The Business of Fashion

Luxury Outlook | Gucci cuts back production capacity

Take a walk into a Gucci store these days and one cannot help but notice the preponderance of logos and icons on almost every Gucci product in sight, especially the brand's leather goods, shoes and accessories. Horsebits, double G's, and Gucci crests abound. But, it seems the conspicuous logos are failing to resonate with consumers in these recessionary times.

Rumours are circulating in Italy that Gucci has dramatically cut production orders to make up for waning demand for the Italian luxury brand's core leather goods offering. If the reports are accurate, it speaks volumes about the worsening climate for luxury goods players in general, but particularly for brands like Gucci which have chosen to follow an explicit "accessible luxury" strategy.

Breaking News | Gucci sales growth disappoints

News flashes have been coming in today from investment analysts covering PPR, which reported its 1Q08 results earlier today. The news is not good for the Gucci brand, but Bottega Veneta has managed to beat market expectations, even in this downbeat economic environment.

Gucci sales only increased by 2.4% to €513m, versus market expectations in the neighbourhood of 7% growth. As a result, some analysts are considering posting downgrades to their ratings on the PPR stock. Given it's self-stated positioning as an 'Aspirational luxury' brand, it may not seem surprising that Gucci would be one of the first brands to show signs of the economic slowdown.

But that's not the whole story.

Stella McCartney | Taking Asia by storm

Bolstered by a string of well-received collections in recent seasons, positive feedback from the sales floor, and her newly profitable status, Stella McCartney is setting her sights on Asia. 

In 2007, the brand signed an exclusive distribution deal with the Lane Crawford Joyce Group to open 10 freestanding stores in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia by 2012. And yesterday, McCartney announced a partnership with TSG International Marketing Pvt to open 6 stores across India, including two stores by the end of this year.

Milan Fashion Week | Commerce and creativity

While London is often the spark of new ideas and New York is confidently commercial, the Milan shows usually sit somewhere in between. They may not be the pushing the limits of fashion in terms of new ideas, but they specialise in striking the right balance between commerce and creativity.

Many buyers and editors complained of an uncharacteristically inconsistent offering from Milan's usually focused designers last week. But we think there was a lot to be impressed by in Milan, especially from the some of the heavyweight brands who show there.

Take Burberry, for example. Christopher Bailey is on a clear winning streak, softening his approach this season with the perfect autumnal mood for the urban birds who walked down his catwalk of  "optimistic melancholy." (The urban birds term was cleverly coined by Tim Blanks; Bailey loved it. We think its perfect).

New York Fashion Week | Gucci's finishing touches

On the corner of 57th and 5th in New York, in the Trump Tower space that used to house the failed Asprey flagship, the scaffolding and covering have been removed from the new 46,000 square foot Gucci flagship.  The shelves have been stocked and the windows are already proclaiming Gucci's love for New York, in hopes that New York will love Gucci back - to the tune of an estimated $100m a year.

As we walked by the location of the brand new flagship store yesterday afternoon, an army of workmen was putting the finishing touches on what will be one of the largest luxury stores on 5th Avenue and is expected to rake in as much cash as the phenomenally successful Abercrombie and Fitch flagship across the street.

Today, WWD wondered whether 5th Avenue might become the new Ginza, referring to the Tokyo quartier which has seen a veritable frenzy of building by luxury brands eager to make their mark on the neighbourhood and in the psyche of the all-important Japanese shopper. Likewise, this huge New York store is as much about sustaining and building Gucci's brand image as it is about dollars and cents.

Robert Polet | Gucci's (real) rock star

Maybe it is the emerging importance of Russian customers that convinced Frida Giannini she should look to Russian rockers to inspire her latest menswear collection for Gucci. Regardless of the source of her inspiration, it would be fair to say that the collection went down with an audible thud. Suzy Menkes of the IHT, Horacio Silva of The Moment, and Tim Blanks of Style.com seemed to be grasping for positive things to say about it.

Guy Trebay of the New York Times went even further:

There are days in the life of a fashion observer when having a nail driven into one’s skull seems preferable to sitting through another evocation of the so-called rock ’n’ roll style....it seems willfully dated when designers like Frida Giannini at Gucci haul out the paisley scarves, the velvets, the eyeliner, the grommet boots and wraparound Gypsy belts. 

Ahem.

Maybe the real rock star at Gucci Group is not Ms Giannini, the designer, but Mr Robert Polet, the all-star CEO who was recently named European Businessman of the Year by Fortune Magazine.

Bahamian luxury: Gambling with franchising

The Business of Fashion is on the road. Our first stop is in Nassau, the capital city of The Bahamas, an archipelago of islands which has long been a stopping off point for people cruising around the Caribbean. San Salvador Island is where Christopher Columbus first set foot in the New World in 1492 to trade with the Lucayan people. When British loyalists came over in 1717, the islands fell under British control and did not gain full independence until more than 250 years later.

Today, the Bahamas is a rich country, with the 3rd highest GDP per capita in the Western Hemisphere and an economy driven primarily by tourism and offshore banking. A recent mega real-estate development called The Atlantis, financed by Sol Kerzner, the titan known for his over-the-top casinos and hotels in South Africa's Sun City, has further boosted the Bahamas as a tourist destination, primarily for sun-seeking Americans with money to spend and gamble away in the cavernous casinos.

With more than 5 million tourists visiting the islands every year, it's not surprising that many of the luxury brands have set up shop to entice these visitors to do a little shopping. What is surprising is that some of them have allowed their brands to be diluted by haphazard merchandising, market-style bargaining, and poorly-outfitted stores under the control of local franchisees. That said, there are still signs that the luxury industry in Nassau is alive and well.