The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
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 break out operating loss of YSL its website and has not provided a timeframe to investors for expected profitability.
It's not surprising then that
, YSL's Creative Director, has been trying to inject new energy into this legendary brand. The latest initiative is an innovative project with
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's
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. According to WWD, Showstudio has received over 200 submissions of script ideas for a
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to be held this Sunday, featuring the new "seasonless" Edition 24 collection of YSL basics. The creative output of the photoshoot will appear on a newly-revamped YSL website this fall, promoting the new collection in an interactive way, with some user-generated content to boot.
It's good to see more luxury houses experimenting to see how the web can work for them. While a project like this won't solve YSL's systemic profitability problems (Valerie Hermann, YSL's CEO, clearly still has her work cut out for her), it does bring some freshness to the way the brand is perceived and promotes the new capsule collection in a way that is bound to draw attention (and eyeballs). With a certain "Creative Technologist" on staff, we are looking forward to seeing more interactive experimentation from Gucci Group brands.
Zero10 offers digital solutions through AR mirrors, leveraged in-store and in window displays, to brands like Tommy Hilfiger and Coach. Co-founder and CEO George Yashin discusses the latest advancements in AR and how fashion companies can leverage the technology to boost consumer experiences via retail touchpoints and brand experiences.
Four years ago, when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok in the US, its Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. worked out a preliminary deal to sell the short video app’s business. Not this time.
Brands are using them for design tasks, in their marketing, on their e-commerce sites and in augmented-reality experiences such as virtual try-on, with more applications still emerging.
Brands including LVMH’s Fred, TAG Heuer and Prada, whose lab-grown diamond supplier Snow speaks for the first time, have all unveiled products with man-made stones as they look to technology for new creative possibilities.