Anyone else noticed that these days you can’t blink an eye without someone — a designer, blogger, brand — announcing they have just “curated” some on-line content? But isn’t this simply a new word for “editor”? And aren’t both terms being devalued — to the detriment of the consumer?
Most fashion houses are understandably cagey about who they are dressing for the Oscars, the most lucrative red carpet marketing event of the year, which takes place this Sunday in Los Angeles. However, as I’ve been making the rounds of the Milan shows, some bits and bobs of information have come leaking out. The fear, of course, in spilling the beans is that in the end you are proved wrong (see post on Adele at the Grammys). The dressing game isn’t over until the celebrity actually exits the limo, but a few designers were willing to go on the record. Read more
Forget live-streaming fashion shows or three-dimensional etail; yesterday I went to the “ribbon-cutting” ceremony of the Valentino Garavani virtual museum. Though this is a private venture by Valentino-the-man, not linked to Valentino-the-brand (now owned by Permira) my guess is it will have knock-on-positive results for not only the individual but the house he created, and perhaps the industry in general. In the short term, however, from being generally perceived as relatively un-web-savvy compared with such titans as Burberry and Gucci, Valentino has just vaulted to first place in fashion’s technology race. Read more
The flagship superstore is getting yet another special feature: after cafes and restaurants (Armani, Gucci), concert halls (Chanel), bookstores (Marc Jacobs, Armani), and art galleries (LV), comes actual film theatres. Louis Vuitton has announced their new maison in Rome will “house a small cinema show casing art films from contemporary artists.” This is an arresting new development. Read more
Tomorrow Gucci will become the first big kahuna to show on day one of Milan Fashion Week – OMG! OMG! — but they’ve already jumped the buzz-generating gun by sending out a curtain-raiser of an announcement: they’ve found a way to make the sci-fi technology of Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film “Minority Report” real, and they are putting it in stores.
And so the McQueen blockbuster has finally come to an end, the most successful fashion show the Metropolitan Museum has ever put on. So where, inquiring minds want to know, will it go next? No where. Apparently, unlike almost every other cultural arena, from theatre to musicals to music to books to film to other museum shows, a sell-out fashion show is not a transferable proposition. Yeah, right. And I have a bridge I can sell you. Read more
Blame it on the skinny model controversy and just wanting to avoid the issue entirely. Or maybe just boredom. But summer, it seems, has spawned some lateral thinking in the fashion world about where a brand should put its clothes.
Well, this is a shocker: today a digital think tank called L2 is publishing a study, “L2 Prestige 100®: Facebook IQ,” which ranks the high-end brands as “Genius, gifted, average, challenged, and feeble” according to who uses Facebook best, and out of brands that span the auto, watch & jewellery, fashion, beauty, and spirits & champagne sectors, Burberry, normally held up as THE most web-savvy, digi-forward company in the luxury industry, ranks…average. Actually, it’s number 49.
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Euromonitor has a new report out, and this one’s a doozy: it says Poland is the world’s fourth fastest growing luxury market behind China. Read more
Along with their 2010 results today Gucci Group announced some big changes – starting with the fact there is no Gucci Group any more. Now there is the “luxury division” of PPR. So: new look/new logo, or something more significant?
Well, along with the name change, come corporate changes: all the GG – oops, no, can’t say that – the LD (?) CEOs will report directly to PPR chieftain Francois-Henri Pinault, and the former CEO of GG, Robert Polet, who just last year moved from London to Switzerland for the Group (starting gossip on the street about all this), will move on yet again, this time to the fabled “new challenges.” Read more
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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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