I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men. If I dressed for myself, I wouldn’t bother at all. Clothes bore me. I’d wear jeans. I adore jeans. I get them in a public store — men’s, of course; I can’t wear women’s trousers. | | | | Christian Dior Haute Couture S/S 2018, Paris, Jan. 22, 2018.
(Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men. If I dressed for myself, I wouldn’t bother at all. Clothes bore me. I’d wear jeans. I adore jeans. I get them in a public store — men’s, of course; I can’t wear women’s trousers.”
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| | rantnrave:// I believe in luxury e-commerce, even if it hasn't experienced the renaissance that's been heralded repeatedly since the early days of the internet. Today it's experiencing a bit of a quandary: it's better established, yet feels less dynamic, with many companies relying on enterprise solutions or trying to port their vision into generic systems. There's a long way to go. RICHEMONT offered 2.8 billion EUROS for YOOX-NET-A-PORTER, and if approved by shareholders, the deal will bring Richemont's roughly 49 percent stake in YNAP up to full control. Multi-brand e-commerce will always have the competitive advantage bringing customers a more diverse offering—a point of view and a more dynamic sense of what's available each season. Thus far, I haven't seen many luxury labels differentiating themselves from experiences found at e-tailers like NET-A-PORTER or MODA OPERANDI. There's still a lot of CMS-junk loading and clunkiness in e-commerce. Why? Execution, details, timing, and agility are crucial in the current environment, without giving in to every internet whim. Shareholders in the these companies would love for luxury e-tail to become a winner-takes-all game, but it won't work out that way. Smaller, independent retailers with an eclectic, idiosyncratic point-of-view improve the entire ecosystem and can serve as a catalyst for young, innovative designers. There's still a lot of potential for the space if companies don't fall into lockstep. 24SÈVRES remains one of the better efforts in e-commerce, and a cursory look at CÉLINE's new e-commerce storefront looks decent (watch for the animated product snapshots). There's still an opportunity to take the best aspects of the top e-commerce stores and put them into one store, but no one has figured that out yet... The haute couture shows in PARIS have begun, and the first triple-A couture house to show was CHRISTIAN DIOR. I'm rooting for MARIA GRAZIA CHIURI even as I sometimes wish all the consideration and details in her collections could be pulled together into a more unified vision. Sidenote: the masks framing the models' eyes were stunning... Briefs: If you're in search of some '90s nostalgia, here's some airport style and "it" bags of the past... HIGHSNOBIETY raises $8.5 million... The MUJI hotel opens in SHENZHEN. | | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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| When people surged backstage to ask Miuccia Prada about her New Wave mashup of a spring collection, there was only one point she wanted to speak about. "I am suggesting militant women in a very practical way, through clothes. That's what I do," she announced. | | |
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| As the fall men’s shows end, Dior holds the line on French conservatism, Balmain delivers the usual extravagance, and Hermès channels quiet wealth. | | |
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| The designer who seeks to evoke “feminine feminism” has a lot to say about social justice - and fashion is his bullhorn. | | |
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| Paris Fashion Week is where fashion's rumor mill gets most of its power, and it's also the perfect time for companies to announce strategic moves-like job changes. LVMH won the week with not one, but two big announcements. The first came before Louis Vuitton's Fall/Winter 2018 menswear show, which turned out to be the last for outgoing creative director Kim Jones. | | |
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| The bid would still need to be approved by YNAP shareholders, but YNAP chief executive Federico Marchetti has indicated he would support the deal. | | |
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| Amazon today launched its new retail store, which doesn't have any people manning the shelves. An automat, from a company that is all about making shopping friction-free, is an obvious first step in reshaping the American retail experience. Back in 2010, when I said so, everyone thought I was out of my damn mind. | | |
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| Once you had to listen out for whispers to discover a new name. Nowadays, the gift of email means a whisper is uttered in written form, and it can be from half a world away. | | |
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| The most disruptive designer of his generation is back. But what will it mean for the legions of women who once found their power clothing at Céline? | | |
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| It's A Margiela World At The AW18 Men's shows Gender-fluid is a word that'll prompt an eye-roll from most designers these days. Overused and often misused, it's become a bit of a cliché even if we all believe in the brave new world it stands for. | | |
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| Athens-based archiver Michael Kardamakis has joined forces with international showroom DSMR to take us back to a place and time in which Helmut Lang was at the peak of his powers. | | |
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| Trends are veering towards the very, very camo-heavy right now. | | |
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| For spring/summer 2016 I used references from my travels through south-east Asia -- Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar. I'd been to the latter the summer previously and seen some incredible things. The country has only recently opened up to tourism and it's relatively unspoilt. | | |
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| I met Slovenian-born designer Peter Movrin on a brisk Sunday morning in a cosy corner of a Dalston café accompanied by his close friend, Maja Leskovšek. We talked about all manner of things, from dentists and gap teeth to Mathilde Willink, Capucci and Dior. | | |
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| 2017 was a year of workplace reckoning, and back in March, period-proof underwear company Thinx had the dubious honor of being among the first to be forced to confront allegations of sexual harassment, substandard employment policies, and a hostile work environment for its (overwhelmingly young, female) staff. | | |
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| The department store retailer has been around for more than a century. But as its sales dwindle and debt problems mount, Bon-Ton must convince stakeholders that it's still relevant. | | |
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| When Jesse Lee prepared to launch the new peer-to-peer shopping app, Basic Space, he started recruiting a select list of sellers - and he didn't have to look far: He just asked his friends. | | |
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| In a victory for labor unions, a global clothing brand has agreed to pay $2.3 million to meet fire and building safety regulations in 150 garment factories across its supply chain in Bangladesh, unions said Monday (Jan 22). The settlement is one the largest payments made by a brand to remedy workplace dangers in Bangladesh, the unions said in a statement. | | |
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| Francis Kurkdjian is one of the world’s greatest perfumers. Since creating Le Male for Jean Paul Gaultier in 1995, one of the most popular fragrances ever, when the Paris-born Kurkdjian was only 26, he went to make many other breath-takingly lovely fragrances for other brands such as Burberry and Elie Saab. In 2009, he established his own company Maison Francis Kurkdjian (MFK). | | |
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| The first AFROPUNK festival in Africa took place over the weekend of the 30 and 31 December. Fashion, art and music was shared in a collective embrace with all attendees. As with every AFROPUNK festival, the outfits worn by those in attendance can attract as much attention and celebration as the artists on the lineup. | | |
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| You see that tag on your favorite influencer's photo identifying the hotel that is playing host to his/her idyllic tropical sojourn? That is almost certainly not there by chance. | | |
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