Why Some Labels Will Sidestep Fashion Week (WSJ)
"New York's calendar has become noticeably more crowded as labels squeeze in with entrepreneurial zeal. While fashion shows used to be limited to high-style labels, midprice contemporary labels and menswear brands are now muscling into New York. One reason: No official body controls the calendar, unlike in Milan and Paris, where just a few dozen labels are invited to show in each fashion week."

My Wardrobe taps investors for funding (FT)
"My Wardrobe, the online fashion retailer, is to launch a third fundraising round in as many years, in an attempt to raise £3m and speed up its international expansion. While some of the cash will be used to cover operating costs at the lossmaking business, David Worby – the chief executive who joined the website from Harrods last summer – claimed that the retailer should be profitable within 18 months."

Menswear that men might really wear (FT)
"The menswear shows that drew to a close in Paris on Sunday were all about progress: the unrelenting financial progress of the two French conglomerates LVMH and PPR, whose current menswear focus is a major background driver of many of the week's key collections; and aesthetic progress, which is an altogether more personal – and complicated – issue that centres on a designer's work, and how they allow it to evolve."

Hubert Burda Media Blazes a Digital Trail (NY Times)
"The German publisher of the magazine, Hubert Burda Media, takes a similarly practical approach to its own business. While there is plenty of fashionable talk in the publishing industry about the digital future, Burda has already stitched together a strong Internet arm."

The world of Joan Burstein (Telegraph)
"Joan Burstein, 86, is the owner of the Browns boutique in South Molton Street, London, a business she founded with her late husband, Sidney, in 1970. An influential fashion buyer, she is credited with making the British reputations of brands including Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani and Comme des Garçons."