Vivienne Westwood | Source: Entrelinhas e Botoes

Westwood: From outsider to subversive insider (FT)
“This coming week marks 30 years since Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s ‘pirate’ collection stormed the runway in London with a blaze of sunshine colours and ethnic prints. The show was Westwood’s first swagger on to the catwalk, forging a sophisticated post-punk aesthetic with a billowing new romantic silhouette.”

Duffy Sued (Vogue UK)
“LVMH has defended Robert Duffy against claims made by a former Marc Jacobs chief operating officer, alleging that the company’s president is guilty of sexual discrimination and using company money for personal expenses.”

Oxford Street to receive £1bn makeover (Fashion United)
“East Oxford Street is about to get a makeover. The New West End Company, which represents 600 businesses in London’s West End, has revealed over £1billion of private and public sector investment… set to be injected into the East end of Oxford Street by 2016.”

H&M Profit Misses Estimates as Retailer Absorbs Cost Rises (Bloomberg)
“H&M, the world’s second-largest clothing retailer, reported first-quarter profit that fell more than analysts anticipated as the company decided against passing on higher costs to customers.”

Rise: Camilla Bruerberg (Dazed Digital)
“Camilla Bruerberg is a Norwegian menswear designer who founded her label C/BRUERBERG in 2010 at Oslo Fashion Week. Her latest collection, SOUP, uses a variety of different materials to create pieces focused on the fusion of knit and digital print.”

A burst of colour at Burberry A/W 2011 | Source: Style.com

In High Definition Color (IHT)
“Orange, marigold, lagoon blue and purple — the start of the Milan menswear winter season has been drenched with color. High Definition vision is the message from designers who seem determined to look forward… and to put a brighter perspective on autumn 2011.”

Publishing, Without Publishers (NY Times)
“Luxury brands have always advertised in the likes of Vogue, Esquire and Architectural Digest and tried… to get mentioned in the editorial pages… [But now companies] are reaching out directly to consumers — and cutting out the middlemen.”

Next big trend: virtual fitting rooms (FT)
“Augmented reality, also known as interactive video technology… is set to transform the consumer experience. ‘It’s the next step in creating a seamless experience for the consumer at home, closing the gap between the store and online shopping.’”

Richemont Sales Rise 33 percent (Bloomberg)
“Richemont SA, the world’s largest jewelry maker, said fiscal third-quarter revenue rose 33 percent, helped by Asian sales of watches and the acquisition of online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter.com. Revenue in the three months ended Dec. 31 increased to 2.11 billion euros.”

Robert Duffy charms Tokyo (TokyoWeekender)
“The success of American fashion genius Marc Jacobs is in large part due to early support from Japan. His namesake brand’s co-founder, Robert Duffy, was in Tokyo to talk about the new Aoyama flagship store and navigating his unique relationship with the designer.”

Robert Duffy and Marc Jacobs | Source: Twitpic via @robertcduffy

In our latest CEO Talk, Robert Duffy, longtime business partner of Marc Jacobs, speaks to BoF about the power of Twitter.

NEW YORK, United States — When Robert Duffy posted his first-ever Tweet on 30 January, saying “Welcome Tweeties,” he had no idea what he was getting into. What happened in the weeks that followed is an excellent lesson for fashion executives everywhere: the best way to understand social media is to use social media.

You see, Robert Duffy had never used Twitter before. In fact, he didn’t really even know what Twitter was until a member of his team introduced it to him. Eventually, he warmed to the idea of using Twitter to share the behind-the-scenes action of the Marc Jacobs show, still the highlight of New York Fashion Week even after 26 years in business.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing. On his second day of tweeting, Duffy accidentally deleted all of his tweets. In the days that followed, he learned about direct messaging and retweeting and privacy on Twitter. Still, Duffy stuck with it. He began each day by getting on his stationary bicycle and reading the hundreds of tweets that had come in over night, listening and responding to feedback and questions on stores, customer service, the Marc Jacobs website, and — music to our BoF ears — how to run a fashion business.

Soon, Robert became an expert tweeter, not only on the techniques and norms of using Twitter, but also by speaking authentically in his own voice and even sharing a few private moments with Marc Jacobs himself. This authenticity resonated across the fashion Twittersphere in thousands and thousands of retweets, and spreading to blog posts and articles in the mainstream media.

By February 13, the power of Twitter had really dawned on Duffy: “I have learned much from doing this,” he tweeted. “Am really better for the experiance [sic]. You talk to the whole world in 1 second. Takes no time. Amazing!”

Still, he announced to his almost 7,000 followers that he would be hanging up his Twitter hat. And yesterday, after the Marc by Marc Jacobs show, his @robertcduffy handle was transformed into @MJInternational, leaving room for an as-yet unnamed someone else to fill Duffy’s shoes.

In a very special exclusive CEO Talk for The Business of Fashion, I caught up with Robert Duffy backstage before the Marc by Marc show, armed with questions from our loyal BoF followers, to learn more about his Twitter experience.

BoF: Thanks Robert for speaking to BoF. First of all, what exactly prompted you to start tweeting?

Well, Daniel who heads up our website came to me and asked if we could stream the show live, and I said “Yes.”

Then he said “Can we Twitter?” and I said “I don’t know what it is but do you think it’s a good idea?” He said “Yes.” Then he came to me two days later and said “Can you get one of your celebrity friends to Twitter?” and I said “What is Twitter exactly?” Once he explained it to me I said “Absolutely not. Who’s going to do that for two weeks?”

And he said “Well if we want it to be real and accurate and describe what it’s like to put on a show, the only people who could do it would either be you or Marc.” And so that is what we did.

BoF: People have been giving you tons of feedback via Twitter. Last night you said you received 386 tweets after the show. Someone else sent you feedback about a party in Copenhagen. And others have commented about the service in your stores. Have you been acting on this feedback and could you envision using it as a tool for customer feedback going forward?

Oh yeah, absolutely! I don’t know exactly how many thousands of tweets I got, but I have been looking at them every day. I can see my phone on my TV while I am on my stationary bicycle in the morning, so I’ve been reading all the tweets and questions. I like that people feel like they are connected to the company. It’s a real pleasure.

People thought I was being sarcastic when I was responding to that guy from Copenhagen about the party, but I really did send an email out to respond. I’m checking on it. He direct messaged me back saying “Thank you.”

A lot of things have happened which have been very touching. There were some kids that didn’t have any money and were trying to do stuff and so I hooked them up with some people that might help them. And one customer’s fantasy in some country was to own this thing and he couldn’t get it, so we sent it to him.

There were a lot of fun things that went on behind-the-scenes that I really enjoyed.

BoF: You’ve been taking pictures of Marc and sending them out with little messages. What does Marc think about Twitter?

Well actually he used Twitter a couple year ago, for about a day and a half. I think that he was a bit overwhelmed by it.

BoF: But he likes that you are using Twitter?

I don’t know, I haven’t asked him. But, yeah, I think he must. I’ll ask him…he is here somewhere.

BoF: Unlike a lot of new Twitter users, you’ve developed a real following and an authentic voice. You have said that you’re going to stop tweeting as soon as this show is over. I asked some of our followers if they had any questions for you, and a few of them just wanted me to encourage you to continue tweeting…so who could replace you?

It’s going to have to be someone that travels with me, perhaps one of my assistants or somebody that can use my voice.

I have to run a company — a very large company. I’m busy. During these two weeks I am with Marc constantly. We are side by side for the two weeks before the show. I mean we are already working 18 hours a day everyday, Saturdays and Sunday. I get up every morning at 5:30, as everybody that writes me and tweets me knows.

But, I do read them all. Reading takes the most time. Sending a tweet tweet takes only 30 seconds.

BoF: Speaking of which, have you been writing all the Tweets yourself or has someone else been helping you?

I wrote every single one. And, by the way, I’m so sorry for the spelling. I went back and read some of it and went “Oh my God!”

BoF: What is the one biggest thing you learned from your time as a Twitterer these past couple of weeks?

I’ve learned that there are a lot of kids that want advice on how to run a business. There are a lot of kids that need a break and that there are a lot of people that don’t understand how hard it is to make it in any business. I explain to them that it took Marc and I so many years. I mean, we’ve been in business 26 years and we didn’t make any money until year 20.

BoF: Why have you found these tweets from students so inspiring?

Because I’ve been there. I don’t want these kids to give up, you know? I can see how discouraged they are. And I know that if Marc and I weren’t together we would have probably given up too.

And I want to say to them, especially the ones that have talent (they send me pictures and stuff!): Don’t give up. Find a way to do it. I had to. Marc had to. We are still working two jobs to support this. But, don’t do it to become famous or to become a celebrity or it because you think it’s easy. It is not.

We started in 1984. When did people start hearing of us? 2000? Do you know what I mean? Do what you love because really if you do it, you’ll get so much satisfaction in the end.

Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion

CEO Talk is an ongoing series of discussions with fashion entrepreneurs and business leaders. Previous interviews are listed below:

• Natalie Massenet, Chairman and Founder, Net-a-Porter
• Camilla Skovgaard, Shoe designer and Entrepreneur
• Susan Lyne, Chief Executive Officer, Gilt Groupe
• Priya Kishore, Founder and Creative Director, Bombay Electric
• Alex Bolen, Chief Executive Officer, Oscar de la Renta
• Jeffrey Kapelman, Chief Executive Officer, Hilldun Corporation
• Bonnie Takhar, Chief Executive Officer and President, Halston
• Sara Ferrero, Chief Executive Officer, Joseph Group
• Paolo Fontanelli, Chief Executive Officer, Furla
• Stella Iishi, President and Founder, The News Inc.
• Greg Furman, Founder and Chairman, Luxury Marketing Council
• Sarah Curran, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, my-wardrobe.com
• Brian Hill, Chief Executive Officer, Aritzia
• José Neves, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, farfetch.com
• Federico Marchetti, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, YOOX Group
• Sojin Lee, Co-Founder, Fashionair.com
• Harold Tillman, Chairman, The British Fashion Council
• Christopher Colfer, Chief Executive Officer, Alfred Dunhill
• Pierre Mallevays, Founder and Managing Partner, Savigny Partners

Robert Duffy | Source: Style.com

The Future Of Fashion, Part One: Robert Duffy (Style.com)
“That unflappability has presumably served Duffy well over the last two and a half decades, as he and Jacobs have gone from being the self-described “rebels” of American fashion to becoming the leaders of a global mega-brand. During our conversation… he talked about his experiences with tweeting and live streaming.”

Rewarding Men With a Store of Their Own (WSJ)
“High-end fashion has long catered to women more than men. Hermès and Coach are the latest fashion houses making new efforts to shrink the gender gap.”

New York Fashion Week Gets Techy (WSJ)
“New York fashion week officially kicks off Thursday morning, in what will assuredly be the most open-and-available shows to the public ever. No, that doesn’t mean just anyone can walk into the tents… But if you’ve got an Internet connection, you can do the next best thing: watch a live-stream of the show online. Fashion has finally gotten technology.”

Fashion’s Online Numbers Game: Faking an Audience (Signature 9)
“Despite a straightforward statement to the contrary, wildly inflated numbers about fashion blogs and websites abound. Sometimes the numbers come from the bloggers and websites themselves – with no verification, other times they’re seemingly pulled from thin air.”

Who Sits Where at Fashion Week and Why (Vanity Fair)
“While everyone knows that front-row seats are reserved for celebrities, V.I.P.’s, and important editors, very little is known about the strategic process that goes into filling the chairs where everyone else sits.”

Kate Moss for Longchamps | Source: Longchamps

Kate Moss: Bags of Style (IHT)
“‘I am not doing it for different personalities — it’s what I like,’ says Ms. Moss — or Kate, as she is known. At age 36, she has taken another step in her second life, as a designer rather than as a supermodel using her pretty face and sensual lips to promote other brands.”

Esprit 1st-Half Net Profit Down 5.2 percent; Beats Forecasts (WSJ)
“Fashion retailer Esprit Holdings Ltd. said Wednesday its first-half net profit fell 5.2% percent from a year earlier as a disappointing wholesale business offset the improvement in its core retail operations.”

Abercrombie & Fitch’s Style Sense Wears Thin With Some Shoppers (WSJ)
“Retail analysts said Abercrombie’s troubles go beyond pricing to its once unerring sense of style, a problem that could be trickier to fix. The logo T-shirt and torn jeans ensemble that Abercrombie made the unofficial school uniform a decade ago has played out.”

Marc Jacobs to Stream Show Live While Robert Duffy Hypes It via Twitter (NY Magazine)
“Further democratizing the Fashion Week process, Jacobs’s business partner Robert Duffy just started tweeting to document Marc’s progress on the collection.”

Luxury in 2010 (CNN)
“Is there a luxury hotlist for 2010? CNN’s Ayesha Durgahee reports.”

This past week in New York, I visited the Marc by Marc Jacobs store on Bleecker Street, the little brother store to Marc Jacobs mainline collection. Both businesses are owned by LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods conglomerate. Marc Jacobs is also the Creative Director for Louis Vuitton, the company’s largest fashion brand. So, you might expect that the company feels corporate and over marketed.

Thus, it was a pleasant surprise to walk into the Marc store and see a huge yellow chicken mascot sitting in the store window. A (suitably cool) photographer named Thom was taking photos of customers posing with the chicken and then posting them in the store windows for all to see.  As Thom explained, the tradition of taking these kinds of photos goes back years in Marc Jacobs history to Marc’s infamous Christmas parties, where extravagantly dressed up patrons would pose together as momentos of the party. You can check out some of these photos on Thom’s website.

By translating this fun experience into the store, customers are engaging with the Marc Jacobs brand in such a cool way, that is not staged or fake, but an authentic part of Marc’s lifestyle and appeal. Some more photos of the instore antics are below.

This is a really great initiative from the CFDA and other venerable fashion names like Barneys New York and Vogue. That said, I have one suggestion to make it even more powerful. I believe the CFDA should supplement the business mentoring and cash with a requirement and access to funding for the winning designers to find a suitable day-to-day business partner/advisor. While mentoring from an experienced fashion business executive is priceless, it does not make up for daily support and partnership.

I have made this point before, but so many young designers try to do everything on their own, and this means they deal with areas where they might not have any formal training or expertise. One look at the long list of established designers who have relied on business parters to act as thought partners on day-to-day decisions and to share the workload, shows that this is a real pattern of success in the industry.  Marc Jacobs (who has Robert Duffy), Miuccia Prada (has always worked with her husband Patrizio Bertelli), Tom Ford (who with Domenico De Sole turned Gucci around from a fuddy duddy backwater brand), Giorgio Armani (Sergio Galeotti worked with Armani for years before he passed away), Valentino (Giancarlo Gianetti is still his business partner, even if he is no longer his life partner), and Derek Lam  (Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann) have all shown that this tandem approach can help to get the business off the ground properly, allowing the designer to focus more on the creative aspects of the business.

This ad above, from today’s WWD, lays out all of the requirements and the application procedure. Good luck!