The Business of Fashion

Fashion 2.0 | The rise of the online fashion film

NEW YORK, United States - Quoting Steven Kolb, executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, saying the format of showing the Fall 2009 collections this February is the “number one item on everyone’s agenda right now,” The Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Runway blog recently asked the question: "Will fashion shows survive the economy?"

To answer this question, it's important to consider how fashion shows function in today's media landscape. Increasingly, images and video from runway shows, captured by the established media, as well as a new generation of fashion bloggers wielding video-enabled camera phones, reach a global audience of fashion consumers, in close to realtime, on Style.com, YouTube and fashion blogs around the world. As a result, today's shows are not simply aimed at editors, buyers and other industry insiders. They have become remarkable vehicles for conjuring and transmitting the energy of a brand to end consumers.

Fashion 2.0 | GQ Rules opens a new fashion dialogue

Openly spreading the latest fashion gospel to an uninitiated crowd has always been anathema to the fashion elite. Until recently, this required fashion media to work a delicate balance between informing the mass public of the latest trends without being too direct as to make those new trends over-exposed and passé.

The internet — web 2.0 media and blogs, in particular — has been kicking down doors and fostering greater inclusion in most cultural fields. With fashion, the net has created unprecedented opportunities for fashion pedagogy, making old media look decidedly old-school.

So what’s an old media brand to do in this new environment? Men's fashion bible GQ has responded with a web-offshoot called GQ Rules, possibly the greatest experiment in mass fashion teaching ever attempted.

Fashion 2.0 | Not all fashion blogs are created equal

Can fashion bloggers be trusted online authorities?

As the ever-proliferating fashion blogosphere continues to expand, and more and more bloggers gain access to fashion week, it's pretty clear that the answer is yes. The fashion blog is here to stay. But it's also fair to wonder whether all of this new content actually adding anything new to the reams of content already out there.

This past Spring/Summer 2009 season saw the debut of Inside The Tents. Inspired by Web 2.0 initiatives such as SXSW (South by South West) and the liveblogging phenomenon from political conventions in this U.S. election year, ITT aggregated fashion bloggers on one site to share their collective experiences from the tents at Bryant Park, using Twitter, Flickr and video content.

Luxury Outlook | Survival of the fittest

Even as America teeters on the brink of economic armageddon, fashion week has continued on in full force here in Paris. But, between all the comings and goings, the drama and parties, many designers, buyers and editors have had their eyes and ears tuned into what is going on Stateside, trying to make sense of the ever-changing news.

So what should luxury retailers and brands do in troubled times like this?

The days of unfettered consumption are over. Multi-thousand dollar canvas bags and poorly made clothes with staggering prices which are designed to last only one season will be a tough sell. More than ever, for consumers, every purchase now will involve the price/quality calculation that constitutes value. Consumers will ask themselves, how long will this last? How long can I wear this before it goes out of style? How versatile is this?

New York Fashion Week | Marc Bouwer's online experiment

While the rest of New York Fashion Week was caught up in its regular Bryant Park frenzy today, designer Marc Bouwer was busy blazing his own fashion trail, exclusively showing his S/S 2009 collection on his website, thereby giving everyone a front row view.

Of course, we have seen other designers, notably Stefano Pilati for YSL (first with menswear, and most recently women's resort) and Husein Chalayan, create videos to showcase their collections. And, Giorgio Armani made history when he streamed his Armani Prive couture collection for Spring 2007 online, gaining kudos for democratising the storied world of haute couture. Net-a-Porter also innovated by putting up Roland Mouret's RM19 collection in an online video and commerce site mere hours after showing during Paris Couture.

But Bouwer's approach is a first for an independent designer without the clout of a YSL or Armani, nor the support of a major online retailer. So, how well did his experiment work?

The Business of Fashion | In the New York Times

A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call from Ruth La Ferla, a fashion writer for the New York Times, inquiring about our recent article on the Top 10 Online Fashion Magazines. We ended up having a great discussion about which sites were truly distinctive, how they were using new technologies to step up their performance and reader-engagement, and whether Anna Wintour and the like should be worried about these upstart online editors stealing away their readers and their jobs.

Today, Ruth published an article entitled  "Where the Fashionistas go for a Quick Fix," which features many of the online magazines from our ranking and ably sums up the reason why these niche sites are gaining more and more attention.

Squa.re | Chanel's pioneering video

Last night, I caught up for dinner with Olivier Bassil, one of the co-founders behind the exclusive video-sharing site Squa.re. I have known the team behind Squa.re from its early days, and like all new Internet businesses, I have seen it go through its fair share of fits and starts.

But, its core video proposition continues to hold promise and Olivier and his passionate team, which includes former Warner Music executive Paul-Rene Albertini as CEO and a key mentor, have been tweaking their original model and will unveil a re-design of the site in the early Autumn which will improve the user experience, introduce a directory feature which catalogs all the content, and establish a VIP area, enabling members to find each other more easily.

So what does this have to do with fashion, you ask?

Fashion 2.0 | Boucheron's bloggers

Boucheron, the Gucci Group-owned jeweler, is leading the way amongst luxury brands in harnessing the influence, passion and talents of its online fans to help promote the Boucheron brand on the Internet.

Founded in 1858 by Frédéric Boucheron, The House of Boucheron is one of the most storied jewelers in Paris' sparkling Place Vendome. In the past, Boucheron has been a jeweler to international royalty, from the Indian Maharaja Bhupindar Singh of Patiala to Czar Alexander III and Queen Elizabeth II. More recently,  Hollywood royalty like Eva Longoria, Nicole Kidman, and Penelope Cruz have also found themselves bejeweled in Boucheron.

With a luxury profile and brand positioning like this, it would be easy to dismiss the Internet as a sales channel and communication platform. But today, Boucheron is moving into the online space with as much prescience as Mr. Boucheron did when he was first jeweler to set up shop in the Place Vendome.

I spoke to Boucheron to find out more.

Q&A | Dolly Jones, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue.co.uk

Back in 1995, Netscape Navigator was the dominant web-browser with a market share of more than 90%.  People were talking about the launch of Altavista, an Internet search engine that acheived 300,000 hits on its very first day. On the fashion end of things, the New York Times' Amy Spindler was tearing apart Donna Karan and raving about Mark Eisen in her review of the New York A/W 1995 collections.

Today, Netscape's share of web-browser use is less than 1% and Altavista is a relic. Donna Karan still puts out collections in New York, but she scarcely merits a full length review in Cathy Horyn's reviews. Nobody even remembers Mark Eisen. In the worlds of Fashion and the Internet, things can change very quickly indeed. Combine the two together, and things travel at lightspeed.

That's why the longevity and continued market dominance of  the UK's VOGUE.COM, which also launched in 1995, is remarkable. I spoke to Editor Dolly Jones about the new technology and content underlying the relaunched site. Not one to rest on her laurels, we also discussed the business imperatives for keeping VOGUE.COM at the top of its game.

Fashion 2.0 | India's slow Internet march

One look at the current advertising campaign for Hermès, and it's clear that India is on the radar screen of Western luxury brands. But this is not a new phenomenon. At the recent Walpole Seminar on China & India, Dr. Amin Jaffer, International Director of Asian Art at Christie’s, described the long relationship that India has had with European luxury brands, dating back to the late 1800's.

Today, however, things aren't as straightforward. Other Walpole seminar participants like Mohan Murjani (of the Murjani Group - partners to Jimmy Choo, Gucci and Bottega Veneta in India) also revealed that new luxury entrants in India are up against strong domestic players, labyrinthine bureaucracy, and inconsistent infrastructure. Break-even will take longer than some might have hoped.

On the Internet side, despite the naturally chatty and curious Indian nature, things have also been very slow to develop.  I explored this topic in an article in Luxeletter, an online publication from the Murjani Group, covering the luxury industry in India.

The entire article is republished below.