David Beckham for H&M | Source: Zap 2 it

David Beckham Fetes H&M Launch in London (WWD)
“It takes an unusual amount of sex appeal for a man to make a pair of long johns look good — and David Beckham has pulled it off. After serving as the face and body for Armani Underwear, Beckham decided to develop his own range together with his business partner and manager, the entertainment mogul Simon Fuller.”

Yoox Chief Marchetti Raises Stake, Forecasts Strong U.S. Growth (Bloomberg)
“Yoox Chief Executive Officer Federico Marchetti raised his stake in the online retailer of fashion and luxury goods after exercising stock options, saying the Italian company is being undervalued by investors.”

Fashion Changes, and So Do the Magazines (NY Times)
“Glamour’s newsstand sales were down substantially last year, by 17 percent through June and (as submitted to the Audit Bureau of Circulation) 9.9 percent in the second half. Most women’s titles were down. Part of the problem, it would seem, is that by exploiting a winning formula, fashion magazines have made themselves indistinguishable.”

Fashion Tech Boom: Why It’s Happening  (Fashionista)
“Last year saw a major influx of new fashion-focused tech startups. With the early success of pioneers like Gilt Groupe and Ideeli, an industry that has typically been slow to embrace new technology has spawned a burgeoning community of game-changing ecommerce sites, mobile apps and social networking and discovery platforms.”

An Intellectual Fashion | Scott Schuman (AnOther)
“Scott Schuman is the founder and editor of the iconic fashion blog The Sartorialist which he set up in 2005. He achieved considerable influence with his photographs taken in the streets, a selection of which was published as a book by Penguin in 2009.”

Scott Schuman | Photo: Garance Doré

Scott Schuman’s rise to international blogging fame is well known, but until now he has never discussed his business model in detail. In our latest instalment of The Business of Blogging, BoF gets the exclusive on how The Sartorialist makes bank

PARIS, France — With high-profile campaigns for Burberry and DKNY Jeans, a best-selling book, and a place on TIME magazine’s 2007 list of Top 100 Design Influencers, Scott Schuman is the streetstyle blogger that paved the way for hundreds of others who have followed in his trailblazing footsteps. For the fashion flock, being shot for The Sartorialist website is still the ultimate badge of honour.

But Mr. Schuman’s influence is felt far beyond the blogosphere. His beautifully framed photos, which feature fashion insiders and football fans alike, now appear on mood boards in design studios around the world. His photographic style has inspired countless advertising campaigns and editorials.

This week, as he celebrates his blog’s sixth anniversary, traffic numbers are spiking. The Sartorialist had around 13 million page views last month, a 44 percent increase over the same month last year, something Schuman attributes to a recent site redesign for which he manually re-tagged more than five years of posts himself, enabling visitors to more easily search his growing archive.

This could turn out to be a particularly savvy investment of time and money. If current traffic levels are sustained and significant portion of the advertising inventory on The Sartorialist is sold, it could theoretically make Scott Schuman fashion’s first million dollar a year blogger.

According to Mr. Schuman, The Sartorialist was originally inspired by Brooklyn-based writer Grace Bonney’s interior design blog Design*Sponge. “I could tell she was doing it by herself and I liked the idea that she was having an interaction,” he said. “She had like 30 comments on a post and I thought that was really cool.” Schuman decided to start a similar blog for fashion after examining a series of photos he had taken of a few stylish guys in New York’s Fulton fish market while on a photography course.

Since these beginnings, the fashion industry has witnessed an explosion of ‘front-row’ fashion bloggers, something that has not always pleased Schuman, at least not at first. Last week, a controversial interview with Schuman was published, showing Schuman’s apparent disdain for some of his much younger blogging peers. “I’ve kind of changed my mind [about that],” he told BoF, looking back with some contrition and pointing out that the interview in question is more than 18 months old. “With everybody, our relationships have really evolved. As I got to know Bryanboy and Tavi more, I’ve come to respect their seriousness of it. It’s a struggle to try and build [something] and still maintain who you are.”

But even if he is now more at ease with his blogging brethren, from the beginning Schuman understood the value of strategically associating himself with the mainstream fashion media, who took interest in his photographic style. “There were no important blogs at that time, so [I needed] to saddle up with someone to get that stamp of approval,” he explained. “The very first season, Style.com called me. They took a chance and said ‘Why don’t you [cover the shows] for us?’ They didn’t pay me very much money, but I give them credit for just taking that chance.”

“I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Style.com was the internet place to be; GQ was the men’s magazine to be [in],” he said. “The one thing that really helped was that I really took full advantage of every opportunity I was given. I worked my ass off, posting every night on my blog and Style.com. I remember the first time I went to Milan I had four meals in five days because I just didn’t stop. I had to get to the shows.”

But once The Sartorialist began to attract serious global attention, Schuman left these high-profile gigs behind to focus on building his own business. With his newfound independence, Schuman knew he would have to build out his own revenue streams. “You have to constantly spread out your streams, so if one stream starts to dry up you can go on,” he said. “The only stream coming in the beginning was working with GQ and Style.com.”

In 2008, James Danziger called. His eponymous gallery in New York hosted an exhibition for Schuman, selling his prints as “increasingly accomplished works of art in their own right,” according to the gallery’s website. The exhibit was an instant success, selling more than fifty prints at prices ranging from $1500 to $4000 each. But this proved not to be a stable source of income, said Schuman. “You don’t do an exhibit every year, so you’re constantly asking yourself how am I going to make that money next year?”

Mr. Schuman began thinking about his blog more deeply. “At the very beginning I had to decide: do I want this to be a blog about fashion, or do I want it to be an artistic photographic thing? I kept going back and forth. At some point I think I finally decided that I didn’t want to be a magazine. I decided to take a more photographic route.”

Schuman cites as inspiration the photography of documentary style cameramen like National Geographic’s Steve McCurry, the man behind the now-famous June 1985 cover photo featuring an Afghani girl with haunting sea green eyes. Looking at Schuman’s photos, you can sense that he is trying to capture the inner spirit of his subjects, not only their fashion sense. “I’m not reporting on a bag; who’s carrying what bag and who’s wearing what dress. I’m not reporting on people,” he explained. “What I am looking for is a certain grace.”

Schuman frowns upon the idea of putting a price on posts that appear in his content feed. “What I don’t like is advertorial posts that are under the table. When I did the Burberry thing – it’s Burberry, a humongous company with such control – and yet I shot that whole thing just like I would shoot everything,” he said, referring to his work for the British megabrand’s “Art of the Trench” social media campaign. We cast some of the people, we got people from the blog. Some people had their own Burberry coats, some people we gave them. I was very proud, so I shot 100 of them and I picked nine that I really loved [and said to my readers] ‘Here is the link to this Burberry project that I did.’”

Schuman has also worked on a product collaboration with American skin, hair, and body care brand Kiehl’s, creating a dopp kit with a variety of Kiehl’s products in exchange for a fixed fee. “We had Luca Roda manufacture it in Italy. As I was a stay-at-home Dad, I really wanted to push this Father’s Day thing. So, we went to the park where I took my kids, where I learnt photography, [and] we got 10 dads to run around with their kids and said ‘We want to take pictures of you having fun with your kids,’ and those were the photographs that we got. So, I wrote something very heartfelt [on my blog] about what it was like to be a stay-at-home Dad.”

At first, Schuman hesitates when asked whether he was contractually obligated to write about the Kiehl’s collaboration on his blog, but then offers: “I’m the one that pitched it in. I’m the one who said I wanted it to be about Father’s Day. It was because of me. I wanted to do this photo thing. So it was part of the contract because I wanted to do it. It was a fun process.”

Of course, like other photo bloggers, Schuman also sells his images to magazines, through his agent, Jedroot. But by far his biggest (and most stable) source of revenue now comes from ad sales on The Sartorialist website. Initially, Schuman worked with Style.com to sell his advertising inventory, but has taken this function back in-house, explaining that he is in a much better position to sell the ads himself because he understands the website better than anyone else could.

“I’ve been doing the ads for me and Garance for the last year,” he said, referring to his girlfriend Garance Doré, another superstar blogger, known for her illustrations, writing and photography. “Just like it took me forever to learn photography, it took me forever to learn how to sell [ads] like real agencies” on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, instead of the monthly sponsorship or affiliate commission models used by many other independent fashion blogs.

“American Apparel and Net-a-Porter came from Style.com and they were just buying a month [of ads] for a flat amount of money. But I didn’t think that was right and I knew that’s not how we were going to grow. We were going to have to talk the talk like everybody else. We couldn’t just say ‘Oh, we’re just a little blog.’ If we’re going to make a business here, we’ve got to talk their language.”

And talk their language he does. Schuman rattles off digital media lingo with ease, speaking fluently about ‘geo-targeting’ and digital ad unit dimensions. He declined to reveal his exact CPM rate, but said that it has been increasing steadily over time, going above the thirty dollar range for the most valuable inventory. “People would tell me all these crazy numbers and say ‘It’s premium, it should be way up here,’” he said, motioning to the ceiling. “But like anything, you start out at a price where people are willing to buy. It doesn’t help to have a $40 CPM if nobody’s buying it,” he said.

But at his current traffic levels, even with a $20 CPM and only 50 percent of total inventory sold, Schuman could theoretically earn over $100,000 per month on advertising alone, easily earning him more than a million dollars of revenue per year from advertisers that now include blue chip luxury brands like Tiffany, Coach, and Ferragamo. Removing some nominal overheads and salaries, this makes for a very profitable niche media business.

And then of course, there’s his best-selling book, The Sartorialist, published by Penguin in September 2009, which has sold over 100,000 copies. “It did good,” said Schuman with a smile, expressing his surprise at the success of the book, for which he earned a six-figure advance against royalties. He received two royalty cheques on top of the advance within the first year of publishing. “I was shocked I even got one,” he says.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise however that Schuman has another book up his sleeve. “Now the process is much easier, because I know how to approach it. And Penguin is very excited.” With the current book still selling briskly, Penguin is waiting for the right time to publish Schuman’s next book, which could be published as early as 2012.

“You can really make a living out of this,” said Schuman emphatically. “It’s tough, but if you work really hard you can create a business, if you’re smart about it and have something real to say.”

Imran Amed is founder and editor of The Business of Fashion

L-R Altuzarra, Prabul Gurung, Alexander Wang | Source: Style.com

You Can See Spring Coming (NY Times)
“Mr. Wang is a boy disguised as a designer — or maybe it’s the other way around — but whatever the case, he doesn’t want to grow up, and the clothes naturally follow that youthful spirit… Prabal Gurung’s show on Saturday had a pronounced erotic undercurrent that in its blunt use of violet, and the transparent hems of silk print dresses, owed something to the style last season of Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy.”

Fashion week: The ordinary people who stole the show (BBC News)
“Many people might not have heard of Tavi Gevinson, Scott Schuman, Susie Bubble and Bryanboy but they are household names to dedicated followers of fashion. All four are big players in the blogging revolution that has turned the fashion world on its head… But bloggers have been chipping away at the mainstream media as more and more people want to hear about fashion from people who apply it to everyday life.”

Where Fashion Gazes at Itself (NY Times)
“Tumblr, founded four years ago, has reached out to the fashion community in a way no other social networking site has. For the second time, it has brought users to New York Fashion Week as reporters, paying for their trips and giving them access to the shows. Their coverage is being posted on a dedicated channel, tumblr.com/NYFW, made up of posts from 20 bloggers picked by Tumblr’s staff, along with contributions from magazines that have their own Tumblrs.”

Versace sees revenue up in 2012 on H&M and Versus (Forbes)
“Italian top fashion house Versace is expecting higher revenues in 2012 after launching a collection for Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz this year and revamping its Versus second line…The company draws most of revenues from its top Versace line, but it launched a “Young Versace” line for kids and bought back its Versus licence this year to boost sales and profitability after starting a deep restructuring in 2009.”

Luxury: the next generation (FT)
“One of the more astonishing success stories of the past century has been the evolution of luxury retailing, from small-scale family firms to an international, multi-billion dollar industry… Yet, as the modern industry struggles to reconcile its artisanal heritage with today’s public offerings and quarterly reports, it is the personal, family connection that bridges the gap.”

U, featured on J'aime mon Carré | Source: J'aime mon Carré

Fashion Ties the Knot (WSJ)
“Fashion’s most matronly accessory is experiencing a rejuvenation. Silk prints have evolved from hunting scenes to tattoo-like images. Scarves have loosened up… They have moved off the neck to substitute for belts, bandanas, bracelets and even a sling for a broken arm.”

Next Counts Cost of Big Freeze (Guardian)
“Britain’s second largest clothing chain had fared worse than last year during the important trading period with some analysts speculating like-for-like sales had tumbled more than 10 percent in the first two weeks of December as a result of the snow.”

Hermès Wins AMF Ruling (Bloomberg)
“Hermès founding family can pool their shares in a holding company without having to bid for the rest of the luxury-goods maker, France’s stock market regulator said, bolstering its defense against LVMH.”

Spring/summer 2011 fashion ad campaigns (Telegraph)
“If you’re the kind of follower of fashion who thinks Kate Moss is still big in modelling, a cursory glance at the spring/summer 2011 ad campaigns which have broken in the new February magazine issues, will set you straight… who’s filling her shoes these days?”

Scott Schuman’s new documentary film (Fashionologie)
“Intel followed The Sartorialist’s Scott Schuman around just before the holidays to produce a seven-minute short documentary on how he works… he talks about how street photography is something he wants to do for 30 or 40 more years to come.”

Joyce 40th anniversary multi-sensory exhibition | Source: Dazed Digital

The Joys of Joyce (Dazed Digital)
“Joyce was a pioneer which was the first to bring international designers such as Givenchy, Lanvin, Margiela, and Fendi, amongst other luxury names, to Asia. To celebrate their 40th anniversary, Joyce has specially commissioned works of over 50 designers.”

5000th Zara store: Inditex embraces eco-fashion (Fashion United)
“Showing off its real aim to embrace the latest eco-trends from top to bottom… Inditex has just opened its 5000th Zara store as the flagship of its 2011-2015 Sustainable Inditex Plan.”

Giovanni Bedin Revitalizes a Heritage Brand (WSJ)
“Charged with meeting the lofty standard set by the brand’s legendary founder, Charles Frederick Worth, Mr. Bedin is simultaneously determined to pursue the modern.”

Finding Inspiration with The Sartorialist (NY Times)
“Regularly visiting The Sartorialist, a picture blog created by Scott Schuman, is akin to a serendipiter’s journey with a guide whose eye for detail, gift for framing and hopeful outlook help you see how many beautiful people there are.”

Sci-fashion (FT)
“The fusion of fashion and science as [serves] to expose science to more worldly thinking outside the lab, while at the same time allowing fashion to stop relying on ‘periods of history’ and look forward instead.”

Julianne Moore for Bulgari 2010 | Source: Bulgari

Luxury sector readies for increase in deals (Financial Chronicle)
“Merger and acquisition activity in the luxury sector is set to rise after a twoyear hiatus, driven by a recovery in the sector, closer price agreement between buyers and sellers and the weaker euro.”

Richemont seeks to buy UK’s Net-a-Porter (Reuters)
“Swiss luxury goods maker Richemont is seeking to buy the 67 percent of UK online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter it does not already own, bolstering its position in luxury internet shopping.”

Fashion should be designated cultural industry: designers, MPPs (The Star)
“Iconic Canadian designer Robin Kay says the Ontario government’s failure to declare the fashion business a cultural industry like film making or book publishing is simply out of style.”

The Nine Lives of Designer Lars Nilsson (NY Times)
“As anyone who has followed [Lars Nilsson's] career will recognize, he is a designer known for leaving his jobs almost as spectacularly as he enters them.”

The Sartorialist Blog Is a Victim of Knockoffs (NY Times)
“The success of Scott Schuman, the photographer of street style and creator of The Sartorialist blog, has spawned countless copycat sites over the last five years, not to mention a swarm of fashionista-paparazzi stationed outside the runway shows.”

Gucci Eyeweb versus Burberry Art of the Trench | Source: InFashionMedia

LONDON, United Kingdom — In recent weeks, two major luxury fashion brands have taken the plunge and launched social networks built around their brands and products. It’s not a new idea by any means, and indeed I wrote a piece on this very idea for the Financial Times almost two years ago. But, that doesn’t make it any less notable because, as far as I can tell, it is the first time top fashion brands have used social media in this way. Indeed, both Gucci and Burberry went to great efforts to highlight these initiatives at last week’s IHT Techno Luxury conference in Berlin.

So, have their experiments been successful? Of course we at the BoF have our own opinions, but in the spirit of democracy we thought it was the perfect opportunity to turn to the BoF community to see what you think. In our first ever BoF Twitter Poll, we asked:

BoF Twitter Poll: What do you think of Gucci Eye Web versus Burberry’s Art of the Trench?

The responses came in fast and furious from BoF’s followers around the world, including James Gardner, CEO of the industry’s leading creative agency CreateThe Group, and influential bloggers such as Bryanboy and DisneyRollerGirl. In the end, it was a no-contest knockout for Burberry which was unanimously selected as the winner.

So why did our followers feel this way? Here’s a quick summary of their thoughts:

1. Burberry shows a deep understanding of how to use social media, while Gucci just jumped on the “bandwagon” without thinking first, which feels “insincere.”

@alexanderlewis in London: “Gucci heard about something called social networking Burberry AOTT remixed and embraced it”

@subversiveglam: (aka, James Gardner, CEO of CreateThe Group) in New York: “Burberry AOT shows luxury brands how to effectively embrace social media. Gucci jumped on a band wagon and then fell off.”

@randalltodd also from New York: “Trench: engaging. Eyeweb: limited, insincere.”

@InFashionMedia in Australia: “Gucci literally places customers behind their products. Burberry features people & their products on same level.”

2. Burberry creates a “visual feast” that inspires users to explore further, while Gucci quickly loses users’ “interest.”

@bryanboy in Manila: “I prefer Art of the Trench. It’s a visual feast. Gucci on the other hand, well, I lost interest when I had to pick a city.”

@DisneyRollrGirl in London: “I prefer Art of the Trench, I didn’t even get beyond the Gucci homepage.”

@pascalgrob in Zurich: “Definitely AOT! Burberry’s approach is an art project and so pleasing to the eye…Gucci just doesn’t convince”

@lolaswij in Sydney: “Art of the Trench, based on aesthetics alone! It’s appropriate to judge a fashion www by it’s looks, non?”

3. Burberry’s offering is “fun,” functionally superior, “user-friendly” and easy-to-navigate while Gucci frustrates users.

@FearlessBG in the Netherlands: “Art of the Trench! The Gucci Eyeweb is annoying to navigate and doesn’t offer that much.”

@djuwearit in Dubai: “www.artofthetrench.com – it’s user friendly and fun.”

@xanod in London: “Definetely (sic) Art of the Trench, interactive, fun and more user friendly which is exactly what people want”

In addition, we would add two more points to Burberry’s successful social media outing:

4. Art of the Trench relies on editing by Christopher Bailey to ensure the integrity of the brand is maintained while Eyeweb’s images often have no clear connection to the brand.

Take a gander at Art of the Trench and you will find an almost uniformly style-savvy and well-dressed crowd of international fans in their Burberry trench coats. These photos have been carefully selected and screened by Burberry to ensure a good fit with the brand. On the other hand, Gucci’s site which also allows users to upload photos of themselves, is populated with a mish-mash of sometimes tacky, random images that seem to have nothing to do with the Gucci brand at all.

5. Art of the Trench is linked to a specific business objective whereas the purpose of Eyeweb is unclear.

In the same way that Ferragamo has built an identity around its shoes and Louis Vuitton has built a business around its leather goods, the trench coat has been identified by Burberry as the brand’s key item. By launching this site, Burberry further cemented ownership of the luxury trench coat category. On the other hand, Gucci’s site is highlighting sunglasses, which may be an important category, but isn’t really a core part of the brand’s DNA.

Having done such a good job, it’s no wonder that within the first week the Burberry site had more than two hundred thousand visitors and registered more than 3 million page views. The challenge for Burberry now will be to create reasons for its fans to return, without the support of the wall-to-wall press coverage that supported the launch of the site. Apparently, this will be achieved by bringing in new curators and creatives to populate the site with interesting content. But, even with all of the things that Burberry have done right, methinks that it will take a significantly more than that to draw people back again and again.

As for Gucci, it’s back to the drawing board. Kudos for experimenting and trying new things out, but perhaps next time Gucci may want to consider why it is jumping on the social media bandwagon and what it is aiming to achieve before punching its ticket.

Imran Amed is Editor of The Business of Fashion