It’s been a weird past few weeks for me, probably because of the constant need to nominate the top five of this, or person of the year for that. Now, it’s time to think of other things.
This is my last post of the year. Though I have been hanging on in terror that some perverse power play on the part of Dior will cause it to announce its new designer when everyone is away from their desks – hah! Panic in the fashion newsroom – I have finally decided to turn off the computer, and in a few hours I’m off to the not-entirely-frozen north and the great Canadian woods to hang with the coyotes. The real kind, not the metaphorical human kind.
(Really; all of us have alternate universes, and this is one of mine, courtesy of my beloved Canadian husband. My fashion statement up there is an all-in-one skidoo suit that makes so much noise when I walk it scares away any living creature. Another of my universes is the amateur circus circuit. Both places, note, put very little emphasis on clothing. Anyway, I’d be very curious to know about other people’s other dimensions, if anyone can take a few moments to write in.)
I considered signing off with great thoughts about what’s next for 2012 (fear of consumer slowdown!) and what the great moments of 2011 were, but having surfed a few fashion sites and been inundated with the above, I decided to take a page from Coco Chanel and pare things down. So I will simply leave you with one of the few virtual cards I received this Christmas that actually made me smile.
Anyone else notice anything surprising about the Duchess of Cambridge’s appearance yesterday at a Centrepoint shelter in a £350 Ralph Lauren polo-neck dress? Let me repeat that: a £350 RALPH LAUREN polo neck dress. Ralph Lauren? An American designer on a British royal?
The Duchess of Cambridge visits a Centrepoint shelter - Getty Images
Shocking.
Yet there was not one tabloid squawk. The Daily Mail was too busy drooling over her “tiny waist” and the fact that before you could say “olive green” the store had sold out of all except the largest sizes. National sartorial codes have been turned on their head and no one even blinked an eye.
I am not exaggerating. Try to imagine the Duchess’s mother-in-law, Princess Diana, not wearing British when she stepped out for a public event. She didn’t really get to break national designer ranks until she got divorced, when she skeddadled as fast as she could to Versace. Ditto Jacqueline Kennedy, who famously had to get Oleg Cassini to copy all her French dresses so she could be seen to be wearing American clothes when her husband was in the White House.
Cheering emails have been landing in my inbox with a noteworthy regularity this week – and I am not referring to, as you might expect, those idiotic e-christmas cards that seem to be the latest trend. Rather, I mean actual bits of news that are like stocking stuffers of gifts because of the optimism they engender. What are these glittering gewgaws?
Proof that luxury is taking a more pro-active approach to ever-greening their business. “Ever-greening” here is a synonym for “sustainability” in the broadest sense, which is itself a stand-in for all those irritatingly opaque and “E” words that otherwise indicate global values: eco, ethical, environmental, etc.
The other day I got a nice email informing me that Marigay McKee, formerly Harrods’ fashion and beauty director, had been promoted to “chief merchant officer,” a relatively new title in the luxury world as far as I can tell (and one not to be confused with that other CMO, chief marketing officer). But it’s one that, I think, reflects not just a titular promotion, but a systemic change in industry thinking. After all, in fashion what you put on top always reflects something bubbling up underneath.
Christopher Bailey. Image by Getty.
Along with the recently-invented CCO (chief creative officer, a nomination bestowed on Christopher Bailey at Burberry and, before she resigned, Tamara Mellon at Jimmy Choo), it elevates the creative side of the business to the same executive level as the corporate side, officially acknowledging the growing synergy between the two.
After all, these same individuals had all previously been, like Ms McKee, “directors” – creative directors, if not fashion and beauty directors – creative director itself being a title invented by Tom Ford, I believe, during his years at Gucci, to indicate his move beyond the traditional role of “designer” into “overseer of all creative things.”
Here is a Christmas wish, courtesy of Diane von Furstenberg, who issued it during a conversation with me on Friday: Bernard Arnault should take his place as the elder statesman of fashion (after all, he pretty much invented it as an industry) and solve the fashion week date problem once and for all.
Consider, after all, the latest development in what has been a multi-month brouhaha over the timing of the big fashion weeks. Just days after France’s Chambre Syndicale announced it was mad that the CFDA (which manages NY fashion week) and the Camera Nazionale (which manages Milan) had not consulted it about the show dates tussle next September, and it was not agreeing to anything (I’m paraphrasing here), the same Chambre Syndicale also announced it was welcoming Giambattista Valli, an Italian, as a fully-fledged member of that most elite (and French) fashion group, the couture.
In one canny manoeuvre it thus demonstrated its:
1) willingness to embrace Italians who work with it (instead of ignoring it); and
2) position as the hautest of the haute — the table where everyone, even the non-French, wants a place. Nice bit of territory-marking, don’t you think?
‘Tis the season for … pre-fall. Hah! Bet you thought I was going to say something about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. But no. For while outside it might be all bell-ringing santas and frost-covered store windows, in showrooms from New York to Paris it is next June. Or May, in some cases.
The Spant
As I’ve been making the (endless) pre-collection rounds I’ve noticed a few trends/innovations I wanted to pass on. Here they are, from most original to most accessible:
1. The Spant
This could also be called a “skant,” though since scant is an actual word already, I think it risks confusion and “spant” is better. As to what this exciting new hybrid is, think silk palazzo pants-meet-long-skirt, so what looks like soigné trousers from the front swish like a train in the back.
The garment comes courtesy of Olivier Theyskens at Theyskens Theory, and though it may sound weird, paired with a tank top or t-shirt (though it’s called “pre-fall”, it hits stores in June) it also may be the coolest new proposal for how to dress up for evening. Also — just say the word. “Spant.” Spant. Fun, right?
Image by Getty
We know celebrity sells clothes, but does it also sell stocks? The news that Michael Kors, which began its life as a public company today, was the biggest IPO in American fashion history, suggests the answer is yes. It sold more shares than expected in a deal that will value the company at nearly $4bn.
After all, Mr Kors has talent — specifically an ineffable ability to make a cashmere pencil skirt and polo neck look like a platonic ideal — and a very good business (majority shareholders Silas Chou and Lawrence Stroll are masters at creating a base of accessories and a second line that broadly support the high-end rtw). But he also has the benefit of a potent tv personality.
Looking back over 2011, which I am currently doing for a Christmas Eve column, I’ve been struck by the fact that one trend dominates all others by a significant margin, having held true from last March through year end: the IPO.
Despite all the economic gloom, fashion houses apparently have turned away from their flirtation with private equity and now think tapping public pockets is the way to grow.
Consider the following:
June: Prada lists on the Hong Kong stock exchange, ditto Samsonite, and Ferragamo lists in Milan.
November: Coach takes a secondary stock listing in Hong Kong and Graff announces it is planning another Hong Kong IPO for 2012.
December: Chow Tai Fook lists in HK.
Meanwhile, this week Tumi, the super-strong luggage company sold in 1,600 stores around the world, filed papers with the SEC for an IPO. And tomorrow, in an already over-subscribed offering, Michael Kors will become the first American fashion company to go public in years, trading under the name — yes — KORS. The listing is expected to value the company at $3.4bn. Zowie!
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Vanessa has been the FT’s fashion editor since 2003, and is based in New York, though she lived in London for 12 years.
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