Tavi Gevinson at Generation Next | Source: Luxury Lab

NEW YORK, United States — With speakers including teenage blogging sensation, Tavi Gevinson and Teen Vogue publisher Laura McEwen, last Friday’s “Generation Next Forum,” organized by New York-based thinktank LuxuryLab, examined the unique characteristics and growing influence of a young generation of consumers that’s set to impact the luxury goods industry like no other generation since the Baby Boomers: Generation Y.

Wired and Influential

Opening the event, New York University professor and LuxuryLab founder Scott Galloway, underscored the importance of Generation Y with some simple, but astounding numbers. Born between 1977 and 1994, Gen Y currently spends $150 billion a year on consumer goods. That’s five times more than their parents did at their age. They also influence another $50 billion in purchases made by others. Indeed, according to a recent report by Harris Interactive, one in every three consumer dollars spent in the United States today is influenced by someone under the age of 18.

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Tavi Gevinson | Source: Style Rookie

NEW YORK, United States — As the Luxury Industry prepares to welcome Generation Y — the largest generation of new consumers since the Baby Boomers — Luxury Lab has just added one Tavi Gevinson to its speaker list for the upcoming Generation Next Forum.

I last heard Tavi speak at the Independent Fashion Bloggers Evolving Influence conference during New York Fashion Week, where she had the entire room enraptured with witty comments, incisive insights and a professional confidence far beyond what one might expect for a 14 year old fashion blogger. Tavi also recently participated in BoF’s global livestream of the Fashion Pioneers interview with Jefferson Hack. Needless to say, at BoF we are all big fans of her Style Rookie blog and the Forum is worth attending just to hear what an extraordinarily smart 14 year old has to say about what brands mean to someone in her generation.

Speaking of brands, this week Luxury Lab also released a new ranking of Gen Y consumers “prestige” brands, measuring the affinity for 105 iconic brands, and the results were eye-opening indeed. According to Scott Galloway, founder of LuxuryLab, “Gen Y goodwill is arguably the closest thing to a crystal ball for predicting a brand’s long-term prospects. Just as Boomers drove the luxury sector for the last 20 years, brands that resonate with Gen Y, whose purchasing power will surpass that of Boomers by 2017, will be the new icons of prestige.”

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LONDON, United Kingdom —Today, the BoF team is busy preparing for our first FASHION PIONEERS interview with Jefferson Hack, Editorial Director of Dazed Group, to be held this Thursday at London’s Sanderson Hotel. Tickets for the event are completely sold out and a mix of BoF readers and friends from London’s fashion community will be joining us.

But, we want as many people as possible to participate in the interview. So, we are delighted to announce that in addition to a livestream on BoF, our friends from across the fashion and luxury blogosphere have graciously agreed to help us bring FASHION PIONEERS to the world. The event will be live streamed on the following sites:

United States: Refinery29 | Tavi Gevinson | Fashionista.com | JC Report

United Kingdom: Style Bubble | Fashion156

France: A Shaded View on Fashion | Luxury Society

Philippines: Bryanboy

Germany: Les Mads

We invite you all to tune in. And while you are watching, please send questions for Jefferson Hack to our Twitter account @_BoF_ using the hashtag #pioneers.

The livestream begins at 2pm New York | 7pm London | 8pm Paris and Berlin | 2am Manila (that’s for you, Bryanboy!)

Fashion Pioneers is presented in collaboration with Morgans Hotel Group and will be filmed by Pundersons Gardens

NEW YORK, United States — For decades, a quick route to fashion world prominence involved a designer turning a youth culture trend into a runway-ready collection. Calvin Klein made heroin chic, Jean Paul Gaultier sampled from club culture, Marc Jacobs glammed-up grunge and Hedi Slimane turned Berlin punks into fashion plates.

The concept was simple, even if the design work wasn’t: find a scruffy outsider style that remained untapped, then spruce it up for the luxury market. But today, as high fashion becomes increasingly accessible, this approach may no longer work. Today’s internet-empowered youth have the tools, access and information to create and promote their own fashion culture.

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Tavi Gevinson's Bow at Dior Couture | Source: Twitpic by SteffiSchuetze

LONDON, United Kingdom — A veritable firestorm erupted across fashion blogs and twitter streams this week in response to an article that appeared in London’s Independent newspaper over the weekend, highlighting Tavi Gevinson’s front row presence at the Haute Couture shows in Paris.

In a piece entitled “Fluff flies as fashion writers pick a cat fight with bloggers,” The Independent reported that “senior fashion insiders believe blogs have turned into little more than mouthpieces for fashion brands, which are increasingly using bloggers to regurgitate their press releases.”

As those controversial words rippled through the blogosphere and twittersphere, the protest and outrage came from all quarters of the fashion blogging fraternity and sorority. And, while we at the BoF were hesitant to take the bait and join the fray — the whole ‘editors versus bloggers’ story is becoming tired — it would be even worse for us to remain silent. Indeed, the Independent article raises very important issues which merit further discussion and debate, and perhaps, a more balanced perspective on this so-called “backlash” against bloggers.

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