Inditex Headquarters in La Coruna, Spain | Source: Inditex

How Zara clothes turned Galicia into retail hotspot (Reuters)
“The green, rainy region of Galicia in northwest Spain is best-known as the destination for pilgrims hiking the Camino de Santiago to pay tribute at the remains of apostle Saint James… But a different kind of pilgrim also makes the journey here — retail sector analysts visiting the headquarters of Spain’s most successful modern export, Zara clothes, which has made the founder of Inditex one of the richest men in the world.”

The Future Of Fashion, Part Nine: Azzedine Alaïa (Style.com)
“Fashion will last forever. It will exist always. It will exist in its own way in each era. I live in the moment. It’s interesting to know the old methods. But you have to live in the present moment. The evolution today is in the machinery. There are machines that did not exist before. It allows you to be a lot more of a perfectionist.”

Luxury Daily Deals Site Gilt City Picks Up BuyWithMe at a Discount (All Things Digital)
“Gilt City, the daily deals site operated by fashion and luxury online retailer Gilt Groupe, has acquired BuyWithMe… Gilt will be purchasing BuyWithMe’s assets, including its member and vendor lists, as well as some of its technology. Other companies also exploring offers included San Francisco-based Bloomspot and the No. 2 player, LivingSocial.”

UnitedStyles Lets You Play Fashion Designer (TechCrunch)
“Based in Shanghai, UnitedStyles is a Facebook Connect-enabled service that lets any user create customized women’s apparel, allowing them sketch out, adjust and share a design via an online interface and customized 3D preview… Co-founder Marc van der Chijs tells me that his objective is to recreate the entire fashion design experience for Internet users, ‘It’s very strange that you cannot [already] design your own clothes online.’”

Rise: Anna-Sophie Berger (Dazed Digital)
“Graduating next year, 22-year-old Anna-Sophie Berger has a mad obsession with humanness and geometry. The Austrian student also likes to work around the concept of limitation and simplifying clothes to a very basic shape. For her mainly black and white collection ‘m/m2′, Berger chose the square that was transformed and disrupted, before shown as an installation pinned to a wall to visualize the two dimensional aspects of the flat squares and contrasting that in the look book, when the model’s body wearing the clothes creates a three dimensional volume.”

Zombie Boy | Source: NY Times

Designers Start to See in Triplicate (NY Times)
“With something like 250 runway shows and parties crammed into the New York Fashion Week that begins Sept. 8, a lot of designers are saying that there must be a better way to show clothes, or at least some way to grab people’s attention for more than a second or two. The latest thing, if a handful of them are correct, would be fashion shows in 3-D.”

Guess joins the queue as labels spread their wares through China (Independent)
“Guess has become the latest international brand to announce massive plans for expansion into mainland China… Guess is targeting its “lifestyle collection” of denim garments, handbags, watches and footwear at China’s ever-growing luxury goods market, one which industry insiders expect to be worth more than 84 billion yuan (13 billion dollars) this year – making it the second largest in the world after the United States.”

Burberry in step with digital age (FT)
“The luxury fashion brand Burberry has spurned glossy magazine adverts in favour of a Facebook campaign to promote the global launch of its latest fragrance, Burberry Body… On average, digital makes up 15 to 20 per cent of media spending globally. Burberry’s strategy shows how quickly the fashion industry is moving away from magazines as it seeks to interact with consumers worldwide.”

H&M and Zara Duke It Out for U.S. Online Sales (Forbes)
“Move over brick and mortar expansion tactics, retailers are finally realizing that bottom line growth isn’t always going to come by swelling square footage. Zara and H&M are taking their fast fashion competition online, while Urban Outfitters is jumping into F-commerce (making their Facebook fan page shoppable).”

First look at Carine Roitfeld: Irreverent (Telegraph)
“Ever since Carine Roitfeld stepped down from the role of editor at Vogue Paris, there have been whisperings about what is next in store for her. But now images of one of her first projects have been released and somewhat surprisingly they involve looking to the past, rather than the future.”

Gap cautious on full-year sales outlook (Reuters)
“Gap Inc Chief Executive Glenn Murphy said on Thursday that consumer sentiment may deteriorate in the second half of 2011 and was cautious about future sales growth at the apparel retailer… Gap has lost about a quarter of its market value this year as investors questioned the company’s ability to grow sales after several quarters of losing market share.”

Zara accused in Brazil sweatshop inquiry (Guardian)
“Retail fashion chain Zara is under investigation by Brazil’s ministry of labour after a contractor in São Paulo was found to be using employees in sweatshop conditions to make garments for the Spanish company… Zara is a family business founded in 1975 in La Coruña, north-west Spain by Amancio Ortega… According to Forbes magazine, half of production remains in Spain, with 26% per cent in Europe and the remainder spread around the world.”

Caution on Main Street: retailers fret ahead of key sales season (Reuters)
“Caution is the watchword for apparel executives heading into the all-important holiday season and their lack of confidence is scaring investors. Wary of talk of a double-dip recession, consumers are waiting on bargains, leaving retailers in the dark over how sales trends will turn out in the key year-end shopping season.”

Louis Vuitton’s “Big Store Strategy” Spreads (Jing Daily)
“Luxury giant Louis Vuitton has spent the last several years in China ramping up its inland expansion and rethinking its strategy in top-tier cities… A new LV store might not seem like big news, considering the brand is expanding perhaps more quickly than any other luxury brand in China, but in second- and third-tier markets, the arrival of Louis Vuitton means they’ve reached a certain level.”

Fashion; red in tooth and claw? (FT)
“The story so far: in 2008 Louboutin trademarked a lacquered red sole on footwear ( Pantone No. 18-1663 TP, or “Chinese Red,” FYI). In April this year Louboutin filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in New York saying that YSL had breached its copyright by using the red sole… Potentially worse for Christian Louboutin, who has another hearing in the case scheduled this Friday, the judge also implied that his 2008 trademark could be cancelled.”

Dion Lee S/S 2012 at Sydney Opera House | Photo: BoF

SYDNEY, Australia — Australian fashion has an image problem. When I mentioned to friends that I was thinking of attending Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in Sydney, the reaction ranged from raised eyebrows to incredulous laughter. Others quipped that the sum total of Australia’s contribution to global fashion could be distilled down to Ugg boots and swimwear.

“Surely you’d only be going to take some time in the Australian sun?” they asked. But as my schedule only allowed for three days in the Australian fashion capital, there would be little time to sit on the beach and anyway, the summer sun in Sydney had already given way to crisp Autumn evenings and intermittent rain showers.

It was an email exchange with Tommy Ton and Susie Bubble that finally convinced me to get on the 24 hour flight from London to spend a few days immersed in Sydney’s fashion scene. Both Tommy and Susie were planning to go back for their second season, and highly recommended that I come along too.

In Susie’s words, there is “plenty to see that’s interesting…it’s good to see a developed fashion week outside of the big four and definitely worth going to just to see how Southern hemisphere fashion works!”

Indeed, that turned out to be the most interesting question of all, and it was well worth the time to get there.

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Burberry Mens A/W Show 2011 in Milan | Source: Oki-ni CultureShoq

Today, BoF exclusively brings you Savigny Partners’ blow-by-blow analysis of the rapidly shifting luxury fashion business model which is undergoing transformation due to underlying shifts in consumer values, technology and globalisation

LONDON, United Kingdom — Luxury fashion is a very exciting business which can generate substantial returns if you get the formula right. Not only is there the ability to charge up to ten times the cost of manufacturing a garment and the potential to build a global business; apparel can be the beginning of a page-turning blockbuster, accessories and leather goods are the next chapter, fragrances and eyewear licenses the well-oiled plot. The story can have a happy ending with the promise of many sequels to come.

Success stories in this field are mouth-watering: Burberry’s share price climbed from 175p in November 2008 to 1,116p at the beginning of this year as the brand went from strength to strength and reportedly attracted the attention of a number of acquirers. Lanvin has embarked on a stellar growth trajectory with plenty of potential yet to come. However, not all blockbusters have a happy ending. The latest crisis has claimed a number of victims: Christian Lacroix, Gianfranco Ferré, Yohji Yamamoto, Luella Bartley to name a few.

In this article we will examine how the traditional designer business model has come under threat and what key factors we believe are necessary to ensure the success of a luxury fashion label today. Finally we will take a look at what lies ahead for the luxury fashion sector.

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