The rise of the online fashion film

Fashion 2.0 | New York

NEW YORK, United States - Quoting Steven Kolb, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, saying the format of showing the Fall 2009 collections this February is the “number one item on everyone’s agenda right now,” The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Runway blog recently asked the question: "Will fashion shows survive the economy?" To answer this question, it's important to consider how fashion shows function in today's media landscape. Increasingly, images and video from runway shows, captured by the established media, as well as a new generation of fashion bloggers wielding video-enabled camera phones, reach a global audience of fashion consumers, in close to realtime, on Style.com, YouTube and fashion blogs around the world. As…

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Yves Saint Laurent | The Final Farewell

| Paris

PARIS, France - There was wall-to-wall coverage of Yves Saint Laurent's funeral in Paris on Thursday, but as usual, it was Suzy Menkes, in her own erudite and quirky way, who best managed to capture the mood of the moment in her article and video about Saint Laurent's final farewell. That John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, Ricardo Tisci, Valentino Garavani, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel, Stefano Pilati, Mark Jacobs, Alber Elbaz, Hubert de Givenchy and Vivienne Westwood were all there to pay homage speaks to Saint Laurent's towering status amongst his peers and YSL successors. The one notable absentee was Karl Lagerfeld. Marc Jacobs, speaking of Saint Laurent's influence on his own designs, said simply "He's the person who taught me everything…

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Yves Saint Laurent | 1936-2008

| Paris

PARIS, France - The inventor of modern-day ready-to-wear, the first designer to use black models on his runway, the first to bring androgyny to high fashion, the successor to Christian Dior, the first to license his name to other businesses, and one of the youngest designers ever to be at the helm of a major Parisian Haute Couture house, Yves Saint Laurent, died at his home on Sunday evening, June 1, 2008.  Fans of YSL, or simply those who want to learn more, may want to check out the newly-opened (and, I guess, impeccably-timed) YSL retrospective at the Musée des Beaux Arts de Montréal which runs until September 28, 2008 and which is being planned in conjunction with La Fondation…

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Designer skins, Copyright cash, YSL and Fashion billionaires

| Daily Digest

Pimp your Google homepage (CNet) iGoogle, the popular service from the Internet behomoth, has partnered with Oscar de la Renta, Tory Burch and Dolce & Gabbana to provide designer skins for users to personalise their iGoogle pages. Adidas wins $305m in copyright case (WWD) Following our revelations about Steve Madden's blatant copying, Adidas is awarded $305m in the largest award ever in a trademark case against Payless. Valerie talks to Vanessa (Financial Times) Vanessa Friedman interviews Valerie Hermann, chief executive of Yves Saint Laurent, to learn how she is digging the historic French house out of the red. The Fashion Billionaires (Forbes) Forbes has released a list of the world's fashion billionaires, with Amancia Ortega, Stefan Persson and Bernard Arnault…

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YSL: Interactive experimentation

Fashion 2.0 | Global Briefing | Global Currents

For years now, the Yves Saint-Laurent brand has been a drag on the otherwise strong results posted by many other fashion brands in the Gucci Group, owned by parent-company PPR. Most recently, Bottega Veneta has been on a tear with strong financial results (eclipsing YSL's top line revenue in 2006) and a leading position in the luxury consumer league tables, making it the number two luxury brand in PPR's stable. The story for YSL is a lot less fairytale, and a lot more Nightmare on Elm Street. The brand has not been profitable since Gucci Group purchased it in 1999 and is still reportedly losing around €50m a year. The brand turned over €194m in sales in 2006. PPR doesn't…

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