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13 August 09

Escada Declares Bankruptcy

From AFP:

German luxury women’s fashion label Escada declared bankruptcy on Thursday, contrasting with an upbeat mood after official data showed Germany had emerged from recession in the second quarter.

The company, which counts US actress Kim Basinger among its customers and whose clothes have been advertised by supermodel Eva Herzigova, employs 2,300 people around the world including around 600 in Germany.

“Management and employees hope the group will continue to exist,” a spokesman for Escada told AFP.

“Everything will depend on what form the bankruptcy will take,” he said.

The bankruptcy filing will be examined by a judge in Munich who will then appoint an administrator for the company. Negotiations with the company’s bondholders on a restructuring deal fell through earlier this week.

Another one bites the dust.

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12 August 09

Remnants

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11 August 09
Rodarte to Design for Target’s Go International Squeeee! And with 55 pieces! From WWD: Designing sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy will be bringing their ethereal sensibility to a wider world when Target introduces Rodarte in December as part of its Go International series of limited collections. The 55-piece Rodarte line for Go International will launch at most Target stores nationwide and on target.com on Dec. 20, and will be available through Feb. 6. While it may be hard to imagine translating Rodarte’s hand-wrought designs for the mass market, Target claims to have stayed true to the spirit of the luxury-priced label. Prices for Target’s Go International Rodarte collection will range from $9.99 for knee-highs to $79.99 for a leopard print jacket. Rodarte, which is known for evening clothes, designed “a variety of great holiday dresses,” Thomas said. “There are stand-alone pieces and pieces that can be worn together to create an ensemble by layering different patterns, textures and prints.” With its December debut, this will be perfect for all of us who want budget-friendly gifts for our favorite fashionistas. Photo credit: wweek.com

Rodarte to Design for Target’s Go International

Squeeee! And with 55 pieces! From WWD:

Designing sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy will be bringing their ethereal sensibility to a wider world when Target introduces Rodarte in December as part of its Go International series of limited collections.

The 55-piece Rodarte line for Go International will launch at most Target stores nationwide and on target.com on Dec. 20, and will be available through Feb. 6. While it may be hard to imagine translating Rodarte’s hand-wrought designs for the mass market, Target claims to have stayed true to the spirit of the luxury-priced label.

Prices for Target’s Go International Rodarte collection will range from $9.99 for knee-highs to $79.99 for a leopard print jacket.

Rodarte, which is known for evening clothes, designed “a variety of great holiday dresses,” Thomas said. “There are stand-alone pieces and pieces that can be worn together to create an ensemble by layering different patterns, textures and prints.”

With its December debut, this will be perfect for all of us who want budget-friendly gifts for our favorite fashionistas.

Photo credit: wweek.com

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10 August 09

Has Greed Killed the Fashion Industry?

From The Huffington Post:

Fashion, it seems, has gone out of fashion. Companies are reporting record losses for the first half of 2009, several are filing bankruptcy — the most high profile being the French couture house of Christian Lacroix, and fashion magazines are in a panic over the drop in ad page sales.

So Diane von Furstenberg, the president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, held a summit of sorts in New York last week with leaders of the industry, including Vogue editor Anna Wintour, to rethink Fashion Week, the semi-annual trade-show-like event to present new offerings and drum up hype. Instead, the meeting turned into a strategy session to figure out how to stop plummeting sales and profits during the current economic recession.

There were several conclusions. Von Furstenberg argued that the period between the fashion shows and when the clothes reach the stores was too long and wants to reform the show system. Fashion designer Donna Karan declared that the practice of early delivery to retailers was the problem. Who wants to by a bikini in March or a mink in July? As a result, Karan said, consumers wait until sales to shop, and companies and retailers lose the huge mark-up that equals bigger profits. Wintour suggested following the French model of having a government-fixed day when retailers can start price reductions, but this was quickly shot down as price-fixing and illegal in the United States. “Is that something we can change?” asked Wintour. “We have friends in the White House now!”

Finally, von Furstenberg addressed the elephant in the room: “Everyone had been too greedy,” she said, “and everyone thought the party was forever.”

The article by Dana Thomas (the author of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster goes on to describe the transition of the major design houses from family businesses to conglomerates, as well as the decline in production quality (but not garment prices).

A lot of her criticisms leveled at the fashion industry are fair; however, to say that greed dictates the fashion industry as a whole is inaccurate. Plenty of mom-and-pop boutiques (my own included) have gone out of business in the last two years because they simply couldn’t afford to sell things at or below cost in a sluggish economy anymore. It would seem that government legislation and stringent pricing guidelines set by showrooms and designers are necessary to both reform and keep the fashion industry afloat.

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6 August 09

Remnants

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2 August 09
Wars of Past, Not Present, Inspire Fashion From The Associated Press: The fashion legacy of World War I includes trench coats and shorter skirts. World War II popularized sportswear, strong shoulders and nipped waists. Vietnam inspired protest-driven Army green and fatigues. Wartime has heralded strong periods of American style, yet the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be barely a blip on the radar of the fashion community. There’s been an uptick in camouflage prints and, a few seasons back, a mini boom of the kind of epaulettes typical of military jackets — but those styles were around before the current conflicts, and they’ll probably circle back again when they are resolved. These wars, which began in 2001 and 2003, respectively, “have not been impactful,” at least not in obvious ways, says Kathleen Campbell, a fashion historian affiliated with the Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota. That minimal effect might be because they are not global wars dominating the conversation in the same sense as the World Wars, nor have there been huge public protests even if they’re considered unpopular by some. However, she adds, when history judges this period with a long-view perspective, an influence — possibly the use of scarves and/or layers like the ones used in those regions to protect against weather extremes — might emerge. “I think we’re too close to analyze the effects now. It’s much easier to see in retrospect.” There was no such time lag, though, during World War II, which changed the way Americans dressed forever. The article points to both the rationing of materials and a desire to display patriotism during WWII as factors in its concurrent reflections in popular style, but I think that the difference in how news and information was disseminated back then played a large role as well. Both World Wars had a outpouring of support from the general public that was perpetuated by the then media. Nowadays opposition to war is as readily voiced as support, and we are unable to romanticize our current conflicts like our past ones, which even through the lens and distance of history seems more clear cut and morally unambiguous. Photo credit: Associated Press

Wars of Past, Not Present, Inspire Fashion

From The Associated Press:

The fashion legacy of World War I includes trench coats and shorter skirts. World War II popularized sportswear, strong shoulders and nipped waists. Vietnam inspired protest-driven Army green and fatigues.

Wartime has heralded strong periods of American style, yet the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be barely a blip on the radar of the fashion community. There’s been an uptick in camouflage prints and, a few seasons back, a mini boom of the kind of epaulettes typical of military jackets — but those styles were around before the current conflicts, and they’ll probably circle back again when they are resolved.

These wars, which began in 2001 and 2003, respectively, “have not been impactful,” at least not in obvious ways, says Kathleen Campbell, a fashion historian affiliated with the Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota. That minimal effect might be because they are not global wars dominating the conversation in the same sense as the World Wars, nor have there been huge public protests even if they’re considered unpopular by some.

However, she adds, when history judges this period with a long-view perspective, an influence — possibly the use of scarves and/or layers like the ones used in those regions to protect against weather extremes — might emerge. “I think we’re too close to analyze the effects now. It’s much easier to see in retrospect.”

There was no such time lag, though, during World War II, which changed the way Americans dressed forever.

The article points to both the rationing of materials and a desire to display patriotism during WWII as factors in its concurrent reflections in popular style, but I think that the difference in how news and information was disseminated back then played a large role as well.

Both World Wars had a outpouring of support from the general public that was perpetuated by the then media. Nowadays opposition to war is as readily voiced as support, and we are unable to romanticize our current conflicts like our past ones, which even through the lens and distance of history seems more clear cut and morally unambiguous.

Photo credit: Associated Press

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29 July 09

Remnants

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27 July 09

Gilt Group to Launch “Gilt Fuse”

From The New York Times:

Almost every weekday at noon, Eastern Standard Time, 100,000 to 200,000 people log on to Gilt.com, one of a handful of Web sites that offer discounted designer merchandise in an online version of a sample sale, only without the throwing of elbows.

Dresses from Alexander McQueen and men’s suits from Thom Browne are offered at about half their retail price. They go fast. The fastest transaction, said Susan Lyne, the chief executive of Gilt, took all of nine seconds from the time a customer visited the site to checking out with a dress. So it would be fair to call the company, less than two years old and with sales of $100 million, a surprising success during the recession.

Still, not everyone is buying. Of its 1.2 million members, more than half are in their 20s, and of that group, about 250,000 visit the site twice a week or more and never make a purchase, Ms. Lyne said. The reason is pretty obvious. Even on sale, the merchandise is expensive — a Fendi bag offered this week was $1,348. Why hesitate?

So next month, Gilt is introducing a second site, called Gilt Fuse. It’s kind of like the Co-Op floor at Barneys New York, where the trendier, less expensive collections reside. Clothes from Diesel, C&C, Generra and Laundry will be offered for $75 to $150. Ms. Lyne said the company is expecting a big year: Its sales are projected to reach $400 million, or about half the size of Barneys.

“You are getting access to brands you might not ever see in your city,” Ms. Lyne said. “And it’s at a price point that is almost irresistible.”

I am a Gilt addict, but I tend to be a mid-level-ish buyer: think Thakoon, ADAM, Ben-Amun, and so on. Still, I’ll no doubt check out Gilt Fuse as well, especially if they carry my favorite AG jeans. As Mae West said, “too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”

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Posted: 11:10 AM

Bravo Rolls Out a Different Kind of Fashion Show

From BravoFan:

With The Fashion Show barely over, it’s time to welcome a new fashion-related reality show to the Bravo network. This one is “Launch My Line.” In this one, 10 people who do other things but who’ve always wanted to be in fashion get paired up with real designers in an effort to uh, launch their lines.

The show appears to stick to the formula of creating a winning runway look every week, they add in the Fashion Show-esque element of having a live studio audience. In the end, their lines will be launched and the designer that helped the newbie along the way will win $50,000.

The hosts are Dean and Dan Caten (twin brothers!) of Dsquared2 and the judges are high-end boutique owners Stefani Greenfield (of Scoop in NYC) and Lisa Kline of Los Angeles.

I think this actually has a lot of potential, if only for pure entertainment value. Everyone thinks they can be a fashion designer, so while the show might unfurl some real talent, there will probably be some real hot messes and diva catfights as well. It would also seem to circumvent the construction issues that always dog the contestants of Project Runway and The Fashion Show.

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24 July 09
MAC Creates Shadow Fashion Week Pun intended. From The New York Times: During the five years that MAC was the cosmetics sponsor of fashion shows in Bryant Park in New York, the makeup company made headlines with press conferences attended by supermodels and lithe young dancers who wore body paint in the place of clothing. But MAC, while spending millions, had to share a rather circuslike stage with other sponsors who were competing for attention, sometimes including makers of doughnuts, cameras, toilets and Big Macs. Now the company has decided to end its support of that event — Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, as it’s called — and will instead present its own shows at Milk Studios in the meatpacking district. Depending on your perspective, it could be viewed as a complement to Fashion Week, or a new competitor. Proenza Schouler, Erin Fetherston and Alexander Wang are among the dozen designers who have already signed on. The event, with the working title of MAC at Milk, will overlap with the established Fashion Week, beginning Sept. 10. As John Demsey, the Estée Lauder group president who oversees MAC, described it, the idea was to create a space for emerging and international designers at a time when they need more corporate support. The designers will not be charged for the use of the studios, whereas the Bryant Park shows typically cost around $25,000 for the smallest space. “Not everybody wants to be in a giant tent environment,” Mr. Demsey said. “And not everybody should be.” Does this new forum mean that Anna Wintour will be getting the fewer shows that she wants? Ms. Wintour’s wishes aside, this seems to be a win-win situation for everyone; MAC gets their own sponsored event, and emerging designers will be given an affordable option for participating in Fashion Week. Image credit: MAC Cosmetics

MAC Creates Shadow Fashion Week

Pun intended. From The New York Times:

During the five years that MAC was the cosmetics sponsor of fashion shows in Bryant Park in New York, the makeup company made headlines with press conferences attended by supermodels and lithe young dancers who wore body paint in the place of clothing. But MAC, while spending millions, had to share a rather circuslike stage with other sponsors who were competing for attention, sometimes including makers of doughnuts, cameras, toilets and Big Macs.

Now the company has decided to end its support of that event — Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, as it’s called — and will instead present its own shows at Milk Studios in the meatpacking district. Depending on your perspective, it could be viewed as a complement to Fashion Week, or a new competitor. Proenza Schouler, Erin Fetherston and Alexander Wang are among the dozen designers who have already signed on.

The event, with the working title of MAC at Milk, will overlap with the established Fashion Week, beginning Sept. 10.

As John Demsey, the Estée Lauder group president who oversees MAC, described it, the idea was to create a space for emerging and international designers at a time when they need more corporate support. The designers will not be charged for the use of the studios, whereas the Bryant Park shows typically cost around $25,000 for the smallest space.

“Not everybody wants to be in a giant tent environment,” Mr. Demsey said. “And not everybody should be.”

Does this new forum mean that Anna Wintour will be getting the fewer shows that she wants? Ms. Wintour’s wishes aside, this seems to be a win-win situation for everyone; MAC gets their own sponsored event, and emerging designers will be given an affordable option for participating in Fashion Week.

Image credit: MAC Cosmetics

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