In the digital age, good design doesn’t just result in objects: It results in new relationships.
In 1969, Hartmut Esslinger founded the global design and strategy firm now known as frog, and in so doing rebuffed the dominant (and sterile) design mantra of the day that form follows function. In his mind, form follows emotion, and as frog works more and more frequently to design spaces and systems, not just objects, the approach holds true.
“Design used to be about making a thing,” explains Turi McKinley, executive director of frogCamp, the firm’s thought-leadership initiative. “Today, for us, design is about making and shaping experiences and relationships.” But in order to make those experiences and relationships meaningful — “to design for an emotional connection,” as McKinley puts it—designers must first understand the people for whom they are designing.
EMOTION
“It’s kind of remarkable how many companies don’t really know what happens with their product once it leaves the store—what the customers are ultimately doing with their product or service in the context of where it’s being used,” says Tjeerd Hoek, vice president of creative for frog, whose clients range from telecom companies and financial institutions to large retailers and home appliance conglomerates. “For us, it’s super important to go out and meet users, whoever they may be, to bring that user perspective into the design process.” He pauses. “Whenever we say that, it sounds so logical.”
Referring to John and Yoko, K11 is showcasing the history of the bag. An exhibition that introduces 400 years of high-end handbags alongside contemporary Chinese art.
What the Fashion System Can Learn From Supreme-Style Product Drops
Most people with knowledge of the streetwear market are familiar with the concept of a “drop,” a controlled release of new product at a clip that’s far faster than the traditional fashion cycle and designed to drive consumer excitement with a stream of constant newness. It’s one of the reasons lines at Supreme stores tend to snake around the block every Thursday morning, when the company releases new items.
Supreme, which is vertically integrated and controls the vast majority of its distribution, creates seasonal collections, but drops new product in weekly batches. These drops generate so much interest that entire forums are dedicated to celebrating purchases and guessing which particular pieces will sell out first. What’s more, on the first “drop day” of a new season, traffic to the brand’s website can spike by as much as 16,800 percent, according to Samuel Spitzer, who leads Supreme’s e-commerce operation. E-commerce has become an important part of the business and while Supreme does not disclose sales figures, Spitzer says that on drop days “we get a very, very high rate of orders per second.”
According to Chris Gibbs, owner of multi-brand retailer Union Los Angeles, the system of “drops” stems from a cluster of Japanese streetwear labels, including Hiroshi Fujiwara’s Goodenough, Nigo’s A Bathing Ape, Jun Takahashi’s Undercover, Hiroki Nakamura’s Visvim and Shinsuke Takizawa’s Neighborhood, which all set up shop in the backstreets of
Tokyo’s Harajuku district in the early 1990s and were, themselves, inspired by the DIY methodologies of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s legendary London store Sex, as well as Fujiwara’s involvement in the International Stüssy Tribe.
You want to try to give customers a sense of consistency and create excitement.
“Japan’s streetwear is very retail-based. They’re thinking about the end consumer at the very beginning and all throughout the process. They’re thinking what the retail price is when they’re looking at the fabric,” says Gibbs. “That culture and that market is more organised from my experience,” adds Ryan Willms, who handles marketing and art direction for Stüssy’s North American operation.
“There’s just so much product releasing at all times that you want to try to give customers a sense of consistency and create excitement,” continues Willms. “People are a lot more aware and the customer just demands a lot more now. I think they just want more product more often.”
In addition to delivering new items every week, brands like Supreme and Palace, a London-based streetwear label, keep distribution tight and quantities limited, undersupplying demand. Together, the strategy generates excitement and encourages customers to constantly re-engage, creating a kind of consumer ritual.
For Brendon Babenzien — previously the design director at Supreme, who, after a 10-year hiatus, relaunched his label Noah in October 2015 — the decision to embrace weekly drops was rooted in practicality. “We’re small. You don’t want to have a tonne of stuff at once. This is just an honest, genuine way to do business: Here’s what we need now, let’s put it out and let’s continue bringing product in throughout the season when it makes sense.”
At a much larger scale, Stüssy has made a concerted effort to drop new product on a weekly basis, but Willms says the process is not without its challenges and requires close coordination with suppliers. “We see from the outside Supreme does a good job, but I’m sure behind-the-scenes they’re scrambling around to get some of those things done on time as well,” he adds.
“Brands like Supreme and Palace don’t follow the same seasonal calendar as high fashion brands at all,” observes James Gilchrist, general manager of Comme des Garçons USA and Dover Street Market New York, which stocks both brands. “Actually, their approach makes a lot of sense compared to the way high fashion brands are currently delivering.” As Gilchrist points out, traditional fashion deliveries are structured around far fewer,
bigger shipments.
You don’t want to have a tonne of stuff at once… Let’s continue bringing product in throughout the season when it makes sense.
Gosha Rubchinskiy, a buzzy brand operated by Comme des Garçons, has fused the traditional delivery schedule with something closer to how streetwear brands like Supreme operate. “This was just how things naturally developed; it was not an intentional part of a strategy,” says Gilchrist. “Gosha does a fashion show and is a wholesale business, so he has to work to that calendar and the collection is separated into deliveries in the showroom that govern when certain things will drop. However, the distribution and the quantities produced are very tightly controlled and limited in a similar way to Supreme or Palace.”
Rubchinskiy also makes exclusive product for Dover Street Market that is released throughout the season, further fostering a sense of newness. But Gibbs says Rubchinskiy’s delivery schedule isn’t that different from the rest of Comme des Garçons’ labels, which are typically delivered in four batches throughout a season. As a result, he’ll rarely order from Rubchinskiy’s fourth delivery, since by the time it ships to Union, the store has most likely already begun marking down product.
Gibbs says the drop model works better for vertically integrated businesses, as piecemeal delivery of a collection can be challenging for both multi-brand retailers — which pride themselves on maintaining a carefully calibrated merchandise mix — and brands that depend on wholesale distribution for a significant chunk of their income.
But like Rubchinskiy, Los Angeles-based designer John Elliott, who splits his label between a core line of basics and a seasonal collection that gets shown on the runway, has adopted a hybrid approach. Elliott ships his core product — including t-shirts, knitwear and sweatpants, which comprises 60 percent of his business — to department stores on the traditional calendar, but also does a healthy direct-to-consumer business based on weekly drops via his own e-commerce site. On Mondays, Elliott’s website is updated with pieces from his seasonal collection. On Thursdays, higher volume items like t-shirts, hoodies and sweatpants are released in new colours. Traffic to the site increases by an average of 60 percent on “drop days” over other days, says the company.
“For us it’s a result of probably three things,” explains Elliott. “One would be cash flow, two would be the fact that we produce 90 percent of our stuff in a really small factory in Los Angeles and the third would be that if we were to drop [the collection] all at once, our customer would choose some big winners and probably pass on some stuff.” The
approach also means Elliot can drop product like coats and heavier knits when it’s more seasonally appropriate, he says. In addition, the system allows the label to shine a new light on different items each week, which has helped to boost sales for non-core categories like denim.
What’s more, Elliot feels weekly drops lend themselves to a strong marketing narrative. For each drop, the label shoots a new lookbook, then delivers each of the featured items, a process that requires a lot of planning with regards to production schedules and purchasing. “The most value is in showing a collection, telling a story and giving your customer a taste of what’s to come.”
Product Branding and Marketing according to Seth Godin:
Understand the Action Theory
Create a plan that follows the four steps of Action Theory Marketing.
Emotion Change Alert Share
Understand the P’s
Positioning
Your brain is crowded.
● Find a niche and fill it.
● You cannot force yourself into someone’s brainmost people aren’t going to invent a new
slot just because you want them to.
● Your goal is to find a niche, find a slot in a ‘file’ that already exists.
● What does the marketplace look like to someone who cares? — it’s a very different focus
than the person who’s merely hurrying by…
● Price ought to be based on perceived value, not cost.
● Price is only a hint or a quantified signal. You lose when you race to the bottom, mistaking
cheap for a brand promise… The opportunity for the marketer is to use price as a signal that supports the story and the promise that they intend to make.
Placement
● Invest money to be right next to the people you want to be next to, whether it’s shelf space or ‘life space’. Proximity changes the way people see you.
Promotion
● Trial creates an emotion in the consumer, and enables them to spread the story they want to spread. Carefully choose who to offer this generosity to, and get the leverage to spread your idea.
Purple
Make something worth talking about.
Publicity
● You don’t get to decide if your product or service is remarkable, the consumer does.
● Don’t walk around insisting that you’ve made something remarkable, instead watch to see if
people choose to talk about it.
● The magic of pushing a story to get free media is fading. Too many outlets, too much clutter. Public relations
● PR is not the same as publicity. PR is the act of telling a story.
Placebo
● If you think something will work, it works better. the placebo effect is responsible for half of efficacy of many drugs.
Pavlov
● Ring a bell?
● Create a Pavlovian reaction: We do this, you get that. This often leads to a placebo effect. Train
people to expect something.
Persistence
Frequency + Consistency.
Place
● Showing up over time builds trust.
● The time to change your marketing is not when your people are bored with it, but it’s when
your accountant tells you to change your marketing.
● A persistent, frequent approach to the market makes us believe you and trust you. You lose
all of that when you cross the line to annoying.
● What is it like to be with you?
● Real estate creates value on top of the service offered.
● When you think about how you’re going to engage with people, what do you want to remind
them of?
Personalization
● Now that you know about your customers, you can treat them differently.
People Like Us
● Do people like us do something like that?
Choose seven (or even just three) of the fourteen “P”s and decide how they will be the backbone of your marketing plan.
These elements are the ones that make you special, that are your ticket to success.
George Michael’s: Freedom!’90 defined the supermodel moment on video. Cindy, Christy, Linda, Naomi, and Tatjana.
This season, as New York designers underwent some soul-searching and rule-breaking of their own, the time seemed right to sing along with with George again. Gordon von Steiner and Jorden Bickham plucked the new generation of supers and the most dazzling looks straight off the catwalks and headed out to the streets of New York for the ultimate lip sync challenge.
Tiffany presents “Some Style is Legendary,” a short film capturing the making of the fall 2016 campaign. Cutler, director of “The September Issue”, casts an eye upon the rarely seen side of Vogue’s legendary creative director-at-large, Grace Coddington. The documentary takes viewers behind the scenes as Coddington partners with Tiffany to break new creative ground, on her first ever brand campaign.
Alexander Fury is becoming my favorite fashion writer. Here he takes on appropiation of cultures for designer’s collections. What is inspiration and when are you crossing the lines? And how did the sensitivity changed throughout the past decades:
Despite the fashion calendar shifting continents and an entire fashion week unfolding in the interim (London’s five-day schedule ended yesterday evening), attention is still being drawn back to New York; namely, to Marc Jacobs. Last Thursday afternoon, Jacobs unveiled his spring/summer 2017 show, to generally positive critical reviews — and a social media brouhaha. The focus was the models’ hair, braided into multicolored dreadlocks inspired by the transgender filmmaker Lana Wachowski and sourced online. The designer was subsequently accused of cultural appropriation, of lifting influences from black culture and showing them on a cast of predominantly white models. Jacobs was rapidly tried and sentenced by a public jury; a fusillade of comments rained down on Instagram and Twitter. Jacobs responded, first by “justifying” his actions and then, after that engendered further criticism, apologizing for the justification, and for any offense caused. The story had already leapt from the fashion pages: Time ran a piece, as did many other general-interest publications.
The thing that struck me was, ironically, how very Marc Jacobs all this feels. Jacobs’s distinct talent is to, somehow, divine the moods of the moment and compress them into 10-minute fashion shows. Often, the mood is confined to the aesthetic, to a particular fashion buzz about to chime with the populace: Fetish! Leopard! Denim! Sometimes, he digs deeper. His spring/summer 1993 grunge collection for former employer Perry Ellis nailed an emerging cultural moment, coupled to fashion but also encompassing music and a general “slacker” feel. It was presented two years before Kevin Smith’s “Clerks,” but, as that film did, represented a break with not only the aesthetics but the social mores and values of the ’80s. It was, maybe, the true start of the ’90s. (F.Y.I., it got Jacobs fired.)
This collection isn’t quite as seminal — but when it comes to nailing the mood of the time in which we live, it’s bang-on. Today is a moment of uncertainty, a moment teetering on tenterhooks, of walking on eggshells. Jacobs collection wasn’t intended to be controversial: “cyberpunk, cyber-goth, street kids, club kids, couture,” were the references Jacobs’ stylist, Katie Grand, reeled off to me 48 hours before the show. If anything, Jacobs’s appropriation was of the already-appropriated, the dreadlocks sported by the aforementioned style subsects. The reaction to it, however, epitomizes a media landscape dominated by 21st-century terminology like “trigger warning” and “micro-aggression.”
Fashion has been “borrowing” from other cultures for decades. Elsa Schiaparelli based her upturned shoulders, the ones that set the silhouette for the ’30s and ’40s, on the costumes of Balinese dancers. Yves Saint Laurent pillaged the Steppes and the Far East. Almost everyone’s turned to Japan at some point — or an idea of Japan, like those laid out by Edward Said’s 1978 book “Orientalism,” and which are applicable to collections by designers as diverse as Paul Poiret, Yves Saint Laurent and Giorgio Armani.
But at what point did appropriation become inappropriate? When did designers start being called out on their picture-postcard odes to foreign lands and people — what’s changed?
I wonder if those collections will be reassessed, by subsequent generations, with the judgment we apply to blackface — of decidedly inappropriate cultural colonialism, antiquated and uncomfortable to watch. “The point of academic analysis is not to criticize, but to reveal the contradictions, to possibly reveal the flaws that are symptomatic of their time,” Evans points out. “It tells you something about the period, that we need to learn.”
What should we learn from our period? Perhaps that every look will be analyzed, and criticized, and that the criticism will be vocal via a permanently plugged-in, Wi-Fi world. That, regardless of intent or stated inspiration, every nuance and reference could be second-guessed. That it’s not easy to riff on other cultures without someone feeling ripped off, and that the offended are quick to take to social media to voice their disdain. That’s a good thing, potentially — it makes designers stop and think about other cultures, hopefully to gain a better understanding of their references, which probably makes their designs better, or at least more intelligent. There’s also a simpler lesson: that you’ll never please all of the people all of the time. But it’s good to try to understand their point of view.
“A lot of people think that fashion illustration is something that died circa 1930, when photography came in — but that’s absolutely not true,” says Connie Gray, curator of “Drawing on Style,” an exhibition running during this London Fashion Week. “They ran very much hand-in-hand up until the 1960s and 1970s, and they really complemented each other on the page. Very often there would be a mixture of photography and illustration within the same fashion story.”
Though this kind of artwork doesn’t take center stage in fashion reporting anymore, the medium, Gray says, can sometimes be more effective than photography. “The photography of the 20th century was wonderful, but it was often quite static,” she says. “With illustration, there was a lot more feeling, movement, and expression.” Click through the slideshow for a peek at the new show.
“Drawing on Style,” presented by Gray MCA in collaboration with SHOWstudio, is on display at Gallery 8 in London from September 15–20.
Alexander Wang’s new Adidas collaboration for spring 2017. (Kate Warren for The Washington Post)
NEW YORK — The track pants, T-shirts and jackets are basic black, which doesn’t sound all that interesting, but the color manages to give it all a sleeker look so that it is at once retro and kitschy but also modern. Alexander Wang designed the collection in a collaboration with Adidas Originals, which he unveiled on the runway as part of his spring 2017 presentation.
It may be hard to believe, but once a time sweatpants and sweatshirts were just throwaway garments meant for, well, sweating. Then along came hip hop and Run-DMC and Juicy Couture, and sweatsuits became a fashion thing, a cultural thing, a rarified thing — not because of how they looked but because of how much they cost.
The advertising campaign for the collection features models on the streets of New York looking particularly grumpy, perhaps because several of them appear to be dragging overstuffed garbage bags — or perhaps designer gym bags that just look like Hefty bags. Whatever they are, they don’t look fun to haul around.
Getting one’s hands on this collection will be a complicated endeavor as it will initially be sold via pop-up trucks that will be driving around in New York on Sunday, and in Tokyo and London on Sept. 17. Knowing exactly where those trucks will be or when involves following either Wang or Adidas Originals on Instagram or Snapchat or calling 917-325-3342. For those with more patience, the collection will be available in the usual online and bricks-and-mortar way in the spring.
The unveiling of the 84-piece unisex collection, which also included footwear, was celebrated after the runway show with an elaborate video and giant music festival that suddenly appeared as the catwalks’ backdrop gave way to reveal food trucks, a performance stage, a fully functional 7-Eleven, Slurpee machines, a McDonald’s and plenty of booze.
That is a lot of hoopla to sell track pants, pullovers and sneakers, which speaks to the dominance of street and athletic style over pretty much everything else in the fashion universe. Sacai’s Chitose Abe has created a collection with Nike. So has the brand Undercover. Stella McCartney has a long relationship with Adidas. Athletic gear has influenced everything.
Still, when these sportswear companies step into the fashion ring, they often can’t resist bringing in a celebrity to add sizzle, whether it’s Rihanna at Puma or another Adidas co-conspirator, Kanye West. It’s easy money. But it’s really unnecessary.
In many ways, Wang is a celebrity, but he’s mostly a designer — one sensitive to the relationship between fashion and street style. And the funny thing about Wang’s take on Adidas is that he didn’t move the garments that far from their origins. What would be the point?
High fashion isn’t welcoming lowly streetwear into its rarefied world by giving it a luxury makeover. The balance long ago shifted. Fashion is coming down from its high perch to marvel at the allure of a sweatshirt.
In “The Extraordinary Process,” nine designers — Patrik Schumacher, Ms. Hadid’s partner at Zaha Hadid Architects; Peter Do; Phoebe English; Iris van Herpen; Stephen Jones; Krystyna Kozhoma; Nasir Mazhar; Minimaforms and XO — consider how fashion and design are affected by new technologies and collaborations.
Pieces designed by Patrik Schumacher for an exhibition inspired by the work of the architect Zaha Hadid, who died in March. Credit Damian Griffiths/Courtesy of Maison Maison Non
The architect Zaha Hadid, who died unexpectedly in March, was known for her flamboyant and very personal fashion sense. While her architectural practice become famous for large-scale, soaring structures, like the opera house in Guangzhou, China, or the Maxxi museum in Rome, it has embraced fashion, jewelry design and household items with a similar fervor and spirit of innovation. “In terms of form, all our projects — architecture, fashion and furniture — interest me equally,” Ms. Hadid said in a 2015 interview.
Here are edited extracts from the conversations:
Patrik Schumacher
I teach at the design lab at the Architectural Association, and we have been working on texture-like materials to use in construction. But in our architectural designs, we have done origami-style curved folding. It’s a world of forms, more than anything, and then you seek customization. For the exhibition, I’ve designed a three-piece suit using neoprene and mesh because I want that elasticity and comfort. Instead of buttons, there are zippers, and the way the suit is constructed and layered is unconventional. At the same time, it is still recognizably a suit, elegant and very wearable, and you could go jogging after dinner without changing.
Krystyna Kozhoma
A design by Krystyna Kozhoma. Credit Damian Griffiths/Maison Maison Non
I saw a video about curved folding in architecture, and it inspired me to create clothes with programmed shapes. So I’ve embedded clear bars in the fabric of a jacket and trousers to create a structured shape. I worked with an engineer, and there was no pattern cutting; the clothes were made by a computer program. That’s still limited in fashion and mostly used for 3-D printing. This is a translation from architecture to fashion, and the shapes and fluidity of the lines show how much my work is inspired by Zaha. She took a lot of inspiration from nature but then computerized it. What’s interesting is that if the embedded material reacted to light, or temperature, you could make the garment a smart one. That’s the next project.
Iris van Herpen
From Iris van Herpen’s Lucid collection. Credit Iris Van Herpen Lucid Collection/AW16
I’m showing a dress from my Lucid collection that is built of thousands of small transparent pieces. They create a bubble or halo around the body, and around the dress we have built an installation of optical light feeds from thin, transparent sheets that bend the light. From each angle, you see the garment in a different perspective and with a sense of movement. For me, that reflects the future: uncertain and personal to each individual. I think Zaha’s work is a beautiful balance between the futuristic and the organic, and I tried to stay true to that balance.
Peter Do
Peter Do made a unisex coat, sweaters and boots. Credit Damian Griffiths/Courtesy of Maison Maison Non
I was thinking about minimizing one’s wardrobe and functionality, so I used a single yarn, made from cellophane, woven in many different ways, and made a unisex coat, sweaters and boots. Each looks different because of the way it is fabricated and layered. I worked with Stoll, a knitwear company in New York who make incredible knitting machines that can do extraordinary things. In the future, I think they’ll be much more simple to use, and I had this idea that everyone could have a Stoll machine at home, download your patterns, choose your yarns and your garment would be knitted by the time you got home from work.
Phoebe English
Phoebe English’s piece. Credit Damian Griffiths/Courtesy of Maison Maison Non
I realized, when I got the brief, that I felt a bit frightened of the future. So I designed an enclosure or private space, a kind of safety shell. It’s constructed from a heavily smocked textile with very closely packed pleating. It’s half calico and half plastic, so it has both a rawness and a sheen. I’ve always admired the shapes and forms of Zaha’s work; there is something about that fluid line that I feel has a strong feminine aesthetic. That has been a big influence on me. When people envisage future design, it often looks hard and polished and technological. I wanted something with a different vision.
Stephen Jones
Photo
Stephen Jones’s design. Credit Damian Griffiths/Courtesy of Maison Maison Non
Zaha was a client of mine, and I felt we had a similar approach. She made forms, constructions which relate to people, and I do the same thing as a milliner, but put them on people’s heads. She once gave me a sketch of a vortex that she had used as a design element in a restaurant in Sapporo, and I took that as my inspiration. My tribute to her is a red, spinning vortex hat over a stool she designed and a cushion made from the Issey Miyake pleated fabric she always wore. For me, it’s an idea of energy, speed and transformation. I love the idea that in the future you’ll put a magical hat on, and it will make you feel a certain way.
Carol Lim and Humberto Leon have created this fragrance for a Kenzo woman who is free, strong and bold, and whose energy is translated in the advertising spot directed by Spike Jonze. Mixing choreography and performance, the clip follows Margaret Qualley on a frenetic and elegant escapade imagined by multi-awarded choreographer Ryan Heffington.
Fashion is broken from the inside out, and like an ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, the industry keeps revisiting the many problems inherent in the ready-to-wear system, looking for an answer seemingly just beyond the horizon. Hello, the CFDA even published a lengthy survey on the topic. How do we keep retailers’ shelves stocked with product that’s seasonally relevant and novel every few months? How are designers meant to agilely juggle creativity and commerce, two runway shows yearly, and pre-season collections besides without burning out entirely? How do you sate public appetite for the fashion circus in such a way that doesn’t detract from the fact that the shows are, at base, industry functions? And–in case all that wasn’t enough to set the mind reeling—how do we think about all this in a way which amounts to more than merely insidery woolgathering or chipper press release fodder?
Elizabeth Stewart, stylist:
The fast pace of fashion seasons has made collections a little harder to read. There used to be fewer collections to look at; you would take in a designer’s message, and as a stylist, interpret it and digest it into real life looks. Today it looks like designers are forced by fast-moving markets to reinvent themselves every three months, between collections, pre-collections, and capsules.
It feels like going back to unique shows that would feature all the product categories needed by the markets and consumers twice a year would give the products a chance at longer lives on shelves, and in everybody’s closets. Some of it could be earmarked for direct-to-consumer, some could be earmarked for retail, and designers could even keep parts of a collection private so there is some freshness when it hits the stores.
We, as celebrity stylists, often get the chance to work with designers on longer timeframes to create one-of-a-kind dresses for the red carpet, and you can feel that the conversation gets even more creative when they are given enough time. Fashion is an ambiguous discipline that is all about time and craft, as well as business and market obligations. So, yes, it feels like we are at a turning point and that the way we do and deliver things in fashion is bound to change soon.
Lulu Kennedy, Fashion East founder:
Get collective—our Fashion East group shows are deliberately intended to be time-effective for editors and buyers to come see a bunch of talent in one hit. We encourage our designers to edit hard, and only show their best looks. Our shows are pacey, no frills, and honest.
Sponsorships and commercial collaborations are key for a designer’s cash flow and amplification—we are lucky to work closely with Topshop which is incredibly supportive and has produced many best-selling capsules for brand-new names. The J.W.Anderson and Meadham Kirchhoff ones sold out in hours.
We find that industry mentors make a profound difference to our kids’ development. Veteran production pros who know obscure factories willing to work with small-scale designers, FDs to write solid business plans and pitch to investors, CEOs who can objectively explain how best to manage your time and team, buyers who can give hard-but-constructive feedback is necessary. We have our alumni designers give talks to our “freshman” about what not to do—it’s beyond helpful. Creating a supportive community is crucial to what we do.
Faustine Steinmetz, designer:
I don’t feel the industry is open to new ideas at the moment unless a big brand does it . . . For example, we’ve been putting a lot of effort into our presentations to not have models just standing, but to try and create a more natural look. We’ve seen however that during the presentation, photographers come along and make the girls stand up straight, which ruins the image we are trying to create at the show. We’ve had photographers who have come and taken the girls out of the set when we had only wanted to show the top or the bottom of the girl. Then the photographers shoot them in their underwear or even worse, in their own clothes! I really don’t feel like there is any respect for the image which we are trying to create.
I really feel like there is this pressure to have that catwalk image of a girl and that look only, whereas it would be nice to be able to share the world that which we are trying to create at the show, as we’re usually trying to do something different.
In the past we have included objects and displayed still-life pieces of clothing in our show, and they have never been shot, which is a shame as some of those pieces have been some of the more interesting things that we’ve had on display. As a result of them never being shot, we’ve stopped making them, which is a real shame. I feel like we have some really good ideas on how to make presentations more exciting, but at the moment I feel like because of the way it is being shot I am quite restricted in what I can do as no one will ever see it.
Norma Kamali, designer:
If we use technology to communicate socially and through business, why not creatively to present our collections? There are so many ways to tell our brand’s story. We can connect to the industry and the consumer at the same time. We can use many mediums. We can present the collections in a way that matches the speed and excellent service we enjoy with apps on our mobile devices.
Catherine Bennett, senior vice president and managing director of IMG Fashion Events and Properties:
The most important thing to consider is that Fashion Week is really a marketing exercise for designers. It will always continue to be relevant, but tailoring the content of your runway or your presentation to your desired audience is the most important way to reach your consumer in the most impactful manner. It’s a really exciting time, because that can mean so many different things. For some designers it can mean continuing to show a collection that’s six months from hitting the floor and catering to an audience of editors who will help them tell their brand’s story for the next few months and buyers who will help them plan their orders wisely before entering into production. For some larger brands it’s more important to gear their shows toward a consumer audience and they might be able to take a financial risk, and plan orders before their shows, and have the luxury to take editors through their collections months before the show. The most important thing is to be able to offer a variety of platforms and initiatives that go beyond traditional, industry-only runway shows.
Presentations have definitely become more popular over the past couple of seasons. What I think is really great about them is that they allow designers to come out onto the floor and talk to buyers and editors and their clients and build a personal relationship. I think that’s becoming more important to people, and kind of how people shop now. But the runway show will never go away either.
Do you know how to pony like bony maroney
Do you know how to twist, well it goes like this, it
goes like this
Baby mash potato, do the alligator, do the alligator
And you twist the twister like your baby sister
I want your baby sister, give me your baby sister, dig
your baby sister
Rise up on her knees, do the sweet pea, do the sweet
pee pee,
Roll down on her back, got to lose control, got to lose
control,
Got to lose control and then you take control,
Then you’re rolled down on your back and you like it
like that,
Like it like that, like it like that, like it like
that,
Then you do the watusi, yeah do the watusi
The big, blunt lines of brutalism are dominating modern design. And now in everyday life, we find ourselves being gravitationally attracted to the presence of weight and bulk. This can be seen in our increasingly modular cars, that look forced rather than sculpted into existence, or in rough-hewn spaces like the new Tate Modern building where you can consume art safely within its bunker-like brickwork.
But beyond these snub-nosed hatchbacks and concrete monoliths, Alexander McQueen’s platform sneakers for men and women indicate how the same stripped-back supersizing loved by brutalists is inspiring shoes. Rooted in anti-romanticism, this is the label you would expect to see plumbing the depths of power in search of elegance. Platform sneakers are an established item for women, yet they still feel unexpected for men. This only adds to their appeal, of course. The historical irony is that youth culture’s legions of angry young men have spent decades stomping around in creepers, combat boots, and other ultra-masculine footwear defined by heavy-duty soles.
Alexander McQueen’s take on this motif is a shoe for moshing laced into the context of elegant lunchtime simplicity. The shoe pairs maxed-out proportions with the minimal styling of popular brands such as Common Projects and adidas Originals. The only concessions to decoration are one line of perforations, gold logos on the padded tongue, and a black heel panel. The sole here is the real star, stacked and widened to emphasize its rounded shape, bulking up a simple tennis silhouette with added height and muscle. It stamps creative director Sarah Burton’s authority on her predecessor’s legacy by showcasing her ability transform the brutal into something uncanny. Like she once told journalist Susannah Frankel, while discussing the doctrine for her designs after taking over at McQueen, “Empowerment and protection: Working here, you always have to bring it back to Alexander.” Text: Ben Perdue
“When you wear high heels, you can’t go for a stroll,” he continued, using the Chinese term “sanbu,” considered an essential part of healthy living here. “You need a car. When you don’t have a car, you can’t wear high heels.”
A digitally-native vertical brand meets four criteria:
It’s primary means of interacting, transacting, and story-telling to consumers is via the web. In almost all cases the brand is born digitally. Hence the term digitally-native.
It’s a brand, and that brand is vertical. The name of the brand is on both the physical product and on the website. It requires the commercialization of an e-commerce channel, but that channel is an enablement layer, it’s not the core asset.
The DNVB is usually maniacally focused on customer experience and on customer intimacy. The experience tends to be three-part bundle of physical product, web/mobile experience, and customer service that collectively become the brand in the consumer’s imagination.
While born digitally, the brand rarely ends up digital only. This means the brand can extend offline, eventually. Usually its offline incarnation is through its own experiential physical retail or highly selective partnerships. In nearly all cases of partnerships, the brand controls its external distribution versus being controlled by it.
As an investor community, too often the DNVB is compared to a typical e-commerce company. If a typical e-commerce company is a frog, at birth a DNVB does look a lot like a tadpole. But it doesn’t end up as a frog. The difference is profound, and it requires an appreciation the role brand plays in inspiring people, speaking to them, and shaping their choices.
It also requires venture investors to look more closely at the downstream math of a DNVB versus an third-party e-commerce purveyor. That difference in the unit economics is so meaningful that you can hardly compare the businesses. Just because they both have LTV and CAC ratios does not mean they both have the same potential value to the consumer in the medium to long run. The third-party stories are flashier at first on the top-line (more brands!), but the long run winning strategy may well be more focus (building a brand monotheism).
Furthermore, while third-party e-commerce requires you to compete against a grizzly bear called Amazon, creating a DNVB gives you an opportunity to combine the growth of being an e-commerce company with the margins of being a brand, and with a proprietary selection of merchandise where you control distribution and your own destiny. Moreover, when done right, aka where there is some differentiation in the core physical product made possible by the DNVB nature of the model (and this is the key thing entrepreneurs get wrong in starting DNVBs the world doesn’t need), the model enables a better experiential bundle than consumers have ever seen before and can begin to turn entire industries on their head. This creates a brand loyalty impossible to create in the commoditized world of “channel.”
In the history of DNVBs, it’s incredibly early. We are still in the first decade of a multi-century macro trend where retail is re-organizing from around the automobile to around the smartphone. Vertical brands were a huge part of the last era of retail (Zara, Ikea, Gap), aka the offline one, and now they become the driving story in the future of digital retail. The moving parts in the shifting retail landscape are right in front of us to see. What is not appreciated is that the best opportunities may accrue to entrants rather than existing players. The creation of the DNVB becomes a profound opportunity for investors, entrepreneurs, and consumers alike.
Referring to John and Yoko, K11 is showcasing the history of the bag. An 
