LONDON, United Kingdom — It was billed as the world’s first truly global fashion show, taking place on the penultimate day of London Fashion Week, beamed live in 3D to five global cities, and streamed to the rest of the world via 73 websites, including Vogue, Grazia and CNN, which all picked up the video feed in a global simulcast. It was undoubtedly the most widely distributed fashion show a luxury brand has ever staged, potentially reaching an audience of more than 100 million users, according to Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts.
At first, I was disappointed that BoF had not been invited to attend the real event at London’s Chelsea College of Art, but in the end I’m glad to have experienced Burberry’s live internet stream. It all felt very 2010, especially as I ducked into the Regent Street Apple Store to watch the show after a late lunch. It was a fashion moment.
The stream began just after 4 pm with what Cathy Horyn of The New York Times described as an “info com” comprised of a pre-recorded presentation from Burberry’s Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey, as well as live interviews with Angela Ahrendts, models backstage and celebrity guests arriving at the show venue. “Grave doubts about this prelude of a model chatting backstage, now Twiggy arriving. A bit naff,” tweeted Ms Horyn. “Want the show to start. It’s like watching paint dry.”
Then, the lights finally went down and a series of seriously slick shearling jackets clomped down the runway, eliciting bursts of excitement from editors tweeting from the front row and viewers watching around the world. For the clothes alone, it was worth the wait.
“First look: cropped shearling,” described Joe Zee, Creative Director of Elle, who along with Bryanboy, had been given control of Burberry’s Twitter account for the Autumn/Winter 2010 show. “OMG!! Reverse shearling!!! It’s just as good inside out. Sold!!!” he raved.
Cathy Horyn, watching the 3D stream from New York’s Skylight Studios, agreed. “The shearling jackets were so ample, fluffy and round, the trousers and narrow skirts so spindly that at times on Tuesday the Burberry show resembled a lane of dandelions gone to seed,” she wrote later on her New York Times blog, On the Runway. “To be sure, Christopher Bailey’s outerwear for the British label was especially strong, with those romantic flight jackets spreading or curling at the collar and the pomp of officer coats.”
During the show Burberry appeared as one of the top ten trending topics on Twitter, but some of these tweets complained of problems with the live feed. Comments from users scrolling below the Burberry stream itself also came fast and furious. The words “Amazing” and “Love” appeared over and over again, with viewers sometimes shouting out their city of origin — Montreal, Sao Paolo, Los Angeles — underscoring the truly global nature of the event. The comments were 100% positive or neutral.
After a few minutes, my own feed crashed. I refreshed it several times, and then it crashed again. But below the black screen, comments continued to provide second-by-second commentary on the show — still overwhelmingly positive. Was nobody else experiencing the issues I was? Or was Burberry filtering out comments that were unfavorable to their global event? To explore the issue further, I entered a comment indicating that I was experiencing trouble with the feed, but it never appeared with the rest of the comments. This left me thinking.
THOUGHTS:
Expectations? My expectations were high. I’ve been calling Burberry the world’s first truly digital luxury brand, and as the leading brand in the space I fully expected Burberry to set the standard for the rest of the industry, in terms of strategy, concept and execution.
First impressions? The show was indeed amazing. It was well-orchestrated, well-publicised and generally well-executed. The issues with the live feed were frustrating at times, but these are kinks that can be ironed out in seasons to come and a brand like Burberry clearly has the technical prowess and determination to get this new phase of digital fashion communication right. It requires guts and audaciousness to attempt and achieve something no brand has done before. For this, Burberry deserves many kudos.
Most potential? The ability to buy the covetable shearing jackets straight off the runway for 72 hours after the show was a master stroke. While many brands have talked about doing this, no brand has actually put the concept into practice the way Burberry has — strategically identifying a product as a key item, ensuring it was featured front-and-centre at the fashion show, and selling the jackets at the peak of consumer interest, right after the show had finished. By limiting sales to a 72 hour window, Burberry also ensured sales opportunities for its wholesale partners down the road, while creating a sense of urgency for consumers to purchase right away if they so choose. Best of all, with the insights gleaned from which products sold fastest on the internet directly after the show, Burberry will have real consumer data upon which to base orders for normal delivery to its stores around the world — every merchandiser’s dream.
What’s missing? Greater authenticity. While maintaining the spirit and standards of the Burberry brand must have been of paramount importance, so is providing an authentic and real experience for all the participants. Since when was it acceptable for a CEO and creative director to give a PR pitch before a fashion show starts? Unfortunately, the pre-show promotion felt rehearsed and forced, and detracted from this otherwise brilliant initiative. And if Burberry was indeed filtering live comments from their internet viewers to ensure only positive feedback appeared, in my eyes this also takes away from the authenticity of the experience.
Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion
NEW YORK , United States — In recent quarters, online sales were the only bright patch in a grim luxury retail landscape. But interestingly, in January of 2009, LVMH-owned eLuxury announced that it would cease e-commerce operations entirely and relaunch as a luxury destination focused completely on content.
Fast-forward one year and the luxury industry still can’t seem to get enough of the internet. Social Media is the phrase on everyone’s lips. And so, it was with great interest that BoF took a sneak peek at the web experience that takes eLuxury’s place — NOWNESS — which will officially launch to the public on Thursday 25 February.
Tuning into a special online preview and connecting with EVP Digital of NOWNESS, Kamel Ouadi, we got the lowdown on what to expect from NOWNESS in the months to come.
BoF: What is the NOWNESS? And what does it mean?
KO: Simply, NOWNESS will inspire and turn you on to the latest developments on fashion and culture in a highly curated and thoughtful way. NOWNESS is about carrying a moment in time with you. It sums up a certain feeling when you get a moment of inspiration that lives in your imagination during the day.
BoF: Some might say the fashion world doesn’t really need another content site. Why launch NOWNESS and why now?
KO: This site will be about the art of living and involve luxury well beyond product categories. It will inform and inspire. It will bring excitement to the everyday. And, it will feature only exclusive content — a key factor distinguishing it from other luxury websites. It will be an inspirational and experiential site.
Agyness Deyn screenshot from "Mean to Me" by McDermott and McGough | Source: NOWNESS
BoF: Which artists and other content creators are you working with?
KO: The site is dedicated to collaborating with the world’s foremost designers, creatives and thinkers in the luxury industry. Visitors can enjoy featured work by leading artists such as Wong Kar-Wai, Patti Smith, Lucien Freud, Francesco Vezzoli, Rodarte, Raf Simons, John Galliano for Dior, and Nick Cave.
BoF: What feature should we check out first?
KO: “Love/Don’t Love” recommendations. The site is about inspiring people. It’s also about personalisation of luxury inspiration. A “Love/Don’t Love” button allows users to interact with the content. The impulse to love will drive recommended content to the user, the impulse to love will also tell us how people are responding to the experience.
BoF: So NOWNESS learns and evolves based on user behaviour?
KO: Yes. Content is recommended via intelligent algorithms and user responses to Love or Don’t Love. The site will recommend content that reflects the user’s point of view.
BoF: Is there a revenue model in place? If so, how will the site make money? If not, why not?
KO: Revenue is not the primary focus of the site. It is an editorial site designed to provide information for luxury enthusiasts. However, as the site grows, we do expect interest from advertisers, and we will be open to working with luxury brands — and other high-level advertisers, consistent with the luxury theme of the website — to find ways for them to have a presence on our site that reinforces the experience we offer.
OUR THOUGHTS:
Expectations? To be honest, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. The new site had been kept top secret for months. The only clues about the future were tweets with links to a NOWNESS prelaunch site, which in recent months offered frequently evolving, but limited content.
First impressions? The site’s design is simple, clean and modern, in line with the concept of NOWNESS itself. Curating excellent, exclusive content is powerful concept at a time when consumers are bombarded with information and other websites and blogs are cluttered with undifferentiated content, often fed to them by brands and PR companies. Despite being owned by LVMH, NOWNESS operates with an independent and open mindset, actively linking to fashion brand websites, including those outside the LVMH Group. The site is rich with sharing tools, allowing users to spread bits of NOWNESS content across the internet and has already developed a robust following of more than 6,000 followers on Twitter.
Most potential? The “Love/Don’t Love” feature with algorithmic intelligence is compelling. The ability to directly gauge consumer reaction to content themes and products could prove to be a powerful tool for listening to consumers and gathering insights. Perhaps NOWNESS will grow into a virtual hub for online consumer conversations around luxury products and services.
What’s missing? Today, integrating content and commerce has proven to be a powerful way to drive sales. We think there could be a commercial business model somewhere in the future of NOWNESS and we are excited to see how it develops.
LONDON, United Kingdom — As the fashion industry continues its march into the digital age, London — always known for its raw creativity and emerging talent — can now add digital innovation to that list.
This is no overnight story. To the contrary, it’s taken ten years for fashion players here to plant seeds which are only beginning to bear fruit now, as fashion’s digital tsunami really begins to take hold.
The British capital, after all, is home to revolutionary fashion website SHOWStudio, e-commerce pioneer Net-a-Porter, and online hub of youth culture Dazed Digital — all of which were founded many years ago. These seminal businesses have created a foundational and fertile seedbed for other digital businesses and attracted and developed digital talent that has gone on to shape and inspire other online companies here including mywardrobe.com, Fashionair and farfetch.com. And, while American Vogue is in the midst of setting up its website now, British Vogue has had its own website for fifteen years.
London-based mega-brand Burberry, widely considered to be the most innovative fashion company in the digital space, was one of the first to stream its catwalk show live on the Internet last season. Having decided to show in London again this time around, Burberry is not content with resting on its digital laurels. A few weeks ago, the iconic British brand announced its plans to stream its show in 3D to a host of cities around the world, from Dubai and Tokyo to Paris and New York, creating the world’s first truly global fashion show.
But it’s not just big brands and websites that a digital capital make. The East End of London is a hotbed of fashion creativity and digital innovation. Emerging fashion creatives like Ruth Hogben, digital art directors like Jaime Perlman, and independent film production studios like Pundersons Gardens, have been working with independent designers like Gareth Pugh and Richard Nicoll to show the fashion world what is possible when creativity meets digital technology.
And, the British Fashion Council is the first of the major organising bodies in fashion to fully embrace digital technology, having set up its own digital schedule for fashion films and live-streams of selected on-schedule shows, accompanied by live commentary using curated tweets from fashion insiders and fans alike via Starworks Conversations.
As for the designers themselves, they are going digital too. Following in the footsteps of that giant of fashion whose shadow is looming over this London fashion week, designers like Mary Katrantzou and Erdem Moralioglu are using digital techniques to create out-of-this world prints, which have become defining, technology-based signatures of their work.
As Naomi Attwoods said in her review of Katrantzou’s A/W 2010 collection shown on Saturday, “Katrantzou’s strength is her eye for a print. The digital technology that has revolutionised and regenerated the trend for colourful, printed clothes gives designers so many possibilities but with Miss Katrantzou’s pieces, the source material is clearly visible and this sets her apart.”
And so, as London Fashion Week hits full tilt on Monday and Tuesday, the city seems poised to leapfrog Milan, Paris and New York as the definitive digital fashion capital, furthering the nascent comeback of London Fashion Week after years of struggling in the shadow of its fashion capital brethren.
Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion
Alexander McQueen Store on 14th Street in New York | Source: Stylesightings
LONDON, United Kingdom — One of the first fashion shows I ever attended was the Alexander McQueen show for Spring/Summer 2007, staged in the round at the Cirque D’Hiver in Paris. Jonathan Akeroyd, the affable CEO of McQueen, was kind enough to grant my cheeky request for an invitation, and he even let me bring along my college roommate, who was studying outside Paris at the time.
We were seated in the very last row way up in the rafters of the massive round theatre, but still we were mesmerised by McQueen’s collection and his spectacular presentation. Afterwards, we stepped out into the pouring rain late on a Friday night during Paris Fashion Week with a sense of awe and wonderment that lingered for the rest of the evening.
This, I think, is what made Mr. McQueen different. Unlike some of the other celebrated designers of our industry, Mr. McQueen’s message and vision was one that resonated far beyond fashion insiders. Over time, he seemed to find a way to connect with the masses, while still being extremely creative. He didn’t dumb things down or sacrifice his creativity, but he also did not fall into the trap of remaining too conceptual to have a wide-scale impact. Perhaps his clothes weren’t always wearable, but they still managed to connect with average consumers visually and viscerally.
Still, McQueen’s recent collections were often a commentary on contemporary subjects. When the economy crashed, he mocked the entire luxury industry and the collections of iconic houses like Dior and Chanel, and even his own. Last season’s prescient technological extravaganza was the seminal moment of a fashion week season when the industry finally began to take digital media seriously. Mr McQueen combined digital media with his natural flair for showmanship and a little bit of that phenom known as Lady Gaga.
Lee McQueen was also one of the very first designers to take to Twitter and share his thoughts directly with his fans. Twitter is also where McQueen expressed his final messages to the world, following the death of his mother Joyce earlier this month. For now, the @McQueenworld page has been removed from Twitter, but it is still available in Google cache.
But the question on my mind is whether Alexander McQueen the label can continue without Alexander McQueen the man. Once the shock has worn off and the fashion industry has given McQueen a fitting send off, Gucci Group will have to grapple with the fact that the eponymous designer is no longer here. It is one thing to switch around designers at houses with a long history and well-defined codes. But, even with the designer’s prolific output, Alexander McQueen is still a young brand. How Gucci Group deals with the issue of succession and continuing this business is perhaps one of the biggest challenges yet to face Robert Polet.
In the meantime, the rest of us will hold on to our McQueen memories, which fashion folk were exchanging yesterday in between shows — a fitting tribute to the man whose name was on everyone lips and in everyone’s thoughts, even with the New York Fashion Week circus going on.
Just before Christmas I walked into an elevator at London’s Shoreditch House and was briefly introduced to a robust and positive Lee McQueen on the way up to the 6th floor. He was in good spirits, and commented that he liked my friend’s drop crotch trousers. And then, in an instant, he was gone.
Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion
TOKYO, Japan — After several years of “will they or won’t they” speculation, American casual fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch finally opened its first retail store in Japan this past December. The 11-story shop in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza neighbourhood is just steps away from Uniqlo’s flagship store and Swedish fast fashion brand H&M.
As with every big retail opening in Tokyo, the first day of sales saw long lines of customers and swift business. The rumoured haul: ¥50 million (or about $550,000). Even without the benefit of an opening party or major press event, Abercrombie was able to rely on a small group of Japanese fans who had previously bought the brand’s products as souvenirs on trips to Hawaii or the continental United States.
But the big question is, will Abercrombie be able to win over new fans in Japan and replicate the unbelievably successful Japanese market entries of other mass fashion brands?
So far, the signs do not look good.
At the moment, Japan is in the midst of a low-price fashion boom. The only profitable brands are chain retailers like Uniqlo, H&M and Forever21, and the cheap domestic labels in the Shibuya109 shopping building. Yet remarkably, Abercrombie & Fitch made the decision to charge Japanese consumers nearly double its American prices.
In a poll of first-day A&F shoppers in Nikkei’s Marketing Journal, 61.7 percent of people found the prices “a bit high” while 18.3 percent declared them “too high.” Less than one-fifth of consumers thought the prices were on target. Once upon a time, American retailers made huge margins by setting higher prices in Japan, but today, gouging the Japanese consumer simply doesn’t work. Consumers are too smart for that.
Furthermore, most multinational apparel companies have found success in Japan by working with local partners to adapt their messaging, communications and brand image to fit the mature and sophisticated Japanese consumer. In contrast, Abercrombie & Fitch is pursuing an intensely American retail and marketing strategy that may alienate the vast majority of their potential sales base. The strategy is adequately well-done in terms of basic presentation and architecture, but their new Ginza store, in particular, clashes with Japanese fashion and shopping culture in almost every possible way.
For instance, most foreign retailers in Tokyo employ an exclusively Japanese staff, who behave according to the expectations of Japanese consumers, but Abercrombie & Fitch decided to make the brand experience so “American” that they have almost nobody working the shop floor who would be perceived by customers to be authentically Japanese.
Remarkably, the staff greets shoppers in English, rather than Japanese. Indeed, the best a Japanese consumer can hope for is a kikoku shijo – a returnee from overseas – who can at least speak the local language. While most Tokyo shoppers may like imported, international goods, they do not want to be forced to surface their rusty English during a commercial transaction.
The staff also fails to follow widely recognized principles of Japanese politeness. They are boisterous and many sing and dance along with the songs piped through the Ginza store, making the relatively cramped sales space feel even more claustrophobic for consumers.
To make matters worse, many of the male staff members have their chests exposed. Sex appeal may be a big part of the brand’s charm in the United States, but this particular masculine ideal of a “ripped chest” is completely out of sync with current Japanese fashion culture and the constant presence of half-naked men is off-putting to the Japanese customer — especially when crammed into tight spaces like elevators.
Successful brands in Japan use their shop floor staff as brand leaders and styling mannequins to show consumers how the clothes look on real Japanese people. At this, A&F also fails.
Like its American stores, Abercrombie’s Ginza flagship also reeks of strong American-style cologne — this, no less, in a country that’s famously perfume-adverse. Indeed, back in 2005, perfume critic Chandler Burr wrote a New York Times magazine piece called “Display It, Don’t Spray It” on the universal Japanese distaste for strong cologne and perfume. Yet A&F seems to pump its signature cologne through the ventilation system in a way that permeates the entire experience — and whatever you were wearing at the time for days after. Of course, many successful Japanese brands incorporate scent into their retail experience, but subtlety is the key. The smell should not carry with the customer.
But it doesn’t stop there — there are practical challenges as well. Visitors to A&F’s Ginza store complained in TV reports that they could not adequately judge the colour of certain products in the store’s extremely dim lighting, which is designed to feel like a late 1990s New York dance club. And, the elevator only goes to the 7th floor, forcing female shoppers to walk up flights of stairs to reach the women’s department in the store’s upper reaches.
Finally, possibly the most fundamental problem with A&F’s Ginza store is that it offers consumers few options for integrating the brand into his or her own life. The clothing screams the letters A&F at a time when Japanese consumers are looking for much more subtle branding on their apparel.
It’s interesting to note that the most popular luxury handbag at the moment is made by Miu Miu and looks much less openly branded than those made by competitors like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. While at the high street level, as we’ve seen with the success of Uniqlo, young Japanese consumers are increasingly looking for brands that offer them ways to create their own individual styling. A&F, on the other hand, offers no room for adaptation. You are forced to either buy into the entire package or buy nothing.
At the moment, Tokyo fashionistas are obsessed with classic Ivy League style and heritage American brands like Red Wing. But despite these areas of opportunity to connect with the current tastes of local consumers, A&F has made no attempts to style or merchandise its “fratboy” clothing to fit the current fashion ecosystem in Japan. In contrast, Gap has gotten very good at this in recent years — enabling the company to market their merchandise to Japanese consumers who are not necessarily Gap fans.
So how did Abercrombie get everything so wrong? Is it ignorance or arrogance? It’s hard to say for sure. Either way, Abercrombie’s entry into Japan is a perfect case study in how not to localise.
W. David Marx is a Contributing Editor of The Business of Fashion
Tavi Gevinson's Bow at Dior Couture | Source: Twitpic by SteffiSchuetze
LONDON, United Kingdom — A veritable firestorm erupted across fashion blogs and twitter streams this week in response to an article that appeared in London’s Independent newspaper over the weekend, highlighting Tavi Gevinson’s front row presence at the Haute Couture shows in Paris.
In a piece entitled “Fluff flies as fashion writers pick a cat fight with bloggers,” The Independent reported that “senior fashion insiders believe blogs have turned into little more than mouthpieces for fashion brands, which are increasingly using bloggers to regurgitate their press releases.”
As those controversial words rippled through the blogosphere and twittersphere, the protest and outrage came from all quarters of the fashion blogging fraternity and sorority. And, while we at the BoF were hesitant to take the bait and join the fray — the whole ‘editors versus bloggers’ story is becoming tired — it would be even worse for us to remain silent. Indeed, the Independent article raises very important issues which merit further discussion and debate, and perhaps, a more balanced perspective on this so-called “backlash” against bloggers.
In fact, this is exactly what I said when I was contacted for quotes on the Independent piece — quotes which were ultimately not used. As it turns out, several other bloggers were also asked to comment, including Susie Bubble and Helene of The Luxe Chronicles, but none of their quotes were used either. In fact, not one blogger was directly quoted to provide comment on the other side of the story. The result is an article that comes across as very black and white, on an issue that actually has many shades of grey. We are only at the very beginning of the digital revolution that is sweeping across the fashion industry. And so, to only show one side of the story does readers, and the industry as a whole, a disservice.
In the spirit of adding to the dialogue and providing a more balanced perspective, here’s some food for thought.
First, most bloggers worth their salt operate with integrity and professional values. This is not to say that bloggers are beyond reproach. There are always some bad apples in the bunch, in this case, those bloggers who accept products in exchange for positive coverage or special treatment. However, smart bloggers recognise that if they lose their independence, they will quickly lose the trust of their audiences. Simply being a mouthpiece is a short-term strategy.
So Who Isn't Bought? | Source: Bryanboy
Second, for editors from the mainstream media to hold bloggers to a different standard than that to which they hold themselves, is hypocritical. As one fashion insider told me, more than ever, major fashion editors are putting advertisers front and centre in their fashion editorial, giving smaller independent brands a miss.
“By and large, the way that bloggers respond to brands still results in content that isn’t unlike a traditional advertorial or ‘bought copy’ seen in magazines,” said Susie Bubble, author of one of the world’s most widely read fashion blogs, to the Independent, in quotes that she kindly shared with me but weren’t used in the piece.
“It is up to the blogger how they handle it and how they portray themselves. They are accountable to their readers and if they choose to do something that strikes [readers] as being biased or ‘bought by brands,’ then they have to suffer the consequences,” she concluded.
This is more important than ever before. Now that brands have cottoned on to the influence that bloggers have, they are doing everything to seduce them and win their approval.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with bloggers building relationships with brands and gaining special access. But, if these relationships become so cozy that bloggers stop saying what they really think, they risk losing the audiences that have grown to love them. The trick for bloggers, therefore, is to maintain healthy relationships with the brands, while also staying true to their audiences — it’s a fine balance.
Finally, we must all be aware that the tensions we’re seeing simply reflect the growing pains of a new medium that’s only just finding its way. As Vikram Alexei Kansara, Managing Editor of BoF said, “Like them or not, bloggers are here to stay and should be recognised as the powerful and significant ‘Fifth Estate’ that they are. Today we are at a moment that’s not unlike the invention of the Gutenberg press. It took hundreds of years for print media to evolve beyond biased pamphleteering, so why should they expect blogging to mature over night? If anything, I would argue that blogging is maturing much faster than print ever did!”
For her part, Susie Mesure, the author of the controversial article, said “the story ended up being much shorter than initially envisaged so I couldn’t use all the comments. Writing in a paper is not like writing online as I am constrained by the word limit set by my editor. I would have liked to use all the comments I received as they were very interesting. Hopefully I may yet get the chance.”
Indeed, all of the bloggers I spoke to said that their conversations with Ms. Mesure were pleasant and interesting. Even though she may have had an preconceived agenda in mind, she was asking all the right questions. It’s just too bad she wasn’t able to share the answers.
In the end, as Helene Le Blanc of Luxe Chronicles said, “it would be a far more productive debate if, rather than sniping at bloggers such as Tavi, journalists and editors actually engaged bloggers in a genuine dialogue about the state of the industry and the ways in which social media can make fashion a more participative industry.”
Hopefully now the mainstream media will turn its focus to discussing and analysing what bloggers are saying, instead of perpetuating the unconstructive ‘us versus them’ tension. Indeed, contrary to what the article may have indicated, Ms. Mesure is “a big fan of blogs – fashion blogs and otherwise,” she says. “I do however think there is a danger with readers assuming bloggers are independent when there is so much ‘gifting’ and ’seeding’ going on, which was really the main point I wanted to make.”
Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion
Giles Deacon At Pitti | Source: The Business of Fashion
FLORENCE, Italy — In the world of menswear, January is a full-on month of trade fairs and fashion shows. The super-charged schedule of activities begins with Pitti Uomo, continues on to Milan where mega Italian brands like Gucci, Prada and Armani unveil their collections, and concludes with a bang in Paris, where established Parisian fashion houses like Lanvin and Dior Homme show alongside a cornucopia of international designers from Korea, Belgium, Britain and the United States.
This season, the kind folks at Pitti Immagine invited me to Florence for my first-ever look at what Mesh Chhibber, Managing Partner of Relative|MO, refers to as “the chicest tradeshow on earth.” Indeed, rather than a series of boring stalls, filled with ‘me-too’ product, Pitti Uomo offers an impressive menswear mix of urban and classic, formal and casual, and high-fashion and high-street. There is literally something for everyone in the maze of pavillions on the site of the Fortezza da Basso.
Though the mood was somewhat subdued, the total number of visitors at Pitti Uomo was up 3 percent, with over 30,000 visitors attending. And, some brands — including Bill Amberg, the British designer known for his sumptuous leather goods, and Engineered Garments, the New York based brand with casually elegant, unstructured clothes — were swarmed with international buyers writing orders when I popped in to have a look.
But ironically, my Pitti Uomo highlight was actually served up by a womenswear designer. Each season, Francesca Tacconi and Lapo Cianchi of Pitti Immagine invite a guest designer to showcase high-fashion creativity within the context of the Pitti Uomo schedule. This season’s special guest was friend-of-BoF Giles Deacon, who was interviewed last year in our Inside the Studio video series.
Following on the heels of previous guest designers like Thom Browne and Proenza Schouler, Giles presented his pre-collection for Autumn in the almost three hundred year-old Richard Ginori factory. Giles said that he chose the location to showcase Florence’s enviable “industrial heritage” and the tradition of hand-made crafts that to this day form a big part of the Tuscan economy.
Despite the long haul from the city centre, fashion watchers flocked to the factory on the outskirts of Florence. On my way in, both Suzy Menkes and Susie Bubble commented to me on the inventiveness of Giles’ presentation — incorporating suspended porcelain, oversized paperclips and even a conveyor belt which transported dishes and ended with a celebratory smash — and the impact he had achieved by holding a fashion event in a decidedly non-fashion venue.
You know you have excited a blogger when she says: “I can’t wait to get back home and blog about this!”
Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion
MUMBAI, India — According to Forbes, India has the fastest-growing population of millionaires in the world. But for Western luxury brands operating in the country, grabbing a piece of the market has proven more difficult than anticipated and many are in the process of re-conceiving their India strategies.
Part of the problem is that Western luxury brands don’t seem to understand Indian consumers. When they first entered India, they created splashy advertising campaigns targeting the old money elite. But the results were poor, largely because this customer segment consists of frequent international travelers who overwhelmingly prefer the experience of purchasing Western luxury goods abroad, where brands offer them wider choice, better service and more competitive pricing than what’s currently available inside India.
In response, brands are starting to refocus on new pockets of wealth emerging in regional hubs across the country. But a private report on luxury in India produced by management consultants AT Kearney and The Economic Times revealed that the newly affluent lack sufficient knowledge and awareness of luxury brands to drive significant sales. Furthermore, the current strategy of establishing a large retail footprint supported by traditional mass marketing is not working.
Indeed, in order to succeed in India, luxury brands need to localise their marketing strategies. This goes further than just putting an Indian print on a bag or collaborating with a local celebrity. A multitude of cultures, languages, religions, festivals, colours and tastes make up this land of 1.1 billion people. So, it’s about understanding the difference between the flamboyant nature of a Punjabi customer and the more reserved nature of a Gujarati, and speaking to each of them in the specific cultural register that they respond to.
For example, luxury brand Montblanc — which successfully operates nineteen retail points across first, second and third tier cities in India — has regionalised all their marketing material.
“There is a clear distinction in customer values between [Indian] states,” says Tanya Kapinda of ID8 Media Solutions, an agency which works with Montblanc’s marketing division in India. “Any time a letterhead, invitation or a newsletter is produced, we customise [it] according to the local language and other aesthetic considerations such as colours used and the amount of decoration.”
When creating invitations for potential consumers in the Punjab in northern India, for example, the invitations are more lavish and the language more boisterous than those sent to consumers in southern India. “It ensures you are connecting personally to your consumer and customers respond to this,” she adds.
Brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolls Royce have also localised their approaches, identifying important events and celebrations amongst potential clients and arriving with personalised gifts or a surprise car service for the occasion.
Getting traction in the Indian sub-continent has been a challenge for every Western luxury brand that has tried to crack this complex new market. Those brands who are willing to better understand and connect with the local Indian consumer will be the ones who are most successful.
Agata Seidel is a writer and consultant based in New York.
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!
Our most recent article on Fashion 2.0 was also one of the most popular articles on BoF this past year, taking the industry — brands, bloggers and maintream media alike — to task for focusing on the superficial short-term ‘trend’ of social media, as opposed to the fundamental long-term changes that social media portends for the future of the industry as we know it.
A flurry of comments from digital media experts, star bloggers and industry watchers around the world pushed the Fashion 2.0 conversation forward at what is only the beginning of a long period of change and adaptation.
Screenshot from David David fashion film | Source: David David
Online fashion films really took off this year as a way for big and small fashion brands alike to connect with consumers. From narrative films to moody pieces to quirky animation shorts, our rundown of the top 10 fashion films for Spring/Summer 2010 was so popular it sure to be a regular feature on BoF in seasons to come.
The top fashion film in our estimation came from Alexander McQueen, who created a real fashion moment with his futuristic display of technology and fashion during Paris Fashion Week, accompanied by an equally arresting fashion film.
Luxury Society Invitation | Source: Luxury Society
I was proud to announce my role as a co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Luxury Society, the first global online network for luxury professionals, on BoF in March. Our “Whisper Campaign” resulted in a widespread viral conversation that brought thousands of readers to BoF and hundreds of requests join Luxury Society in its beta incarnation.
Later in the year, Women’s Wear Daily profiled Luxury Society as we marked the milestone of 2,000 luxury professionals in the network. Today Luxury Society counts more than 6,000 members in its ranks and will move out of beta in early 2010. Stay tuned for more news soon.
Maison Martin Margiela scarification | Source: ASVOF
2009 will also be remembered as the year when Martin Margiela left the fashion house that bears his name. Before the announcement of his departure was made, BoF was grateful to republish an article by our friends at Agenda Inc. which chronicled the how special characteristics of the cult Belgian brand and its mysterious designer created a following unrivaled in the fashion industry.
Our friends over at LuxuryLab published a ranking of fashion brands’ digital competence in the Autumn, and we were amongst the first to share the now widely-read report with the global fashion industry.
For fashion brands, the news was not so good. The controversial ranking played a part in the wave of social media interest that swept across fashion brands in New York, Paris and Milan in the latter half of 2009. LuxuryLab has more technology initiatives planned for 2010.
Screen shot of DazedDigital.com | Source: Dazed Group
Technological disruption is not an issue isolated to fashion brands. Our three-part series on the future of fashion magazines by Vikram Alexei Kansara explored how technology is revolutionising fashion media as well. Jefferson Hack, Nick Knight and Diane Pernet were amongst the important industry voices who weighed in on the debate.
Our always-sharp contributing editor in Tokyo, W. David Marx, penned a piece on Uniqlo, which in our view, was the most important fashion brand of 2009.
In the middle of the greatest economic slowdown in several generations, Uniqlo continued its global expansion, increased profits and sales, and brought in the formidable talent of Jil Sander to create one of the most successful high-street designer collaborations to date.
Back in January, Lauren Goldstein Crowe, co-author of a tell-all book on Jimmy Choo, published a BoF column outlining her thoughts on how brands could survive the Great Recession of 2008-2009, gleaned from her conversations with fashion executives and brand managers. The article continued to garner interest throughout the year, a reflection of the dire state of the industry as 2009 comes to a close.
9 Festival for Fashion & Photography, by Jork Weisman | Source: Unit F
In June, I was fortunate to be invited to participate in the 9 Festival for Fashion and Photography in Vienna, incorporating the Austrian Fashion Awards, panel discussions with e-commerce retailers and fashion bloggers, and a variety of accompanying events that made for an exciting week. Next year, the Unit F buro fur Mode will put on its 10th annual festival from 7-20 June 2010.
BoF Twitter Poll Gucci Eyeweb versus Burberry Art of the Trench | Source: InFashionMedia
In our first ever poll of more than 10,000 BoF followers on Twitter, seeking reader feedback and comments on social media sites by Burberry and Gucci, the iconic British brand came out on top for its innovative website, The Art of the Trench.
After posting the article, we received feedback from many readers, including global PR and marketing professionals at both of the mega fashion brands in the poll. It seems we have discovered a new way to engage our readers, so there will be more Twitter Polls to come in 2010.
Imran Amed is Founder and Editor of The Business of Fashion
Francesca Marotta, Fashion Designer and Stylist, London
VANCOUVER, Canada — In what has become an annual tradition here on BoF, we wish you the best for the holiday season (and in line with our veritable obsession with internet technologies) by sharing the most colourful and creative e-greetings we have received from readers all over the world.
As the fashion industry takes a break from the incessant hustle and bustle which keeps us running around for most of the year, all of us at the BoF wish you a happy holiday season!
Honorine Jewels by Fanny Boucher | Source: Honorine Jewels
JAIPUR, India — As we head into the festive season, we thought we’d bring a bit of sparkle into your holiday, courtesy of Fanny Boucher of India-based Honorine Jewels.
After spending a few years in the jewelry industry in Jaipur, the Pink city and capital of princely Rajasthan, India’s most colourful state, Boucher began making jewelry for her friends. These happy customers encouraged Boucher to create her own jewelry collection and seek out buyers. A few months later, Net-a-Porter picked up the Honorine Jewels collection exclusively, effectively placing Boucher on the fashion map.
When designers find their products on Net-a-Porter, magical things can happen. Buyers from around the world use the Net-a-Porter brands list as intelligence on what brands they should be watching. Indeed, since her discussions with Net-a-Porter, Boucher has been speaking to other retailers who are interested in her wares, while also setting up her company and getting her first order produced.
Honorine Jewels by Fanny Boucher for BoF
And so, without further ado, the BoF Spotlight now shines on Fanny Boucher, incorporating a green amethyst ring from her debut collection in the heart of our BoF logo. We think Fanny’s colourful concoctions, with precious stones sourced in Jaipur’s Johari Bazaar, are the kinds of special products that inspire consumers. This is jewelry with a story to tell.
And, hopefully this also bodes well for Fanny’s fashion future. Outgoing BoF Spotlight designer, Hermione de Paula, was recently named the winner of Vauxhaull Fashion Scout’s Merit Award. Congratulations Hermione!
That’s all from us at BoF until the New Year. Happy holidays to all of you!
The Spotlight is BoF’s showcase for emerging talent employing creativity and business acumen to make their mark in the fashion business.
Stephen Meisel in 032c Winter 2008/09 | Source: 032c
As 032c prepares to mark its tenth anniversary and moves into a new office designed by Arno Brandlhuber/ b&k+, BoF sat down with the magazine’s founder, editor and creative director Joerg Koch to discuss the inner workings and future plans of his title. While there’s no formula for the unique circumstances and hard work that led to 032c’s enviable market position, Koch’s insights provide lessons that both brands and magazines can learn from.
BERLIN, Germany — Ask fashion’s thinking class what they consider to be the best magazine on newsstands today and they’re likely to point you to an enigmatic red book with a cover that features a headless female body in black leather gear and story teasers like “Business of Design” and “Fall of Communism.” It sounds unlikely, but the 18th issue of Berlin-based 032c is wildly popular in fashion capitals like New York, London, Paris and Moscow, making it the magazine of the moment.
But its remarkable success is based on more than hype. The latest issue is a winner — and not just editorially. It’s also the thickest in the history of the magazine, thanks in part to 35 pages of advertising (compared to 20 a year ago). What’s more, any of the ads would be the pride of most other independent magazines in the industry: Missoni, Jil Sander and Raf Simons take up single and double spreads alongside Comme des Garcons, Dior Homme and Tom Ford.
This is an impressive feat, especially when you consider that big publishing houses with dedicated sales teams are struggling to find advertisers, putting out depressingly thin issues and accepting ads from mid- and down-market brands they would have turned down just two years ago. Clearly, 032c is doing something right.
Build a strong identity
032c would not be the darling of magazine junkies and media critics everywhere, nor a commercial success, if it wasn’t for the intelligence and freshness of its content. While editorial magic is hard to explain, for 032c it has a lot to do with being true to its Berlin roots and a stimulating and unorthodox mix of content that spans art, fashion and politics, but somehow manages to make perfect sense. The current issue, for example, includes stories on two contemporary artists, the Polish government, a Fortune 500 CEO from Oregon, a Paris nightclub and Trish Goff.
032c is also a powerful signifier, as desirable and emotionally satisfying as a Marc Jacobs shoe. People who buy 032c spend a lot of time with it and prize having it on their bookshelf. And that’s just what advertisers are looking for. Indeed, brands are increasingly seeking to connect with consumers through media platforms that function as aspirational entities themselves. Simply by being in the magazine, brands feed off 032c’s powerful cultural cachet.
Tackle challenging markets
Koch says it was a strategic decision to aggressively pursue Italian advertisers. “We knew that being a magazine that is perceived as being very avant-garde, Milan would be the most difficult market. It’s very conservative and commercially-oriented. In Paris, the fashion brands are more fine-tuned to our sensibility. So for us the interesting thing was to tackle the markets we perceived to be the biggest challenge and then be there all the time and talk to the people. We even opened a small Milan office with one person. And I flew down there quite often. All that pays off.”
Be louder and better than ever, especially in hard times
Koch doesn’t believe economic insecurity is a reason to scale down ambition, if anything you need to be bolder: “The best advice never given to us personally was Warren Buffet’s, who said ‘Be greedy when everyone is fearful, and be fearful when everyone is greedy.’ You can replace that with ‘Be loud when everyone is quiet and be quiet when everybody is loud.’” Clearly, the ambitious attitude has paid off. “We really believe that the time is right for the publication to enter a larger arena,” says Koch.
But being independent has been advantageous for 032c. Their Winter ‘08 issue included a story titled “Who is Steven Meisel?” that featured a 14-page fold-out with every single cover the American photographer has ever shot for Italian Vogue. This sort of extravagant gesture would be unthinkable in the context of a corporate publishing house, but the feature was an instant hit, making number 16 one of the most talked-about issues in 032c’s history.
At the same time, there are obvious advantages, in terms of advertising and distribution, to being part of a larger organisation. Koch believes it’s not impossible to create a magazine with high standards of quality and an independent editorial spirit within a big publishing house and doesn’t rule out a mutually beneficial partnership with a larger company. “There will definitely come a point where for further growth — especially in terms of distribution — we’ll probably need a partner.” This should be interesting news for major publishers who are facing tough times and scrambling to reach an increasingly educated and fragmented readership.
Reflect a changing mindset
Koch says that no changes are planned in terms of the architecture and look of the magazine. But he likes to mention “a changing mindset” at 032c. So far, the most overt nod to commerce is the introduction of Select, which would be called a market section at a more traditional title.
With Select, 032c is moving from being a magazine of pure ideas to something broader: a magazine of ideas and products. “Select is definitely a commercial thing,” says Koch unabashedly. But, as one would expect, the magazine is doing it in its own idiosyncratic way: Select’s debut installment, for instance, covers a rare manuscript by Georges Bataille next to Lanvin jewelry next to a museum exhibit of Aztec artifacts next to Dior Homme cufflinks.
Select is also a test vehicle for 032c’s biggest project: developing its quiet online presence into a constantly-updated content site that not only complements its flagship print product, but stands alone in quality and scale. Indeed, the kind of digital operation they have in mind is ambitious enough that Koch is currently looking for a partner to help them take the new website from concept to reality in 2010.
The magazine’s pro-Internet stance is interesting for a title that could revel in print-only exclusivity. But Koch sees no contradiction in doing both. On the contrary: “The magazine will never be something that you will get at every newsstand, you have to make an effort to get it. It’s not everywhere and that is really nice for the aura of the magazine.” But a strong website, the thinking goes, available to everyone, everywhere and at all times, can enhance that aura rather than dilute it.
In its approach, 032 is part of a new establishment of magazines like Fantastic Man and Purple that are not just surviving, but thriving through the economic crisis that’s crippling the rest of the industry. Radiating confidence, theses titles emphasize superior editorial quality and advertisers respond to that, even in tough times. Indeed, nothing about 032c is dumbed-down, and, sadly, that’s a rare thing on today’s newsstand.
Suleman Anaya is a fashion and culture writer based in New York.
NEW YORK, United States — First video killed the radio star, now digital video appears poised to kill off the still photographer.
Armed with HD digital video that’s ever-higher in quality, photographers can now shoot moving images with the crispness and clarity of still photos. This raises an interesting dilemma for image-makers across art, fashion and advertising alike: why bother with photographs anymore?
Earlier this year, a video of Megan Fox in a bathing suit circulated online, followed by a cover story in Esquire magazine featuring images that were outtakes — screen grabs, essentially — from the video. Both were credited to celebrity portrait photographer Greg Williams, whose work has always referenced scenes from movies. But for Esquire, he wasn’t just making photographs that look like film stills – he took actual stills from a video that had already been widely distributed on the internet.
Magazines have long used online videos to support their editorial content, but the video featurettes were almost always supplementary. The printed photograph was still the prime focus of the piece and publishers and photographers were always careful to save the best material — the photographs themselves — for the print publication. That’s all starting to change.
In fashion advertising, Calvin Klein used digital video to shoot their Spring 2009 campaign, blowing up stills from Steven Meisel’s television ads to make the images on the company’s iconic billboard on New York’s Houston Street. But the spots, featuring models engaged in a ménage-a-trois, stoked so much controversy that they were banned from most television channels and instead ran exclusively on Calvin Klein’s website. The result was intriguing. The still images essentially became teasers for a video campaign that unfolded online.
Still photography and moviemaking share a long and interwoven history. But today, thanks to a new wave of HD digital video cameras, the two are converging like never before. That’s because new cameras like the RED – used by Steven Soderbergh on his last three projects and recently adopted by Peter Jackson for both District 9 and the upcoming The Lovely Bones – produce individual frames that look just as good as still photos.
While still prohibitively expensive for most photographers, the RED camera lets commercial clients produce a single piece of editorial or advertising content that can live across multiple media channels and platforms. That means the same photo shoot can produce both moving images and stills that can run as magazine ads, outdoor ads and web videos, a three-for-one deal with attractive cost-saving potential.
“It’s a general trend to create campaigns that are 360 and able to be in-store applications or online digital applications, in order to have a cohesive brand feel across different mediums,” adds Doug Lloyd, who provided creative direction for the Spring 2009 Y-3 campaign.
Using video also drives greater consumer engagement, says Diana Hong, a creative director at digital agency CreateTheGroup who works with brands like Marc Jacobs and Burberry. “It’s really hard to convince people to buy [a campaign] and just provide images. Video is so big because you have a much more engaging product.”
Indeed, the advertising industry has rushed to embrace new digital video technology. But how do the photographers feel about the shift?
“I’m just trying to think of someone who didn’t make that switch. I think it’s just normal for photographers to make films and go back and forth. I approach my photography like a director, so it’s easy to make that transition,” said Ryan McGinley, who recently shot Tilda Swinton with the RED camera for luxury brand Pringle. “Digital is to film as colour was to black and white,” continues Collier Schorr, referencing her recent fashion film for Tim Hamilton.
But it’s important to remember that although many photographers are embracing digital video, the switch to making moving images isn’t just a technical upgrade. It’s a different art form. While photography is focused on composing a mise-en-scène, organising elements within a static frame, making moving images means creating a scene, a composition that reveals itself over time, while retaining dramatic interest throughout.
The difference is emotion, says photographer KT Auleta, who has recently been experimenting with digital shorts and fashion films. “Actors are there to communicate another level of human experience, whereas the emotions in still fashion photography are more of a tone.” Indeed, there’s a reason that movies have both a director and a director of photography, which carries risks for a photographer making the switch. Working on a moving image, “I am not directly on the camera,” Auleta notes, “so there is a creative immediacy that is lost in my process.”
Lloyd’s recent campaigns for Y-3 involve images of frozen movements that would be difficult, if not impossible, to choreograph for a still camera. But he also has misgivings about working with a larger crew: “Photography used to be more of a collaborative effort between a photographer and an art director, and it’s now become much more of an open democratic conversation with all the people on set, because now there is a visual on a monitor that’s kind of constantly being critiqued and scrutinized.”
Which is not to say that a still from a video shoot is any less of a creative product than a photograph. It’s just not the same creative product. “I just shot a short film with Patrik Ervell for his Spring collection, and we pulled a still for an ad,” Auleta says. “Originally my credit said ‘photo’ and Patrik called me to see if it should read ‘film still.’ We agreed that is, in fact, what it was.”
In other words, take a picture of photography right now, because in a flash, it could change completely.
Ken Miller is an editor, writer, and curator for print and digital media.
Teabag Window Display, Anthropologie London | Source: The Business of Fashion
LONDON, United Kingdom— The majority of luxury brands have spent the past fifteen years investing in retail networks in both established and emerging luxury markets. Flagship stores, one more extravagant than the last, were built in Tokyo, New York, Paris, and Beijing. The design directive for these spaces was singular and focused, showcasing exclusive products in an environment which communicated a carefully crafted image to the consumer.
Earlier this year, Net-a-Porter announced a trebling in profits. The success of the online retailer contrasted sharply with poor performances in brick and mortar retail elsewhere. This was just one signal that helped to (finally) drive home the importance of the Internet as a distribution channel for luxury fashion. Business models are quickly being updated to reflect this change, but while fashion plays catch up with consumers’ online buying habits, transformations in consumer expectations of the traditional retail channel have also been swift and pronounced.
Having already invested in hundreds of thousands of square footage of retail space in recent years, it is more important than ever for luxury brands to protect their return on investment. Retail spaces must provide shoppers a compelling reason to leave the house, enter a store, and spend money. So, what is it exactly that will lure customers back to bricks and mortar?
Last month, American retailer Anthropologie opened a store on Regent Street in London — their first in the European market. In its opening week, consumers were invited in with a window display of colourful tea bags strung together like garlands of flowers, quirky chandeliers made from recycled plastics, life-size model sheep draped in heavy yarn and a 20-metre high vertical garden.
Having built its reputation on this unique shopping experience, luxury brands can learn a great deal from Anthropologie. By studying customer behaviour and movement patterns, retailers like Anthropologie know that when shoppers enter a new or unfamiliar store, they make a quick, decisive assessment of the merchandise and the surroundings. If something doesn’t catch their eye or give them a reason to stay within the first thirty sconds, more often than not, would-be buyers leave empty-handed.
According to Ron Pompei, Founder and Creative Director of Pompei A.D. which advises companies like Anthropologie on experiential design concepts, what consumers are looking for today is inextricably linked to the paradigm shift from brand image to brand culture.
The days in which a brand’s meaning consisted of a carefully crafted image communicated to the consumer are over. Today, consumers are the most active voices in creating brand meaning. They do this by sharing experiences and perceptions via the plethora of wide-reaching communication tools available to them. What is important today is not so much a constructed brand image, but the brand culture that results from this consumer-led exchange.
According to Pompei, “brand culture will effect the design of the retail spaces because brand environments will have to reflect these cultural transformations by moving beyond [commercial] transactions and expressing the evolving values of the brand community. The simplest way to describe this transition is that retail environments will become places for people and the emerging brand culture rather than only places for product.”
Anthropologie is a perfect case-study for this kind of approach. With revenues above $140 million, the brand has enjoyed sustained growth due to its emphasis on store layout and lifestyle merchandising, resulting in an astounding average customer dwell time of eighty-eight minutes.
In an Anthropologie store, emphasis is placed on creating an individual, transformative journey. “Personal discovery and exploration are also important. We respond to this complex value by creating a retail landscape with ‘paths of exploration’ rather than isles with straight lines and right angles… [the] retail environment is to be explored at the individual direction and pace of each visitor,” says Pompei. “In this way when customers select an item it is their own discovery. They have just co-authored the brand and created their own ‘Ah’ moment.” This is what will distinguish a bricks-and-mortar experience from an online purchase and ultimately make the cash register ring.
For luxury brands, this shift in function of the retail environment will require a new approach to design and visual merchandising. Walking into luxury stores today, consumer interaction with the environment is rigidly regulated and sometimes even intimidating. Straight lines often dictate shoppers’ movements and products are stored behind glass counters or on high shelves. Visual merchandising has been focused on the product, not on the experience of the person in the store. All of these experiential dimensions will have to be rethought.
Luxury retail spaces around the world are uniquely positioned to embrace this new mandate. Having already invested in premium property, existing retail spaces can be designed to evoke emotional responses. Coming out from behind glass counters and inviting consumers to explore and create their own journey should not be a far stretch for those that are ready and willing to leave the one-way communication of brand image behind, enabling shoppers to participate in a creating a new brand culture.
Meeta Roy is a London-based luxury brand consultant.
LONDON, United Kingdom — Last night on X-Factor, one of the most popular shows in British television history, Lady Gaga laid down the digital pop star gauntlet again, dressed in Gareth Pugh’s fantastical creations from Spring/Summer 2007 while performing Bad Romance, the first release from her second album The Fame Monster. The song originally debuted at the seminal show of the Spring/Summer 2010 collections staged by Alexander McQueen. As was widely reported at the time, when Ms. Gaga announced the song’s debut to her more than 1 million Twitter followers, it promptly crashed the SHOWStudio site which was live-streaming the McQueen show.
Since then, Gaga has performed Bad Romance at the American Music Awards, the Ellen Degeneres Show, the Jay Leno Show, and now X-Factor, reaching millions of viewers around the world. But even more interestingly, she has gone beyond the typical old media promotion circuit, using the internet to create viral interest in her music and day-to-day antics.
The results are impressive to say the least. Since the Bad Romance video was launched on YouTube on November 10th, it has been viewed more than 30 million times. To put that into perspective, Madonna’s current single, Celebration, has only been viewed 1 million times since it debuted on YouTube on October 14th. In total, Lady Gaga’s videos have been viewed more than 500 million times on YouTube, the equivalent of almost 40 appearances on X-Factor, which attracted an estimated 13 million viewers yesterday evening.
It’s no wonder that Forbes Magazine recently declared that “Lady Gaga isn’t the music industry’s new Madonna. She’s its new business model.” However, what the Forbes article failed to note is that Lady Gaga may very well be revolutionising the fashion business as well.
On his blog, Lady Gaga’s stylist Nicola Formichetti, who is also the Creative Director of Dazed & Confused and Fashion Director of Vogue Hommes Japan, has credited the outfits worn by Ms. Gaga in every shot of the Bad Romance video, in the same way that one might see editorial credits in fashion magazines. Given the original Alexander McQueen connection, it’s not surprising that many of the fashion credits in this case go to Mr. McQueen, but Formichetti has also dressed Ms. Gaga in clothes by young designers from around the world, including London-based milliner Nasir Mazhar and American designer Benjamin Cho, providing these new talents with a powerful PR platform that brings fashion into the digital age. In this way, Ms. Gaga may now be the single most powerful editorial machine for fashion designers looking for mass exposure.
Of course, there has always been a connection between fashion, music and film, which feed off of each other for inspiration and amplify the collective interest of consumers. The first step in solidifying this was the launch of MTV in the 1980’s and the birth of the narrative music video, as pioneered by Michael Jackson and others. But back then, musicians relied on the networks to select and broadcast their videos to reach their audiences, whereas today, artists can communicate directly with their fans en masse, as Lady Gaga has shown, and videos are viewed on demand by consumers who choose the content they want to consume. And, while Michael Jackson’s red zippered jacket inspired his fans in a similar way as Gaga does with her fashions today, there was no easy way of really tracking down who made the jackets or where they could be found. Bolstered by the power of the Internet, the new fashion-music-film troika is an even stronger force to be reckoned with.
Incidentally, there’s one other brand that appears conspicuously in the fashion credits of Bad Romance. “The Haus of Gaga” is credited with several items from different scenes from the video. Could an eponymous Lady Gaga fashion label be the next phase in Ms. Gaga’s plans for global domination? Stay tuned.
TOKYO, Japan — For the last two years, the inverted black triangle — Japan’s version of the minus sign — has infected monthly earnings reports at most of the nation’s retail chains. The global recession has been almost universally bad for the apparel market. Japanese customers are just not spending on fashion like they used to.
There’s one exception, of course: Uniqlo.
For the fiscal year ending in August 2009, Uniqlo’s parent company Fast Retailing posted a ¥108.6 billion profit with ¥685 billion sales — outperforming initial projections. The brand’s comparable store sales for September 2009 were up 31.6 percent. In October, they were up 35.7 percent.
What’s more, these striking sales numbers have manifested themselves visibly in a real life consumer frenzy. Back in October, stylish young people lined up in droves to buy Uniqlo’s +J Jil Sander line, while everyday, middle-aged women swarm around the Heat Tech shelves at suburban Uniqlo outlets. On 21 November, two thousand shoppers lined up at the Ginza flagship store at 6am for an early bird sale. They weathered the cold and dark just for a chance to buy slightly cheaper versions of what they can basically buy at any time.
Back in January, BoF commented on Uniqlo’s singular success in 2008. Since then, their success has only grown. Tadashi Yanai — Uniqlo founder and Japan’s richest man — wants to hit a trillion yen in annual global sales by 2020. That means an expansion beyond the already staggering 780 stores in Japan and 110 stores in other markets around the world. Indeed, if Uniqlo’s formula continues to drive these kind of results, the brand could become Japan’s first truly global mass retailer.
But what’s the secret to Uniqlo’s tremendous success?
Falling incomes and a deflationary economy have clearly made Uniqlo’s low-prices much more attractive to Japanese customers. But Uniqlo are not simply capitalising on consumers who will settle for ‘inferior goods.’ The brand is making exactly what people want, at prices that make them feel good.
Perhaps the first secret to Uniqlo’s success is its universality. It offers something for almost everyone. Their +J collaboration with Jil Sander won over fashion elites, while pieces created with Tokyo Girls Collection attracted the chestnut hair and elaborate nail art crowd. The Heat Tech line — expected to sell a staggering 50 million units this season — has almost become a winter institution, while the animé-themed T-shirts were a hit with teens. Wives even love to get their bumbling husbands entire wardrobes of weekend wear from Uniqlo.
Second, while Uniqlo markets to a broad range of people, it speaks to different segments in their own language, using every possible media channel. For example, the sensational digital UNIQLOCK was a favorite amongst blog-savvy graphic designers, while the a special advertorial insert, UNIQLOGY, found in every issue of high-fashion magazine Popeye, speaks directly to the men’s style set.
After collaborations with Opening Ceremony, Steven Alan, and of course, Jil Sander, Uniqlo has achieved a certain amount of cachet with Japan’s fashion-forward crowds. But that doesn’t necessarily mean Uniqlo is now ‘cool.’ In fact, perhaps the brand’s most powerful asset is its neutrality. Wearing Uniqlo carries no meaning of its own. It’s as close as apparel has ever come to interchangeable LEGO blocks.
For young Japanese consumers in particular, Uniqlo’s ‘blank slate’ approach may be its greatest strength. Indeed, the days of Japanese consumers creating and expressing identity through brand identification is over. Judging by their embrace of Uniqlo, Japanese consumers are definitely not becoming ‘individual’ in a Western sense — wanting to only buy things no one else has. But they no longer want to be pigeon-holed by consuming a fashion brand that has an overly strong or defining identity.
Uniqlo’s widespread success means it’s a socially-acceptable brand (a huge concern for Japanese consumers), but other than that, the clothes say almost nothing: no logos, no design flourishes, no distinguishing marks. Uniqlo’s advertising rarely tries to inject a particular statement or identity into the brand, unlike the hipster sex of American Apparel or the “classic” preppie vibe of The Gap. Uniqlo is basically a Pantone-hued commodity, making it a perfect fit for both highly sophisticated and completely disengaged fashion consumers.
Even if the economy recovers next year, it’s hard to believe Japanese consumers will abandon Uniqlo for their previous pantheon of higher calibre brands. There is a sense that, for the last thirty years, everyone in Japan has paid too much for their clothing. Uniqlo’s ubiquity is a sign that Japanese consumers are gravitating towards more rational price points like those seen in North America. It’s clear that retailers can no longer force people to buy premium everything.
The amazing thing about Uniqlo is: nobody thinks the brand is offering them an inferior product in exchange for lower prices. Indeed, Uniqlo’s “cost-performance” generates tremendous goodwill with its customer base. The brand makes solid, well-designed apparel that keeps up with trends but — unlike H&M and Forever21 — lasts longer than a season.
With Uniqlo, Japanese consumers believe they are getting their money’s worth. And that feels very very good.
W. David Marx is a Contributing Editor of The Business of Fashion
Left: DVF Spring 2009, right: Mercy Spring 2008 | Source: National Post
Today we introduce Legal Patterns, a new series of articles on BoF exploring fashion and the law. Just as design patterns form the foundation of good fashion design, legal frameworks enable fashion businesses to defend their financial interests and protect their designs.
BRUSSELS, Belgium — In the fashion industry, the copycatting of designs is a not a simple issue. Accusations fly in all directions: luxury houses accuse high-street brands; artisans accuse fashion houses; and fashion houses accuse other fashion houses. Indeed, Diane von Furstenberg has found herself on both sides of the issue, submitting copycatted high-street designs by Mango and Forever 21 as legal evidence in court, while herself being accused of copying a jacket designed by the Canadian brand Mercy.
Nor is this a new problem. Since their inception, houses have struggled with fashion espionage. In the past, fashion companies tried to maintain strict control over their intellectual property, not through an assertion of legal rights, but by physically hiding their designs from competitors. In the 1950s, for instance, Christian Dior’s press officer insisted that “all precautions must have been taken to ensure that no member of the profession [e.g. fashion designers, manufacturers, milliners] would be attending” their fashion shows.
Until a few years ago, fashion houses religiously pursued this strategy of strict control. But with the rise of blogging and fast fashion, this approach no longer works. Today’s fashion world is faster and more transparent than ever, blurring the line between what is ‘copying’ and what is ‘inspiration’ and putting new pressure on fashion houses to protect their intellectual property.
Can the law help?
Applying intellectual property rights (IPRs) – like copyright and design right – is tricky when it comes to fashion. Generally speaking, IPRs are granted to the author or creator of a work to reward investment and encourage creativity with a monopoly right. But IPRs mustn’t unreasonably restrict the ability of others to develop new ideas and produce new works, so the scope of the monopoly is limited in some way, usually by time. The scope of copyright protection depends on the depth of originality of the work, while the scope of design rights depend on how novel the design is compared to the “state of art.” But because many fashion items have certain fixed parameters — a dress must fit the body, a bag must have handles — there are substantial limits on the legal protections available to designers.
Furthermore, it can be difficult to prove claims of copying in court, because the legal process involves a subjective comparison of the copy and the original by a judge trying to put himself in the shoes of a typical customer. Indeed, the majority of cases are settled out of court, leaving the industry with little precedent on which to build legal certainty.
Blatant copycats like counterfeiters mustn’t be tolerated. In these cases, a purposeful law is largely in place in the European Union, though efforts to facilitate enforcement would be welcome. But the trickier issue is how to deal with what the fashion industry calls ‘inspiration.’
Fashion is an extremely fast-paced business, with very short periods for recouping costs. At first, this would seem to bolster the case for stronger, short-term legal protections against stolen ‘inspiration.’ But on closer inspection, these kinds of copycats can actually contribute to the creativity and innovation that drives the industry.
Indeed, we saw signs of creative inspiration all over the Spring/Summer 2010 shows: Was the beige ruffled dress from Valentino inspired by the white dress Viktor & Rolf presented in their Spring Summer 2006 collection? Was Jason Wu’s violet dress with a black waist band inspired by the violet dress by Alber Elbaz for Lanvin Spring Summer 2008?
We also see copying on the high-street, with H&M, Zara and others quickly reproducing high fashion trends. However, one could reasonably argue that this simply gives affluent consumers more reason to buy new and different things, which puts more pressure on fashion houses to innovate, driving the industry forward.
Certainly, this system of inspiration can be seen as a positive — even inherent — part of the fashion industry. But it should operate on fair terms.
Here, perhaps fashion can learn a thing or two from the music industry. With music, ‘collecting societies’ ensure that artists and rights owners are fairly remunerated when their works are played or — more relevant to fashion — sampled.
This type of system could be tailored to the fashion industry. For example, the “sampling” of a fashion design could go through a society that’s specifically set up to collect and distribute remuneration across Europe. Such an approach would not grant a right of reproduction, but allow designers, fashion houses, artisans, and others to draw inspiration from each other on fair terms.
Furthermore, why not recognize “moral rights” for fashion designs? As well as economic rights, copyright law grants something called a “moral right.” This is essentially the creator’s right to attribution by name when his work is copied.
Moral rights are not currently granted by design right law, but in the world of computer software development, “open source” licenses often contain attribution of authorship. Adopting a similar concept for the fashion industry would obligate “samplers” to not only pay a fee, but give fair attribution to the original designer, channeling potential customers towards the source of the design.
If last century’s strategy of strict controls on fashion IP is failing, perhaps an “open source” system that acknowledges and promotes the sampling of inspiration based on fair remuneration and attribution could be the answer for the next century.
Hanne Melin is a competition and IP lawyer based in Brussels.
NEW YORK, United States — Ever since the dynamic and erudite young fashion blogger Tavi appeared at the runway shows in New York this past September, the fashion industry has partaken in a veritable social media orgy. Article after article rightfully declared the 13 year-old blogger and her talented fashion blogger brothers and sisters — BryanBoy, Susie Bubble and others — the new fashion stars.
And while nothing delights us more than to see bloggers finally getting the attention and respect they deserve, the time has come for a bit of a social media reality check.
Fashion blog web traffic | Source: Alexa
According to some quick research on Alexa, the recent attention has propelled traffic of these fashion blogs to record highs, and for a short period, tiny Tavi’s traffic even eclipsed that of the superblogger Scott Schuman. All the while, brands were chasing the “new front row” for attention and approval, an international luxury conference was convened in Berlin to explore how social media is revolutionising the fashion industry, and the star bloggers were trying to make sense of their overnight fame and newfound industry influence.
But what happens next? It’s time to take stock to assess how each of the constituent players in this rapidly developing online fashion eco-system can develop over the long-term. For everyone involved, this will require not only a change of media, but also a change of mindset.
BRANDS: Develop long-term, reciprocal relationships with bloggers. Don’t just create PR stunts to get attention.
At that now infamous D&G show in Milan, where bloggers were prominently placed in the front row for all to see, laptops were also set up in front of their seats. The objective, it appears, was to make it look like they were “live” blogging and tweeting during the show, even though none of the selected photobloggers (Scott Schuman, Tommy Ton, and Garance Doré) work in this way. Rather, the photobloggers take hundreds of photos over the course of a day and then edit their photos down before publishing only the best ones. In reality, only Bryanboy is a regular Twitter user and the only one who might be considered a “live” blogger.
As a PR stunt, the illusion of live blogging may have done wonders for D&G as press photos of the bloggers appeared in major publications around the world. Conjuring up images of young people streaming their ideas live from the front row made for a great story, but it probably made the bloggers themselves feel uncomfortable. D&G apparently wanted to be seen as the first to truly embrace media, even though other brands have been doing so for several seasons now, albeit in a quieter manner.
It’s not enough to be seen to embrace social media. Brands and retailers must also build real long-term symbiotic relationships with bloggers, not short-term exploitative ones. Excellent examples of this are Lane Crawford, who from the start have supported and worked with Tommy Ton on their ad campaigns, and Burberry and DKNY who hired Mr. Schuman for his photography skills to appear on their website and in their advertisements, respectively.
Finally, consider the point made by Yuli Ziv, a New York-based fashion blogger who said to brands last week: “If you are looking for sales, make sure to provide [bloggers] the detailed product info, pricing and availability, if SEO optimization is your top goal – make sure you use the right keywords in your pitch, if publicity buzz is what makes you satisfied – give them juicy stories, and if you simply want love – give them the reasons to love you.” It’s as simple as that.
BLOGGERS: Operate with the highest-levels of integrity and don’t lose your independent voice and point-of-view.
In his book “Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers As the Fifth Estate,” author Stephen D. Cooper argues that bloggers can hold companies and the mainstream media accountable for their actions. But in order to do so, bloggers must simultaneously maintain healthy, positive relationships with the brands with whom they work, while also fiercely protecting their independence.
Even though we don’t necessarily agree with the recent FTC ruling holding bloggers to a different level of accountability than the mainstream press, the underlying principles are sensible. Don’t allow your praise to be bought. Accept gifts like everyone else in the industry, but be transparent when you have been given something to review or been flown in to cover an event. And, most of all, say what you think! After all, this is why your audience comes to you in the first place. The minute bloggers become part of the easily-manipulated fashion media machinery, they lose their unique selling proposition.
If bloggers want to be taken seriously, they must operate like professionals. Indeed, it is the most professional of bloggers— those who work hard, operate with integrity, and maintain good relationships — who are having the most financial success, attracting advertising, sponsorship and even consulting and employment opportunities.
MAINSTREAM MEDIA: Engage with bloggers as professionals and consider making them your new colleagues.
The rise of fashion bloggers does not necessarily mean the death of fashion editors. There is more than enough room for everyone to take part in the ever-growing sphere of fashion writing and communication.
However, more than just writing about bloggers (over and over again), the mainstream media may want to consider engaging with them as fellow professionals. Prior to last week’s IHT conference in Berlin, Suzy Menkes agreed to have the tables turned on her, participating in an interview with Mary Scherpe on her blog, Quite Contrary. While many other journalists were interviewing bloggers, Suzy was letting a blogger interview her. Suzy also made an effort to meet with bloggers in Berlin who were (really) blogging and tweeting from the front rows.
Dazed Digital and Vogue web traffic | Source: Alexa
Jefferson Hack, Editorial Director of Dazed Group, has taken this one step further. When hiring for Dazed Digital a few years back, he did not look to traditional editors or photographers to lead his new digital team. Rather, he turned to the internet’s burgeoning fashion talents, hiring photographer Alistair Allan as Digital Director and prodigious fashion blogger Susie Bubble as Commissioning Editor. Long before much of the mainstream media was even paying attention to bloggers, Jefferson was already learning from them.
The results have been impressive. Independently-owned Dazed Digital now receives about 2 million pageviews per month, placing it in the leagues of Conde Nast-owned Vogue.co.uk, according to Alexa.
Still, I regularly hear reports of major online fashion properties who “can’t find the budgets” to hire young digital natives to help them amp up their online content. This is pennywise, pound foolish, especially as these young talents can be hired for a fraction of the cost of major photo shoot or big-time editor.
If the mainstream media are to keep up with all of the new developments, technologies and tools of online media, they might as well turn to the experts. Bloggers are at the forefront of content innovation on the internet and have the know-how to use social media effectively. In today’s internet world, it is innovative content attracts viral attention and fosters relationships with readers, which are also the most important drivers of traffic and loyalty.
Gucci Eyeweb versus Burberry Art of the Trench | Source: InFashionMedia
LONDON, United Kingdom — In recent weeks, two major luxury fashion brands have taken the plunge and launched social networks built around their brands and products. It’s not a new idea by any means, and indeed I wrote a piece on this very idea for the Financial Times almost two years ago. But, that doesn’t make it any less notable because, as far as I can tell, it is the first time top fashion brands have used social media in this way. Indeed, both Gucci and Burberry went to great efforts to highlight these initiatives at last week’s IHT Techno Luxury conference in Berlin.
So, have their experiments been successful? Of course we at the BoF have our own opinions, but in the spirit of democracy we thought it was the perfect opportunity to turn to the BoF community to see what you think. In our first ever BoF Twitter Poll, we asked:
The responses came in fast and furious from BoF’s followers around the world, including James Gardner, CEO of the industry’s leading creative agency CreateThe Group, and influential bloggers such as Bryanboy and DisneyRollerGirl. In the end, it was a no-contest knockout for Burberry which was unanimously selected as the winner.
So why did our followers feel this way? Here’s a quick summary of their thoughts:
1. Burberry shows a deep understanding of how to use social media, while Gucci just jumped on the “bandwagon” without thinking first, which feels “insincere.”
@alexanderlewis in London: “Gucci heard about something called social networking Burberry AOTT remixed and embraced it”
@subversiveglam: (aka, James Gardner, CEO of CreateThe Group) in New York: “Burberry AOT shows luxury brands how to effectively embrace social media. Gucci jumped on a band wagon and then fell off.”
@randalltodd also from New York: “Trench: engaging. Eyeweb: limited, insincere.”
@InFashionMedia in Australia: “Gucci literally places customers behind their products. Burberry features people & their products on same level.”
2. Burberry creates a “visual feast” that inspires users to explore further, while Gucci quickly loses users’ “interest.”
@bryanboy in Manila: “I prefer Art of the Trench. It’s a visual feast. Gucci on the other hand, well, I lost interest when I had to pick a city.”
@DisneyRollrGirl in London: “I prefer Art of the Trench, I didn’t even get beyond the Gucci homepage.”
@pascalgrob in Zurich: “Definitely AOT! Burberry’s approach is an art project and so pleasing to the eye…Gucci just doesn’t convince”
@lolaswij in Sydney: “Art of the Trench, based on aesthetics alone! It’s appropriate to judge a fashion www by it’s looks, non?”
3. Burberry’s offering is “fun,” functionally superior, “user-friendly” and easy-to-navigate while Gucci frustrates users.
@FearlessBG in the Netherlands: “Art of the Trench! The Gucci Eyeweb is annoying to navigate and doesn’t offer that much.”
@djuwearit in Dubai: “www.artofthetrench.com – it’s user friendly and fun.”
@xanod in London: “Definetely (sic) Art of the Trench, interactive, fun and more user friendly which is exactly what people want”
In addition, we would add two more points to Burberry’s successful social media outing:
4. Art of the Trench relies on editing by Christopher Bailey to ensure the integrity of the brand is maintained while Eyeweb’s images often have no clear connection to the brand.
Take a gander at Art of the Trench and you will find an almost uniformly style-savvy and well-dressed crowd of international fans in their Burberry trench coats. These photos have been carefully selected and screened by Burberry to ensure a good fit with the brand. On the other hand, Gucci’s site which also allows users to upload photos of themselves, is populated with a mish-mash of sometimes tacky, random images that seem to have nothing to do with the Gucci brand at all.
5. Art of the Trench is linked to a specific business objective whereas the purpose of Eyeweb is unclear.
In the same way that Ferragamo has built an identity around its shoes and Louis Vuitton has built a business around its leather goods, the trench coat has been identified by Burberry as the brand’s key item. By launching this site, Burberry further cemented ownership of the luxury trench coat category. On the other hand, Gucci’s site is highlighting sunglasses, which may be an important category, but isn’t really a core part of the brand’s DNA.
Having done such a good job, it’s no wonder that within the first week the Burberry site had more than two hundred thousand visitors and registered more than 3 million page views. The challenge for Burberry now will be to create reasons for its fans to return, without the support of the wall-to-wall press coverage that supported the launch of the site. Apparently, this will be achieved by bringing in new curators and creatives to populate the site with interesting content. But, even with all of the things that Burberry have done right, methinks that it will take a significantly more than that to draw people back again and again.
As for Gucci, it’s back to the drawing board. Kudos for experimenting and trying new things out, but perhaps next time Gucci may want to consider why it is jumping on the social media bandwagon and what it is aiming to achieve before punching its ticket.
Maison Martin Margiela scarification | Source: ASVOF
In Part 1, we examined how the Maison Martin Margiela brand successfully adopted strategies of impersonality and invisibility to achieve cult status with consumers. Today, we explore how Mr. Margiela’s exit from the company could have been better managed by adopting strategies learned from real-world cults.
PARIS, France — In 2002, in an acquisition that was described as Greta Garbo marrying Harpo Marx, the Maison Martin Margiela brand was acquired by Only the Brave, owned by Renzo Rosso, making it a sister brand of Diesel.
Between 2002 and 2007, Margiela’s cult of invisibility turned into confusion and journalists and editors experienced a crisis of confidence. The clothes seems to show his hand at work, but it was increasingly difficult to tell, and the speculation became increasingly distracting from the fashion.
When asked in June 2008 if he could imagine Martin Margiela leaving the brand, Renzo Rosso said: “Never say never, but I cannot imagine. I love him.’
By the Spring of 2009, there were some uneasy signs that a transition was underway. “He’s concentrating on more strategic projects. He’s more consulting with us than designing every product. The team is more Margiela than him,” said Giovanni Pungetti, the brand’s CEO. In June 2009, the tone began sounding political with an official statement that said: “We neither confirm nor deny anything.”
This only served to make journalists more suspicious: “Where has Martin Margiela gone? Now we’re a little bit worried,” asked The Guardian.
“In the absence of any definitive corporate statement, the only test of whether Margiela is still in the house must be down to whether the inimitable dialogue of excellence, intellectual challenge, and wit is still there in his show. Safe, yet very sad to say, this time it was gone,” wrote Sarah Mower on Style.com.
And then suddenly, it seemed to be over. Before the Spring Summer 2010 show in October 2009, the rumours raged. When the show took place, it was described by Suzy Menkes as “tragic.” Then a statement from Renzo Rosso seemed to attack the cult of invisibility head on.
“Martin has not been there for a long time. We have a new fresh design team on board. We are focusing on young, realistic energy for the future; this is really Margiela for the year 2015.
In three sentences, the statement seemed to do several things; all of them damaging. It undermined the role of Martin Margiela. The announcement of a “new fresh team” seemed to disrupt the importance of any transitional talent at the brand. It set a course for the future which sounded more like a business plan than a brand positioning. And to loyal followers who had invested so much time and energy in their loyalty to the cult, the brisk talk of a “Margiela 2015” seemed baffling. The statement had the effect of opening the curtain to reveal nobody was there, while inviting people to believe nothing had changed. It trod on people’s dreams.
It didn’t – and still doesn’t – have to be like this. As a truly cult brand which borrowed implicitly and explicitly from cult strategy, Maison Martin Margiela could have learned and deployed successful strategies from real-world cults to better manage Mr. Margiela’s exit from the company. Indeed, the brand’s “cult of invisibility” was already set up to do exactly that.
Three things Maison Martin Margiela could have learned from real-world cults.
1. An immediate need for communication
At a time of crisis, or apparent lack of leadership, it is critical for the messaging to be clear. For those invested in the cult or brand, their sense of community is disrupted when lack of leadership is apparent. During times like these, cults need to over-communicate on the continuity of power, or on the abilities of a temporary council to create reassurance
In the case of MMM, the communication that the brand is business-as-usual both undermined the importance of Martin Margiela in the heritage of the brand, while also failing to calm the rumour that recent runway shows had been sub-standard because he was not involved.
2. A call to community
When a cult leader leaves, the typical reaction of a real-world cult would be to draw a celebratory – rather than dismissive – line under the moment, with an invitation to encourage followers to celebrate in some way the life of the leader; usually via some kind of ritual. We define a ritual as a performance of a myth. So typically it would be the recreation of some aspect of the origin or founding of the community to help align thinking, and to remind people of their shared role in its success.
The aim of the ritual is to give followers a sense of closure, and also to invest them in the next phase of the cult’s life. While a global Martin Margiela ritual might be a little excessive; there are lots of ways that they could be conducted; via product portfolio, communication, in-store elements, and more.
For example, one of the 4 stitches in the MMM logo could be changed in color, or removed. A limited edition line of products released. An annual celebration set up for the brand. A leadership crisis – as every cult knows – is one of the best times to build a business and evangelise.
As well as a neat ritual, it could have been a great business opportunity.
3. A new shared vision
Cults are built on passion and community. Community is built on shared ideas and conversation.
If the principles of a cult need to change, and they often do – for example, when the extra terrestrials fail to appear on the appointed day and everyone has to grudgingly remove their pointy tinfoil hats – it’s a nasty shock. And it’s a shock that needs to be addressed at a community level. A new shared vision needs to be articulated, and confirmed. Energy and consensus need to be redoubled. New tasks must be allocated. A new ideology embraced.
While the presence – or at least the phantom – of Martin Margiela was hovering over the brand, the direction seemed clear; and the shared conversation was the amazing innovation of the clothes, the mystery of their production, and the games of presence, evanescence and invisibility.
But now the invisibility is lost; leaving the brand – from a strategic point of view – in a whole series of contradictory double negatives. According to the official statements, neither Martin Margiela nor more recent “design teams” are working at the brand
In either case, the course seems set for the future, and the brand should have no difficulty attracting fantastic talent to build on its incredible heritage. But, in strategic terms, the cult of invisibility has enormous value – both emotionally and financially. And it’s clearly suffering.
While the moment for the immediate communication may have passed, it’s not too late for the cult of Maison Martin Margiela to take the opportunity to galvanize its followers for what’s next. Members of the cult of Margiela still want to believe. The brand just needs the right cult strategy
Lucian James is Founder of Agenda Inc, an insight and thought-leadership partner for luxury brands.
The industry’s worst kept secret was confirmed this week when Renzo Rosso told Horatio Silva that he was “this close” to appointing a new designer at Maison Martin Margiela. Though Rosso says Margiela will continue to be involved from a distance, the loss of a founding designer at a namesake brand is not an easy transition to make. In the first of a two part series, our friends at Agenda Inc. examine how Maison Martin Margiela grew into a global cult brand, at the heart of which was the noisy invisibility of the eponymous designer.
PARIS, France — This month, after several years of intriguing – then frustrating – rumours among journalists, fashion editors and fans, Maison Martin Margiela announced that Margiela was no longer designing at the brand that he had created.
The reaction was confused. People wanted more information. As a cult brand, it had spent 20 years inspiring loyalty, love, and disciples. Despite years of communication that the brand was designed by a team – the hand of Margiela, albeit invisible, was a big part of the brand’s equity.
With Margiela gone, how should the brand evolve? There are lessons to be learned from real-world cults – who face varying levels of crisis when a leader leaves, retires, dies, kills himself, is proved embarrassingly wrong or – in some other way – is no longer available.
We believe that the future of Maison Martin Margiela can benefit – in strategic and business terms – from leveraging the heritage of the brand, and to integrate lessons from real-world cults about how leaderless cults evolve.
To understand the cult elements that animate the Margiela brand, it’s important to understand the role that invisibility and anonymity has had throughout the brand’s history.
A sense of invisibility has been incorporated into the DNA of the brand since the beginning. Patrick Scallon, the right hand person to Margiela once characterised the marketing strategy of Margiela as “absence equals presence” and “the cult of impersonality,” indicating that it was a central part of the brand identity.
This cult of impersonality spread through the aesthetic of the brand:
Signage – Stores are never listed in phone books or identified with signage.
Uniforms – Staff at stores and at Margiela HQ wear standard white labcoats.
Colours – White – called “whites” in Margielaspeak – is the ubiquitous color of all stores, Margiela HQ, and of the sheets that covered all in-store furniture and displays.
Packaging – Margiela packaging is monochrome and logo free.
Models – Runway models at MMM more than any other designer often appear on the runway with covered faces.
Runway shows – Seating is mostly first-come, first-served, avoiding the industry standard of seating hierarchy.
Collective speaking – The brand used a first person plural response to all requests, emphasizing the collaborative, disciple-like consensus of their thoughts.
Photography – The aesthetic of photo communications came to resemble the spiritualist photography of the 19th century; models appeared as ghostly blurs, and a sense of fragility hovered in the air, somewhere between the theosophy of Blavatsky and the work of Louise Bourgeois.
As the brand became successful in the mid-90s, Martin Margiela retired completely from public view, at a time when the idea of the invisible designer found itself at odds the accelerated rise of celebrity culture. As other designers chose – or were required to become – famous; Margiela’s anonymity became louder than ever. And ironically, his invisibility became exponentially interesting to the media. No article was written without some reference to his invisibility. It was part of the appeal, it defined the brand. But the clothes still dominated.
The figure of Martin Margiela became relevant to wider debate – still going on – about the relationship between designer, celebrity, and the brand they represent; a debate summed up in this comment by Zac Posen:
“I think there’s a great divide in fashion right now between the desire of the old school, which valued being hidden and shy, and what is going to bring our industry forward, which is connection, personality and craft.”
In fact, Margiela uniquely was operating at both levels simultaneously. The hidden part was the personality. So far, so Jean Baudrillard.
In part two, we explore how Mr. Margiela’s exit from the company could have been better managed by adopting strategies learned from real-world cults.
Lucian James is Founder of Agenda Inc, an insight and thought-leadership partner for luxury brands.
