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.

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Dolce & Gabbana Front Row Spring/Summer 2010 | Source: New York Times

LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s that time of year again. With over one million pageviews on BoF in 2009, it’s time to take stock of the year that was in a retrospective of the most popular articles from The Business of Fashion.

Needless to say, 2009 was the year of social media in fashion and our top 10 list is reflective of the explosion of interest in fashion bloggers, social networks and the now ubiquitous Twitter. Despite all of the hubbub (and yet another high-profile article this week from the New York Times on bloggers crashing the front row) social media is not a trend that will disappear. At BoF, we have prided ourselves on going beyond all of the hype to figure out what the implications are for the long-term.

But BoF is about more than just Web 2.0 and our top 10 is reflective of this. Indeed, over the past year we responded to media requests on a variety of subjects from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wallpaper*, Women’s Wear Daily, AnOther Magazine and others seeking our input on the forces re-shaping the fashion industry that are regularly covered in our pages.

So, without further ado, here is The Best of BoF from 2009. Happy reading!

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Multi-colour shoes, Gucci Autumn/Winter 2009 | Source: Gucci.

Shoes, bags prove staying power in luxury crisis (Reuters)
“At the height of the luxury goods boom, launching a single successful “it” bag was enough to substantially alter a company’s profit outlook. Over the past week at the Paris fashion shows, buyers, designers and executives were hoping the same kind of accessories magic would help luxury firms weather the economic downturn.”

World’s fashion weeks leave audiences all a-twitter (Guardian)
“This was the season that the fashion industry embraced technology in all its forms. With many criticising the biannual shows – and the ensuing air miles – as archaic and environmentally unsound, designers explored new ways to reach the masses.”

Designers give essential items a twist (FT)
“Last month Marc Jacobs launched a “stimulus package” of “essential” styles as part of “Don’t Miss the Marc” in his Marc by Marc Jacobs line (from £40 to £180); Rei Kawakubo’s Black collection reprises past favourites; and Alexander Wang, Doo-Ri Chung, Jason Wu, Jasmin Shokrian and Camilla Staerk have all launched simplified secondary lines. Basics, in high fashion form, are back.”

A triumph of style over economic slump (Times)
“Lauded at Fashion Week, designers Jenny Packham and Eugene Lin took the plunge and launched collections in recessions.”

Louis Vuitton Will Open Stores in Lebanon, Mongolia This Year (Bloomberg)
“Louis Vuitton, a brand of the largest luxury goods maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, will open its first store in Lebanon and one in Mongolia this year, the brand’s chief executive officer said.”

Fashiontweek.com homepage

NEW YORK, United States—Last season, the fashion flock embraced Twitter like never before, giving fashion consumers a captivating play-by-play from front rows and afterparties at fashion weeks from New York to Paris. Indeed, for a few days, New York Fashion Week became the 4th biggest trend on Twitter.

Now, capitalizing on this momentum, a San Francisco-based publishing and advertising network has launched a website called FashionTweek that today began aggregating tweets about New York Fashion Week from all over the Twitterverse, promising “realtime reaction to the shows, parties and people of Fashion Week NYC” at a single destination. … Continue Reading

Stella McCartney Twitter Page

LONDON, United Kingdom — Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. Many large fashion brands have pages or accounts on at least one of the big three in social media. As a whole however, the fashion industry has been slow to embrace these tools — certainly a lot slower than their customers.

Of the 38 tweeting fashion brands listed by WWD, only nine are based in Europe. Of those nine, Henry Holland is the only one not associated with a large multi-national company (Adidas, Dior, French Connection, Gucci, H&M, Lacoste, Louis Vuitton and Stella McCartney round out the list). While Twitter is not the sole representative of fashion’s social media presence, the list offers a fairly representative picture of who’s experimenting with social media — and more tellingly, who’s not.

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The Business of Fashion in Vogue Korea, May 2008

LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s been awhile since our last BoF update. The past few months have been busy on our end, so forgive us for a solely BoF-focused post to keep you abreast of all the developments on our side in recent months, and to share a little about things to come in the months to come.

We are dot-com: Probably the most noticeable change since our redesign in December is our new domain name: www.businessoffashion.com. That’s right, we managed to secure the dot-com for Business of Fashion despite the fact that some Indian cybersquatters first offered it to us for almost one thousand dollars and then told us they sold it to someone else in the meanwhile. But, in an amazing and mysterious twist of fate, our Managing Editor, Khaleed Juma, happened to find the domain for sale on the Internet for the grand total of $9.99! So, we welcome you to our official dot-com status and invite you to update your links and bookmarks to find us as quickly as possible.

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Backstage tweet from Marc Jacobs show, courtesy of The Moment

NEW YORK, United States — As another fashion week season comes to a close, we’ve seen everything from intergalactic armour to a full-fledged ’80s revival on the runways. But when it comes to covering and commenting on the collections, one trend stands out. This time around, we came closer than ever to capturing and transmitting the real experience and energy of the shows thanks to fashion’s growing love affair with Twitter.

Editors at New York Times fashion blog The Moment, Women’s Wear Daily, SHOWstudio and our very own The Business of Fashion, among others, took to the “micro-blogging” service with enthusiasm, using their iPhones, BlackBerrys and laptops to broadcast haiku-length updates on what they were doing and thinking at presentations and parties from New York to Paris. For fellow insiders and fashion consumers following their  “tweets” this amounted to a captivating play-by-play delivered with immediacy and intimacy like never before.

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