There’s a simple fact: just by me showing up somewhere, there’s diversity. I don’t have to talk about diversity. I don’t have to wear a shirt that says ‘I promote diversity!’ It’s always overlooked. Just by the fact I show up in a room full of white and black people, we’ve now actually made it diverse. There’s something funny about that. My statement is my presence. | | | | Yves Saint Laurent A/W 2017, Paris Fashion Week, Feb. 28, 2017.
(Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images) | | | | | | “There’s a simple fact: just by me showing up somewhere, there’s diversity. I don’t have to talk about diversity. I don’t have to wear a shirt that says ‘I promote diversity!’ It’s always overlooked. Just by the fact I show up in a room full of white and black people, we’ve now actually made it diverse. There’s something funny about that. My statement is my presence.”
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| | rantnrave:// The way e-commerce facilitates knowledge-sharing and a kind of omni-indexing of luxury goods is fascinating. Wittingly or unwittingly, online retailers facilitate research—through search, discovery, and link-sharing. This is e-commerce focused more on the “e” than buying and selling per se. Online retailers offer value and utility to consumers as a knowledge base. Can product information be monetized when people are looking for a product that's 2 years old? This is already powerful, but is it lucrative? AMAZON S3 outage notwithstanding… NATALIE MASSENET joins FARFETCH as co-chairman. One metric touted in the announcement is that FARFETCH outranks its competitors in traffic. What about sales? They’ve reported $800M in gross sales; not yet profitable, possible IPO. Founder JOSÉ NEVES calls Farfetch an “omni-channel out-of-the-box.” E-commerce as portal to store inventory and in-store returns is smart, but what about pure presence in the online space? EBATES just bought SHOPSTYLE. There’s LYST, SPRING, POLYVORE, GOOGLE SHOPPING, even PINTEREST. All of this product discovery overlaps in uneven ways, and sometimes leads to the same inventories and product listings across multiple sites. This reveals itself to savvy customers. If fewer platforms hold inventory, then who, exactly, will?... Some notable writing has come out of dissecting the politics of WASHINGTON D.C. style (recall CINTRA WILSON on her trip through CAPITOL HILL). Respect to TROY PATTERSON for his close reading of National Security Council senior communications director MICHAEL ANTON’s book on #menstyle… Food for thought: as “re-commerce” sites become increasingly specialized, will they dilute the auction market? It won’t happen immediately, but will we start seeing CHARLES FREDERICK WORTH on sites like VESTIAIRE COLLECTIVE? Or GRAILED? One might think this brings prices down for everyone (including CHRISTIE'S), but then again, fine jewelry reportedly sells well online. Can you deliver an amazing online experience if the product is guaranteed to sell for six figures?… In brief: DANIELLA VITALE speaks to LAUREN SHERMAN as BARNEYS moves forward… DAISY ALIOTO tracks down origins of the word “fit,” from slang dictionaries to FOUR PINS… ELIZA BROOKE’s feature takes on the role of image-making and style from CALIFORNIA—SoCal and NoCal and the birthplaces of #tech. Great read, and cheers to RACKED for the illustrations… Yeah, people should be called out for abusive casting behavior. JAMES SCULLY did just that via INSTAGRAM, with swift action taken by BALENCIAGA… What is SECTION 8 indeed? | | | - HK Mindy Meissen, curator |
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| How the Golden State dictates what we wear, from Venice Beach to Silicon Valley. | | |
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| A close examination of the sartorial prose of Michael Anton, the National Security Council’s new senior communications director. | | |
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| Jost Franko photographed the global path of cotton -- from plantation to factory -- where the corporate quest for cheaper production sometimes obscures the human cost. | | |
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| On the semiotics of menswear. | | |
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| What to make of the industry’s painful adolescence, and the hope that comes from change? After New York and London Fashion Weeks, we reflect on a changing schedule, flustered economics, and the return of normcore. | | |
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| Violeta Sanchez is a legend, her work with Helmut Newton a part of fashion history. Decades later, her appeal is intact, luminous and unchallenged. | | |
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| Fashion ads tend to be idealess. While there have been a few good fashion campaigns in the last 25 to 30 years, you will see scant creativity and zero originality. | | |
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| How minimalist dressing misleads women. | | |
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| Natalie Massenet, who left Net-a-Porter after its merger with Yoox, likes Farfetch’s middleman approach to online luxury sales. | | |
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| The newly installed chief executive talks exclusively to BoF about the power of data, the lease on the store's Madison Avenue location and why you won’t see the retailer ramping up on off-price. | | |
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| “Still I rise,” says 79-year-old Roxy Wright, glancing down and caressing each scar she’s accrued over a long and rich life. Indeed, resilience is a key word in Roxy’s story. When she moved to New Orleans in the ‘60s to work for the Chrysler Corporation Space Division, she was one of eight black employees on a staff of nearly 20,000. | | |
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| Noted casting director James Scully is calling out the fashion house on social media. | | |
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| The Belgian designer is about to hold a landmark show, but he sees it as an opportunity for reflection and connection, not Champagne. | | |
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| The lingerie/undergarments industry, which was, until very recently, dominated largely by the dated model set forth by Victoria’s Secret and its founder, Roy Raymond, in the 1970’s, is in the midst of a massive revamp. | | |
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| The Wes favourite and current face of the French brand discusses the importance of collaboration in a divided world (and meeting Bill Murray) | | |
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| Crain's New York Business |
| Effort to change rules that have helped fashion companies stay in midtown could begin as early as April. | | |
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| The initiative combines freestanding pop-ups, partnerships with key retailers and special in-store merchandising. | | |
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| Rising wages in China are a double-edged sword for its economy. | | |
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| The new rates take effect on March 1st. | | |
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| The investor praised Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and said he can’t figure out retail. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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