1) I don’t usually post about brands that I have a business interest in but I’m going to make an exception today. Shape-wear is BIG business and Yummie Tummie is going from strength to strength helped along by stylist/designer Heather Thomson who is unique in the fashion world having come up with a completely new product. Brown Thomas in Dublin are planning a new Shape wear boutique with Yummie Tummie one of three anchor brands. New for fall and coming soon to Ireland are the simply amazing leggings which make not only your tummy but your legs slimmer! Turtle neck and long sleeve T-s with the ‘hold you in’ bit on the inside
2) Style Sample Magazine is a great online and print magazine for Fashion Bloggers. This is the place to read all the information you need if you are thinking about starting your own blog and a great resource for bloggers. You can contribute or just use it to check out what’s happening. Click here to read Issue 5. Issue 6 is available from next Tuesday. Style Sample Magazine
3) The Telegraph Newspapers hardest working and most knowledgeable Fashion Editor Hilary Alexander offers her Top 10 Fashion rules for the Oscars tonight and how to rise to the top in the Fashion Stakes. Hilary Alexander’s Top 10 Oscar Fashion Rules
4) Here is the Burberry Womenswear Catwalk show that was live streamed at London Fashion Week. Check out the fabulous jackets and new bags
1. Lily Allen has been saying for sometime that she is giving up her Music Career (or at least putting it on hold) to go into the Business of Fashion. Well, she’s launching her own Vintage label “Lucy In Disguise” at the Goodwood Fashion-meets Glam-Music Festival in the UK August 13-15. Lily said she would be sourcing the clothing with her sister Sarah Owen
The Festival, the first of it’s kind is the brain child of Wayne Hemingway and his wife, founders of label Red or Dead . The idea is to marry vintage with music from the 40’s 50’s 60’s and 70’s and 80’s. Simple a brilliant idea in an ideal location. To book tickets for this first of a kind festival click here… Goodwood
At the Launch of the Goodwood Festival and Lilly Allen's move into Fashion
2. Until the Mid 90’s Milan was the heart and centre of power of all the Fashion Capitals of the world. It seems as if this is certainly not true any more. Anna Wintour cut short the amount of time she spent there, more like a Fashion long week-end than a week! Read what the Guardian Newspaper reported about Milan during the week.
3 From Style.com read the report from the Burberry Prosum fantastic Catwalk show at London Fashion Week. I’m starting to save for one of these jackets right now.
Burberry Prosum Catwalk at LF 23rd February 2010
4. Closer to home, Paula Rowan had a fantastic launch of her Spring Summer Leather Shoes, Gloves and Bag collections last Thursday. Among the guests were Deirdre Mc Quillan, Richard Lewis, Eddie Shanahan and Barry Egan. There were over 200 people there who ate drank and were definitely merry… My interview with Paula will be uploaded in the next day or two so you can take a look for yourself.
Sonia Rykiels collection of knitwear in collaboration with H&M went on sale yesterday and has been a complete sellout so if you haven’t managed to bag one of the beauties from the range I’m afraid you’re out of luck. If you have bought it and anyone has the tunic dress in a medium and don’t want it please let me know???…..
2. Following on the tragedy of Alexander Mc Queens death it was announced last week that the planned Paris Catwalk show will go ahead for this season at least and is sure to be a hit. Bear in mind that catwalk collections aren’t finished until literally the last moment but it will have the stamp if not the finish of a brilliant designer. The future for the brand is less assured… watch this space.
3. London Fashion Week is in full swing. and tomorrow I’m there for Jaeger London at 3.30. On Tuesday the highlights for me are from Ashish (at 9.00 am) and Burberry Prosum (at 4. ‘Clock). Live streaming in high quality of all the shows can be found here Londonfashionweek. The quality is so good I’m seriously wondering why I’m flying at the crack of dawn tomorrow but all will become clear and I will report back exactly what I think.
4. Click here for a very interesting article from The New York Times on the wearisome return of military influences and the blurred influences which are now very much de rigueur as a source of fashion trends.
Tributes are pouring in following ‘Lee’ Alexander Mc Queens death last week. Sales of his trademark skull scarves and all things carrying his label are being bought up in stores across the world. On Friday his Press Office issued an urgent call to all Fashion Editors to immediately return any samples from the current or past seasons that were on loan (good luck with that one!).
McQueen Tributes outside the NY Store
New York Fashion Week is in full Swing showing Autumn/Winter 2010 here are images from Erin Wasson whose laid back simple street meets high end style vibe was really wearable and BCBG Max Azaria whose bold colour block collection looks like his best ever.
Tomorrow is the start of a great competition to win a pair of Italian leather gloves by Paula Rowan. All you have to do is register and leave a comment. The competition is open to anyone, anywhere and will run for three weeks.
1.Kate Moss designs a range of handbags for Longchamp. The collection will be sold in Dublin in Arnotts but take a look here at a video of the launch party last week and rare footage of Ms Moss saying a few words…. (or should that be, saying few words?)
2. Almost half of all the Fashion Magazines continue to experience double digit declines in sales, titles affected include Marie Claire, Vogue and W. With the growth in the Internet as a source of all things fashion coupled with a difficult economy the Magazines are going to have to work even harder to not only hold but grow their readership. Harpers Bazaar were accused of using some creative accounting techniques to hold up their reader count and it transpires they had added two other magazines in their stable into the mix in order to bump up the numbers
3. Fashion extremes were all a sparkle at last weeks 52nd Annual Grammy Awards with Lady Gaga taking all the fashion titles know to man. Three outfit changes from Armani Prive before the ceremony even started!!
Lady Gaga in No 1 of 3
4. Trouble brewed and spilled over onto Twitter and the Fashion Press when a group of Invited Bloggers previewed Ann Taylors Loft Summer collection. Twitter was all atweet with this highly trending topic for days with lots of negative comments about Bloggers V Editors which were vigorously rebutted. Read the article below which comes from WWD and leave a comment.
A new Loft blogging strategy has created some buzz, but not entirely the kind intended.
A group of bloggers was invited to preview Loft’s summer collection on Jan. 26 and each received a free gift card, ranging from $10 to $500. But Loft executives insist it wasn’t a ploy to insure favorable reviews about the collection, just to generate some blogging action.
“They could write whatever they want. Obviously, there’s freedom of speech,” said Gary Muto, president of Loft, which is a division of AnnTaylor Stores Corp. “These are independent bloggers, not affiliated [with] any publications. We invited them to come in and write something. We treat bloggers more as potential clients. We don’t believe bloggers to be the same as the editorial community. We don’t incentivize the press. We would never do that.”
A Jan. 19 article in The Los Angeles Times said, “From the sound of the sliding scale card values, the bigger and better your coverage, the greater your reward.”
But Muto disagreed, indicating: “These were preloaded gift cards dumped in a fish bowl,” meaning the dollar value of the cards was set and wouldn’t be altered based on a blog’s content.
After they left the preview, bloggers could find out the value of their cards by either shopping Loft or communicating with the company by sending the link to their blog posting. Once Loft received the link, it could e-mail back to bloggers what the card was worth and also read the blog.
Muto said 31 bloggers viewed the collection and each took a card. There were 50 cards in the fish bowl, he added.
A separate preview was held the same day for editors, but no gift cards were distributed there, Muto said.
“We will continue talking to bloggers,” Muto said. “We firmly believe that word of mouth is a great avenue to explore. Gone are the days of traditional forms of marketing and communication.”
Asked if Loft will continue to offer free gift cards to bloggers, Muto replied that for now, at least, “I can’t answer that question.”A new Loft blogging strategy has created some buzz, but not entirely the kind intended.
5. Suzy Menkes is one of the most Influential Fashion Editors in the World, as Head Fashion editor of the International Edition of The Herald Tribune she wields significant clout so listen to her being interviewed here on her view of Fashion Bloggers and their role in the world of Fashion
A round up of my chosen news items from the fashion world from last week
Haiti is a major manufacturing centre for the clothing Industry and naturally a lot of the factories have been devastated by the earthquake. Lets not let Haiti slide to the back of our minds in the coming months and endeavour to keep helping in whatever way we can.
One of the clothing factories in Haiti last week
Tavi the 13 year old blogger was at the Couture Shows in Paris last week. A large gift from Milliner Stephen Jones adorned her head. Unfortunate for anyone sitting behind her, reminds me of weddings and the races where instead of seeing either bride or horse I had views of various adornments perched on top of elaborate head wear. Enough to make the blood boil. Read an Interesting article here from the Independent on the whole bally hoo. Paula Reed who is the Fashion Editor of Grazia magazine and a thoroughly nice (by all accounts) woman (this is from one who knows these things) was pretty annoyed about it.
Image courtesy of The Moment
It’s always interesting to take a peek into the making of an advert or campaign and this video is from Louis Vuitton’s Spring Summer one.
The Burberry Prorsum Menswear Fall 20100-2011 was streamed live from Milan yesterday, a commercial collection paying homage to the great coat, of which Burberry is king. Military history was evident throughout with trenches, pea coats and exaggerated collared bombers all teamed with one neat trouser tucked into rubber fur lined wellies (New Uggsfor men?) and military style boots. The accompanying music is great too.
Ronaldo for Armani underwear and Jeans
Footballer Ronaldo shows off his assets for the Spring Summer Armani campaign( just kicking off so to speak), well you’ve got to admire the bod!
If you are reading this today, Sunday click onto http://www.prada.com/ to watch a live streaming of the Fall Menswear catwalk show live from Milan at 6pm GM+1hour
Last week H&M, that much loved high street Fashion Chain group found itself in the middle of a media and Internet storm through it’s own making. This time it wasn’t the launch of a new collaboration. The New York Times ( read the article here)reported that huge quantities of unsold H&M clothes had been dumped outside it’s 34 th street location in Manhattan, in black sacks. The problem was that the clothes had been slashed purposefully as to render them unwearable. Gloves had, had the fingers cut off, jackets had sleeves ripped and dresses slashed. The fact that the clothes were not being given to a charity for re distribution or even recycled was pretty disgusting especially in this era of economic hardship and the need to take care of the planet.
Twitter got a hold of the story and within minutes we were all commenting about how terrible this was. People were incensed that H&M had thrown away usable clothes and how awful they were. Threats of boycotts and protests were coming in thick and fast. The item rose to number 2 on the Twitter trending list within a few hours. I was one of those Tweeters and what was startling was H&M’s slowness at dealing with the issue. They were still tweeting their latest fashion offers while all this was going on and it took them one whole day to come out and apologise for something they said was NOT company policy. The Twitterati are a forgiving lot and have accepted the apology, even praise for H&M was in the air.
What all major retailers need to understand is this. The power of people through the use of Social Media is huge and it’s bigger than any of the old Print Media or your PR Gurus. You need to be present and to be immediate. If you make a mistake say so quickly and make amends.
YES it has been a weak week, (in terms of Fashion News anyway). The Sales are in full swing with retailers reporting strong turnover. If you are still after that bargain they may be a bit thin on the ground though. If the retailers have done their job well they will have bought less. Last year the shops were awash with bargains. This was because they had been buying on merrily, overlooking the fact that the big R was biting hard. This year, having been bitten badly they were far more cautious.
I had a little wander in my local Shopping Centre AKA Dundrum this morning. A- Wear is already full of New Seasons stock and has bought into all the new trends. Nudes, ruffles, nautical, trapese sweaters and tops A little bit early but nevertheless in situ. Harvey Nichols hardly has a bag left and what they do have are too expensive so I expect more discounting to come. The shoe shops are full to the brim with boots and highest heels but Penneys has the march on all of them at between 7-15 euro a pair.
So what is around the corner? I spotted these skis from Paul Smith, a snip at $1300!! Mind you I don’t know how much ski’s cost though if the weather continues like this we may all need them soon?
The Premier of the second film this year about Mademoiselle Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel took place in Paris entitled ‘Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky’, directed by Jan Kounen it tells the story of the affair and relationship between these two artistic and highly talented people. Igor Stravinsky’s The beautiful ‘Rite of Spring’ features in the opening scenes. The part of Coco Chanel is played by Anna Mouglalis. By all accounts a film full of guilty pleasures which I look forward to it.
SALES NEWS Tuesday 27th of December is the day it all kicks off with M&S opening their doors at 8 am while Arnotts, Brown Thomas and Clerys are up and running at 9 O’Clock. Reductions of 20%-50% to start off are sure to wet the appetite for all of you sales addicts.
ETHICAL TRADING While the meeting of all the world leaders on climate change went on and on in Copenhagen to a spluttering finale another conference was taking place a short distance away from the main event. Fashion Industry leaders got together to discuss ethical fashion which before the world recession was starting to make an impact. No news has emerged from that meeting yet but the outcome will be interesting as at the moment it’s all down to price price price and sod the ethics. That’s if Penney’s sales are any indicator. Personally I would love to think the Industry leaders could get it together and device an ethical code which would be sensible and followed by the whole industry based on fair trading but then pigs might fly too!
This month I will be giving away a pair of Italian leather gloves by Paula Rowen. All you have to do is register and leave a comment. The competition is open to anyone, anywhere and will run for three weeks.
