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Fashion Friday

Anine Bing Silk Skirt

It’s been a looong week.  Happy Fashion Friday!

A lot has happened in the fashion world.

First…

Givenchy Appoints New Creative Director

With the abrupt departure of Clare Waight Keller, the fashion world was waiting with baited breath for Givenchy to announce her successor.  The verdict?  Matthew Williams.

If you don’t know who he is, well, I don’t blame you.  He’s young (34 years old) and owns the label 1017 ALYX 9SM.  His brand is carried at Nordstrom and several other major retailers, but the vibe is luxury streetwear.  So that makes me scratch my head.  Balenciaga is already crushing the luxury streetwear niche.  Why in the world would Givenchy enter this space?

Givenchy is known for tailoring.  Structure.  Silhouette.  Audrey freaking Hepburn.

I wish Williams nothing but the best and am excited to see what he has in store for the line.  But I can’t hide the fact that I’m… perplexed by this decision.

Which leads me to…

A Trend in Luxury Houses

There was once a time when a designer stayed with a brand.  Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel.  Alber Elbaz at Lanvin.  Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy.

Now?  It’s a revolving door of talent.  Designers come in, stay for a few years, don’t meet shareholder expectations, and are out.

Clare at Givenchy.  Raf at Calvin.  Raf at Dior.

I miss the days of tenure.  I miss the days of personal signature being infused on a house legacy for decades.

Sies Marjan Closes Shop

Sies Marjan S/S20While you may not know them, Sies Marjan is a young, fabulous brand.  After 5 years in business, they are closing shop.

They achieved fast success by having a prominent place in major department stores.  Check out their collection at Nordstrom, which is now up to 70% off.  I have my eye on this insane canary yellow leather jacket.

While this news is sad, I’m sorry to say it’s not surprising.  The fashion industry has contracted by 30% in the wake of COVID-19.  Luxury fashion has contracted by almost 40%.  They won’t be the last brand we see close up shop in 2020.

What does Fashion Mean to You Right now?

I had the great honor to go on Unzipped, a live segment hosted by Segun Oduolowu and presented by designer Negris Lebrum.  In the interview, we talked about one important question.

Does fashion even matter now that we don’t have anywhere to go?

For me, as a fashion diehard, it will always matter.  Fashion is my love language.  I’m a collector and have been getting dressed everyday since the pandemic started for my own mental and emotional well-being.

But the interview brought up an excellent question.  We don’t have anywhere to go.  Fancy events have been cancelled.  Large gatherings are off-limits.

As someone fascinated by the business of fashion, I’m curious how companies like Rent the Runway and Nuuly will pivot during this time.

What are you doing, dear reader?  Are you breaking out your finest fashions?  Are you strictly wearing yoga clothes?  I’d love to hear from you!

Fashion Friday

Revamping the fashion calendarThe old fashion calendar. Pre-Collina Strada F/W18. I’m 7 months pregnant waiting for the runway to start.

In last week’s Fashion Friday we talked about what I dubbed The Jerry Maguire Manifesto of the fashion world.  It calls for a revamp to the fashion calendar.  Instead of moving at light speed and producing 6 collections per year, designers would just produce two.

Gucci is the first brand to confirm their participation.  Saint Laurent will also release collections on “their own calendar” forgoing traditional fashion weeks.

What does this mean?

It’s starting.

Many fashion journalists have argued that a revamp to the fashion world has been in the making for several years.  Unfortunately, it took a global pandemic to tip the scale.

Because Gucci and Saint Laurent are part of a fashion conglomerate (Kering), this is a significant development.  Hopefully it will create a trickle-down effect and other conglomerate brands and indie designers will follow suit.

The benefits of a slowdown are plentiful.  Less impact on the environment, less importance placed on “consume, consume, consume” and more time for designers to actually… design.

But how will consumers respond to this slowdown?  Will the lack of fresh inventory cause consumers to lose interest and subsequently hurt brands?  If it isn’t “new” will it be less appealing to the consumer?

This quote epitomizes my take on the situation.

“Just as a Picasso painting is not thrown away because it’s old, why should a fashion design be discarded after one or two seasons?  The product is an expression of the creative soul, just as it is for an artist.”

— Alessandro Maria Ferreri (CEO of The Style Gate)

The fashion die-hards understand.  We’ll adjust.  The fast-fashion brands will scramble.  With fewer collections to copy, what will they produce?  Fashion Nova, one of the largest fast-fashion companies around, produces 1000 new styles per week.  Per week.

With the big fashion houses slowing down, will the rest of the fashion world follow suit?

One can only hope.

Fashion Friday


Happy Fashion Friday!  So much to discuss!

Target’s Next Designer Collaboration

First, Target is launching its next designer collaboration on June 6.  It will be available online starting at 12am PT.

They are featuring 3 designers: LoveShackFancy, Cushnie and Lisa Marie Fernandez.

All three brands will only offer dresses.  How perfect for summer!

Each dress averages about $50.

LoveShackFancy offers super feminine prints and silhouettes.  Think Free People’s older, more refined sister.

Cushnie is the posh, sexy boss babe.  I adore this color block slip dress.

Lisa Marie Fernandez is resortwear at its finest.  These are the dresses you wear from the pool to a fancy brunch.

Amazon Launches Common Threads

After trying to enter the luxury sector for a better part of a decade, Amazon finally got their wish.  Common Threads features storefronts for luxury designers like Phillip Lim and Jonathan Cohen.  The catch?  The designers get to dictate their pricing, images, marketing and overall look and feel of these virtual storefronts.  The benefit to designers?  Amazon’s robust supply chain and data capture.

Have we entered a new realm of luxury retail?

The Jerry Maguire Manifesto of the Fashion World

Heavy-hitting designers like Dries Van Noten and Tory Burch PLUS governing fashion bodies like the CFDA and British Fashion Council have sent a plea to the fashion world: revamp the fashion calendar.

These manifestos call for a slow down in production.  Rather than 6 collections per year, the revamp calls for just two: spring/summer and fall/winter.  Moreover, they want to adjust the release dates to actually fall within season.  So instead of seeing a winter coat on sale before you even need to wear it, this shift, if implemented, would put fashion back on a realistic time table.

What does it mean for you as a consumer?

Winter clothes being released in winter.  Summer clothes in summer.  Say goodbye to Black Friday, Cyber Monday and any other major shopping discount “holiday”.  Why?

Inventory will no longer sit in stores for months before it becomes relevant.  When it’s released in real-time, the cycle for discounts shortens.

An offshoot effect of this is luxury pricing.  Ever wonder why some brands get away with pricing a cotton hoodie at $900?  Technically, they don’t.  The 1% buys full price.  But the rest of us wait for it to go on sale (in say, the after Christmas markdowns) and buy it at 40-60% off.  That’s the price the designers expect to collect.

With a shift in the fashion calendar, luxury brands may be forced to reconsider their pricing models.

The History of Fashion: Prada

Prada Frankenstein shirt, Bottega Veneta pouchThe past few weeks I’ve taken my weekly Fashion Friday series to Instagram Live.  It was so fun interacting with readers in real time!  This week I’m getting back to my standard format and posting on Instagram Stories in addition to here on the blog.

The Fashion Law recently released an article showing the evolution of luxury designer logos.  It’s a shocking comparison to see “then vs. now”.  Every brand has shifted to a homogenous sans serif font.  The article dubs this shift as “blanding”.  Brand are TRYING to all look the same.  But why?

Part of the reason stems from our shift to online shopping.  When you shop in-store, you clearly know which luxury designer’s store you walk into.  But when you’re shopping online, it’s easy to click from brand to brand on a retailers page.  After a while, Gucci starts to blend with Balenciaga.  Consumers are more likely to add more items to their cart when multiple brands are available in a one-stop-shop compared to physically walking from store to store.  The homogenous aesthetic makes it feel more fluid and is less likely to distract the customer and make them stop shopping.

This got me thinking about one of the reasons why I love fashion.  Every designer has a specific brand DNA and I LOVE that differentiation.  I WANT to see the differences.  How boring would the world be if everything looked the same?

So with that spirit in mind, I’m kicking off a new series: The History of Fashion.

It’s my goal to educate and share what I know about designer brands so that you too can celebrate their uniqueness.

First up, Prada.

NYFW SS19 OOTD 2

Interesting Facts About Prada
  • Founded in 1913, the company began by designing leather bags.
  • Miuccia Prada inherited the company from her grandfather and took the reigns in the late 1980s.
  • Miuccia’s first initiative was a line of nylon handbags with a triangular Prada logo.  It was a huge commercial success and put Prada on the map.
  • The Prada aesthetic is known for being “ugly chic”.  It shies away from elements that are traditionally beautiful and instead finds beauty in unconventionally beautiful things.
  • Before helming Prada, Miuccia performed as a mime.  She also has a Ph.D. in political science.
  • Miuccia’s mother was a Prada, so her last name was technically not Prada.  When her parents died, she had an unmarried aunt adopt her and reclaimed the Prada surname.
  • Prada is one of the only luxury designer brands to only have a member of the Prada family as lead designer.
  • In 2020, Prada announced that Raf Simons would assume the role of Co-Creative Director with Miuccia.
  • Miuccia also owns and designs for Miu Miu (which is Miuccia’s nickname).

 

Fashion Friday

J. Crew catalogHappy Fashion Friday!

Once again, I’ll be going Live on Instagram at 5pm PT to chat all things fashion.  Join me for a discussion on the current state of retail.  Below are the topics I’m planning to discuss.  Feel free to submit questions below or share them live.  I’d love to hear from you!

Fashion Friday Topics
  • An homage to J. Crew
  • Favorite J. Crew catalogs and styling moments; why their preppy, colorful persona stole our hearts
  • Business update on the state of retail (shopping malls and store closures)
  • Consumer spending – how have your habits changed?
  • If your shopping habits and preferences have changed as a result of COVID-19, do you think they’ll stick once life returns to “normal”?