHT)
“Over the past year the fashion brand, created in 2005 by the sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy, made headlines not only for its distinctive ready-to-wear collections but also for its first foray into costume design… [Now] they have announced that they have been invited by Pitti W, the womenswear portion of Pitti Immagine, to be its special guests at its June capsule collection in Florence.”

Designers Focus On Trunk Shows; See Boost to Bottom Line (Thread NY)
“While it may seem old fashioned in the midst of the e-commerce boom (trunk shows, after all, were first popularized by Bill Blass following World War II), many designers are finding that nothing beats face-to-face time with their customers. And to rack up sales, many of them are spending months on the road with their most recent collection… $4,000 dresses don’t just sell themselves.”

Less Appetite for Luxury (NY Times)
“‘I realize how much I have wasted… This whole incident has changed people’s outlook’… Now, analysts say, the triple disaster has jolted the Japanese into a new reality, sapping the materialist, feel-good spirit and replacing it with a focus on helping others and a mood of back to basics.”

Prada soars ahead of Hong Kong listing (FT)
“Prada, the Italian fashion group, reported a surge in operating profit in 2010 ahead of an expected stock market listing in Hong Kong as early as May… Prada’s figures come amid a sharp rise in luxury goods sales among the largest European groups as consumers from China, but also the US, Europe and the Middle East snap up expensive handbags and shoes.”

Getting Ready for Jean Paul Gaultier (WWD)
“A talking facsimile of Jean Paul Gaultier will greet visitors to the exhibit of his designs making their debut June 17 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal… ‘This is not just a fashion show. You’re going to see at work a brain that uses the medium of fashion to influence pop culture and to reflect pop culture, and the technology that is going to be part of this is fascinating.’”

Stefano Pilati | Source: Fashion Squad

Balanced on Fashion’s Wobbly Pedestal (NY Times)
“In total, Mr. Pilati has been a designer for nearly 30 years, during which time he has had highs and lows, wrestled with drug abuse, and constantly questioned his place in fashion and whether the pressures are worth it.’I have worked and worked and worked hard again… I have been a monk here.’”

It’s Hard to Be Sexy (NY Times)
“Of course, all this is a big fat cliché; women, including Ms. McCartney, are much more complex than that. But it was interesting for Ms. McCartney, who isn’t known for straying far from her brand comfort zone, to take these sexual identities to such extremes. As a trying three-week run of shows winds down, you realize how difficult it is for designers to make new statements with sexy clothes.”

Cut from a different cloth (FT)
“There are, at most, just 300 Intha people who know how to harvest the wild lotus flower stems… About 200 others know how to extract the filaments and process these to skeins, which must be done within 24 hours of picking to prevent deterioration. When Loro Piana first came to Burma… he guaranteed to purchase all the fabric.”

Prada Shuns Milan for Hong Kong Signals Economic Shift (Bloomberg)
“Losing Prada highlights the struggles facing Borsa Italiana to gain new listings, said investor… The Italian exchange lost half its value in the past three years amid a dearth of IPOs and the drop in stock prices since 2007… ‘The Borsa’s troubles mirror sluggish economic growth and an exchange that isn’t as visible as others on a global scale… Companies that have a global market are looking elsewhere for success.’”

Nuturing by a Style ‘Angel’ (IHT)
“One woman in particular was overwhelmed with emotion at the Ackermann show: Anne Chapelle, the Belgian investor who believed in the designer and supported him, just as she has Ann Demeulemeester and has brought the Josephus Thimister brand back to life. Ms. Chapelle’s approach to designers is different from the big-bucks, big-brand style…. ‘My designers have to have their feet on the ground.’”

Proenza Schouler's Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez | Source: Fashionista

Chloe Sevigny interviews Proenza Schouler (Interview Magazine)
“It has been nearly nine years since Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez-both 23 and fresh out of design school… Their almost instantaneous rise through the realms of the fashion world as Proenza Schouler-seemingly so unscripted that they hardly had a business model when they began-is the stuff of lightning New York success stories.”

Prada autumn/winter 2011 at Milan Fashion Week (Telegraph)
“In a sublime statement about contemporary dressing, Ms Prada referenced the 1920s and 1960s – two of her favourite decades – dropped the waist to the hipline, mixed colours like Rothko, and invented a ‘trompe l’oeil’ sock-boot that was a fusion of sock and spat.”

Custom Tailors Enjoying a Boom (WSJ)
“‘People have come to realize that the expensive designer suit they are used to buying is made to fit a thousand other people,’ says Rome-based tailor Luigi Gallo, who has been in the trade for more than 30 years. ‘In addition, they’re paying a huge price for that logo sewed into the jacket.’”

Bulgari MBA is the first of a new generation (City AM)
“It makes perfect sense for luxury goods businesses to get involved with business schools. While many Western businesses have suffered since the downturn, luxury businesses, with their growing market in Asia, have proved resilient. The brands too know that they can no longer rely on domestic markets, but need serious business nous if they want to expand into these newly wealthy regions.”

Pierre Rougier: The Man Behind the Curtain (WSJ)
“His name may be unfamiliar, but his clients’, including Yves Saint Laurent, Versace and Jil Sander, are not…. As founder of PR Consulting, the New York–based public-relations agency that manages the image and press coverage of a stable of exclusive brands… his job is to keep the Americans, whose critical opinions drive international buying trends, in line.”