AllMyClothes

Uniqueness - A Refreshing dose of Fresh Air

2011-09-28T03:13:00.000+01:00

Have you ever heard of Alessandra Facchinetti?

I hadn't until I read an article in the Financial Times about her new brand - Uniqueness.

Specifications for the way we live now - FT

It seems the concept of the brand is to take fashion directly from the catwalk to the store front, but without the astounding price tag. Another core concept of the brand is that its not seasonal, and is targeted to be worn everyday of the year.

I've always had some doubts about the expanding seasonality of fashion. It reminded me of how the story I heard about how the Japanese confectionery industry created "White Day" on March 14 by labeling Valentines Day as the day women give men chocolate (thereby necessitating a day on which men return chocolate gifts to women from which they received chocolate on Valentines Day).

Great marketing, very corporate, and I can just imagine the sales of chocolates doubling from this very savvy maneuver. That said, its sad.

In the past, fashion like the weather had its 4 basic seasons - spring, summer, fall and winter. The cycle to launch new collections seems to be shortening all the time with the introduction of the resort collections (for holiday goers that avoid the cold in January and February). Seems like the same concept as White Day, but that may just be me.

So when I read about Ms. Facchinetti's new brand, I couldn't help but feel that the naming was spot on. Ignore (for the most part) seasonality. Ignore (for the most part) the excessive premiums put on catwalk fashion. Ignore (to a certain degree) market position and price quality items at luxury price ranges (but not hyper luxury as we often read in the media as being an area of fashion that is doing well in these hard times).

I like it. I like it a lot, and quite frankly (even across other industry sectors) its unique.

Uniqueness is definitely well names and is a brand I'm looking forward to seeing.

Fashion Going Digital

2011-09-14T01:55:00.000+01:00

I found a very compelling article the past day concerning the delay in the fashion industry to adopt the internet (advertisements and sales), and how high-end brands are now scrambling to catch up.

Digital Killing Luxury Brands (AdWeek)

It explained that historically, the allure of high-end brand was its inaccessibility. The fact that certain brands could only be owned by the wealthy that could afford them gave the customer a certain sense of satisfaction. The internet is all about accessibility, and therefore it made sense that the high-end brands would shy away from embracing this new (back when it was still new) technology.

Well, the numbers just don't lie, and the numbers became too compelling to ignore.

Quote from the article*

Eighty percent of people with an income of over $250,000 are social media users according to Unity Marketing research, and 50 percent have used social media to learn more about a brand or see new products. Data from management consulting firm L.E.K. Consulting shows that those earning more than $150,000 are the only people spending more than they did before the recession.

With numbers like that what are you going to do, right?

I'm a believer in the very simple concept that fashion is about making you feel better. May it be from self image (I think I look good), exclusivity (I'm special/unique because I have this rare item), or whatever, the biggest benefit of fashion is not its utility, but its psychological affects.

Gucci, Prada, Patek etc. becoming "common" would be a sad thing, but I also think that more people knowing of these brands won't detract from their appeal and exclusivity at all. So, is digitization ruining brands, or is it the pricing strategy of the brands that is eroding their appeal.

Brand management has to include pricing discipline (and its not the digital industry's fault).

Who would have thought....

2011-08-31T23:07:00.001+01:00

You would think that in bad economic times (like we hear about almost everyday in the news) that people will become thrift and not spend much. I use to always hear that in tough times, items like chocolate and make-up sell well and are recession proof products because they are the "little things" that make us happy.

That tell me how much I know about the economy.

Ferragamo H1 shows resilience of luxury sector (Reuters)

PVH posts Q2 profit beats estimates, shares up (Reuters)

Hermes posts 37 percent rise in H1 operating profit (Reuters)

Ok, I appreciate that it's that time of year when companies report how they've been doing, but this is remarkable. Especially the news from Hermes where they have reported that their profitability is being supported by the US and China....

London Fashion Week

2011-08-26T00:01:00.000+01:00

London Fashion Week is almost upon us.

London Fashion Week

The festivities start on 16 September (Friday) with presentations and catwalks from world renown brands and up and coming new designers. Too bad its a trade/buyer only event.

It would have been nice to experience the atmosphere, but also to see the works of new fashion designers like Meadham Kirchhoff (20th September) and J. JS Lee (18th September) and taking a look at what Aquascutum (20th September) and Tom Ford's Women's collection (18th September) has to offer.

Then again there is the Vodafone London Fashion Weekend, to which you can get tickets to go see catwalks, and shop at a wide variety of designer stalls (at a pretty good discount).

London Fashion Weekend

Anyone interested in joining me?

Share Story at Tory's

2011-08-17T22:29:00.002+01:00

Tory Burch, the luxury lifestyle brand defined by classic American sportswear with an eclectic sensibility, this week announced that it was selling a minority shareholding in the capital of the company, reports the Financial Times. The minority shareholding is owned by the ex-husband of the co-founder of the company, its creative director and its namesake, Tory Burch. This news further fuels the rumour that the company is seeking a public listing of its shares in the next 12 to 18 months and with certain estimates as to valuation leaning towards an eye watering USD 1 billion.

Sign of the Times - or Simply seeing that Honda

2011-08-17T00:10:00.003+01:00

Have you ever bought a car? If not, this analogy works for any big purchase you consider before actually buying, so here goes.

You think about what kind of car you want. You look at the pamphlets. You almost get your heart set on that car you've been eyeing. Then all of a sudden you think "wait a second, this car is all over the place." You catch yourself seeing more of the same car on the road compared to before you really thought of buying it.

This happens to me really often with everything from computer gadgets, restaurants (if I like a place, I start noticing the many franchises in the city), cars, and fashion.

This time, its fashion related websites/ventures.

Maybe its slow news month and the major periodicals like the FT and New York Times have less and less to write about, but I am convinced that fashion websites/ventures are getting more media exposure and are popping up like mushrooms recently.

You have the online fashion retailers (nothing special there). Net-a-Porter, Yoox, Bluefly, Asos, Zozotown, etc. There are many more of them, and many of us know them and use them often.

Even though they are not as well known, you have Lookbook and Polyvore, etc. that are places to show off your fashion sense (they are like blogs/social networks). You may not know of them, but they are widely accepted.

Recently (well no that recently), you see sites like Stylefeeder.com, Boutiques.com, Chictopia etc. that act as fashion aggregators/portals that help you find clothes that you are looking for and push you out to the check-out page of the online retailer that actually sells it. The point is to make it easier to shop online.

And now, over this past week, I've read about 2 new fashion ventures that use mobile apps. One is called Gotryiton.com and the other is Snapette.com. Gotryiton.com is crowd sourcing of fashion advice, where a user will upload a photo of something they are thinking about buying or wearing and get advice/opinions for other users. Snapette.com allows you to take photos of things you like in a store, push the photo onto a blog and comment on it. In both cases, the point seems to be to give and receive advice from the network as to whether something is good (looks good, fits well, etc.). Said differently crowd sourcing fashion opinion.

I may only be looking more closely, but I get the feeling that there's a lot of things fashion related that are popping up on the Web. I can't get over this feeling that there is a growing trend towards fashion on the Web, especially when the big players like Google (the people behind Boutiques.com) and FedEx and Yoox (the people behind thecorner.com.cn) are launching beta sites.

I say its a trend. A mini-wave in the world of www that is gaining momentum. Then again, I just may be seeing that Honda Insight a lot more because now I'm looking for it.

If you have a favorite fashion related website and I missed it above, let me know.

The Problem with Internet Fashion Shopping - Guessing Game

2011-08-11T00:08:00.003+01:00

Most of us have bought fashion online. I would think that all of us have tried our best to touch and look at the actual item in person before making a large purchase online. This is a pain, and really takes some of the benefit out of shopping for fashion online (convenience and accessibility to things you can't get in your area).

It probably depends on the person, but I would hesitate mightily if I were to buy (lets say) a $1,000 jacket online. I'd be the most worried about size, fit and feel (how heavy it is etc.), which comes to the core issue with shopping for fashion online. At a certain level, you have to guess.

This is why the new endeavor by Yoox Group SpA and FedEx is so interesting.

Yoox is a luxury online fashion retailer established in the late 1990s and is based in Italy. They handle premium brands, such as Comme de Garcon and Alexander McQueen (that made the wedding dress for the Duchess of Cambridge) and one of the main players in the luxury online fashion retailer market. FedEX needs no introduction. They are FedEX, the wonderful brainchild of Fred Smith, Yale University extraordinaire who founded the company that has grown into the giant it is today.

They joined forces to make thecorner.com.cn, which is scheduled to commercially launch this September. As the suffix "cn" shows, they are targeting the monster market of China, by offering a service that hopes to address the problem of uncertainty with online fashion shopping by having the FedEX delivery person wait outside while a customer/user tries on the fashion he/she is interested in buying.

A Wish of E-Shoppers Everywhere, Now in China

This sent tingles down my spine, not from being impressed with the ingenuity of the endeavor, but the sheer scale and audaciousness of their solution.

It:

(a) doesn't seem very "green" (which I am not all that fussed about, but maybe should be a bit more),

(b) doesn't seem like a truly scalable solution (for example, can you imagine this service for buying a $20 T-shirt); and

but it does address a core need by taking the guess work out of online fashion shopping.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get a better feel for how your potential online fashion purchase will fit and look like in the comfort of your home (with the luxury of time, peace of mind and privacy).

If only we could simply try on fashion online.

The Row

2011-08-05T22:51:00.002+01:00

Given that my first article was about men's wear, I thought I would write about a women's brand that recently caught my fancy.

The Row was established by Ashley Olsen and her sister Mary-Kate Olsen in New York. Established in 2007, The Row "aims to offer bespoke tailoring to modern-day classics".

At first, I had my doubts.

So much so that even though I've read about The Row in a few articles, I didn't even bother to look. Another celebrity brand being hyped just because the designers are celebrities. Then I found an article in Vogue online about The Row, which read:The Row Pre-Fall Collection

Stylish and practical. It was very easy for me to see/feel that the beauty of these items were not relying on the looks and glamour of the model, but were based on the colors and fabrics chosen, and the cut (and how it draped on the figure).

"The point was, they were aiming at the very people who are likely to shun celeb-related collections—picky women of the world who buy clothes only on intrinsic merit. That’s why they called it The Row—an anonymous name loosely derived from Savile Row, the home of British tailoring."

As I mentioned in my first article, I really like Savile Row. Not only Chester Barrie, but the whole concept of fine tailoring and tradition. So naturally, this really perked my interest and I took a look.

And was floored.

I don't run across this level of refinement in the heart of London everyday, but when I do, I can't help but be very impressed. Aya commented about appropriate office wear and some of the dresses she saw near Liverpool St Station. My take on the perfect office wear would be The Row.

I may simply be a sucker for the classics, but The Row (other than some of their coats, that I just cannot agree with) is fabulous.

Not over the top, but clearly not run of the mill. Understated but clearly makes a fashion statement. Sexy but not provocative. Elegant but not pompous.

Its the type of look that I would catch myself gazing at a women for that faction of a second too long. Then promptly doing a double take after she passes (both hoping that she doesn't turn around and notice, while also hoping that she does).

Yes, men are generally hopeless in this regard, but brands like The Row make it that much harder to conceal.

Accessory and/or Bad Habit

2011-08-02T01:10:00.002+01:00

I planned to write about another fashion brand that I like very much, but recently I got hold of one of my favorite fashion accessories. This accessory is not really an accessory. Its is clinically proven to be horrible for your health.

By now you probably guessed. I'm referring to cigarettes. One of my worst habits (on top of the many others that my friends keep reminding me of) is smoking. I unfortunately like the way a good cigarette tastes and smells.

It is also a very useful social tool (to get to know fellow smokers), and some have very fashionable boxes. Out of necessity (e.g., my addiction) I will smoke the likes of Marlboro and Benson Hedges, but these run of the mill brands just don't cut it as an accessory. Bland and very commercial. Its almost like carrying around a McDonald's badge (which is not my way of disparaging Ronald and I do like their food), but you have to admit that it makes a bad situation even worse. We smokers already have a bad rap, and these logos just compound the potential ill-will.

That's why I want to introduce Shepheard's Hotel. Its a German brand of cigarettes. First off, it tastes really good. No ugly after-taste. A slight scent of wood chips. Very robust, very smooth, but that's not the point. The box (in my opinion) screams of sophistication and style.

Shepheard's Hotel is a brand of cigarette that is both pleasing to my taste buds and my sense of fashion.

(Source: Leisure Class)

What am I meant to wear?

2011-07-30T14:51:00.002+01:00

By way of introduction, I am a new graduate looking for a job.

As you do look for jobs and meet people for career reasons (whether it is for a coffee or an interview) appropriate fashion is required. But today finding appropriate depressing clothes that it is still young and stylish is near impossible despite 100s of shops on Regent Street and online shopping. And for different situations....what do you wear?

If I were a man, I could see this quite an easy task. For a coffee wear some dress trousers and a shirt and a suit it up with a tie if it were an interview. But what about for us girls? It seems almost over the top to wear a suit when the person you are drinking coffee is wearing a dress (note not a mere one piece) and looks stylish. No body wants to dress as that boring looking female that has no social life. But we cannot dress too stylish, too sexy because we don't want to be that female that has no credibility. So where is the balance?

To resolve: go to Liverpool street and observe.

Take a look around in London and observe what everyone else is wearing. Fashion in the city is to say the least not boring. But it is the city! You should be able to find some clarification...or not.

You see a lady going into a bank. She is wearing some killer red high heels and a skirt short enough to be Ally McBeal's skirt. Her shirt is low and tight that if she were in a bar she would easily get 10 free cocktails. Perhaps she is a client so can do whatever she wishes. And then she takes out her swipe card to enter the building...I guess she works there.

What about that lady walking into an office building dressed like she is going to the beach? Except she is wearing pumps instead of sandals. Or the middle aged woman wearing a silk dress that could be confused as nightwear...

Answer: Even more confused. But looking around Liverpool Street I keep thinking "what is she wearing"?

I would like to expand on my next blog. Till then, I think I will remain as wearing a suit for an interview and a plain shapeless dress for coffees.

Priffany?

2011-07-29T13:04:00.000+01:00

There are rumours that the Hong-Kong listed Italian luxury fashion and goods manufacturer, Prada, is interested in the New-York listed US luxury jeweller and speciality retailer, Tiffany & Co., according to MergerMarket following reports in the French business newsletter, La Lettre de L'Expansion. Tiffany’s has a current market capitalisation of approximately USD 10 billion – perhaps Prada’s recent global fundraising can go some way to pay for it. A marriage between these two giants in the luxury sector would certainly be interesting and, despite the current economic conditions, would take advantage of the growing appetite of the consumer junkies in the East for luxury goods.

Getting Started - Brands that I Like - Chester Barrie on Savile Row

2011-07-27T02:25:00.002+01:00

As the first article on this blog, I must first set the tone and say, I am not the most fashion knowledgeable person I know.

In fact, for a good many years I ignored fashion because I thought it didn't add anything to my career. I did the "dress the part" bit, and have a few good suits, but I never really let the clothes I choose to wear affect my mood.

What a waste.

We need to wear something everyday, so why not spend a bit of time to choose what to wear and enjoy wearing clothes that you like. Even though a complement would be nice, I think the single most important thing for me concerning fashion would be getting that extra boost of energy or confidence from wearing something I like.

On this theme, I'm going to write about the brands that catch my eye and why I like them.

First up is my favorite suit maker, Chester Barrie on Savile Row.

I bought 2 of their suits, and I first thought they were great because I fit into their suits right off the rack. Literally no tailoring necessary at all. I have broad shoulders for my height (178 cm), and remarkably long arms, but rather thin waist and neck. Suits usually require a massive remake to fit me, but the suits at Chester Barrie fit.

Not only did they fit, they feel light to the touch, but due to the material they use, the suit feels sturdy and well built.

I understand that their suits are typically more traditionally styled with a higher waist-line, but the 2 suits I bought are very slim with a lower waist-line. It was a new look for me and I jumped right in. They looked hip with the (I think) shell buttons and tight fit.

The best thing of all is that I get this feeling that I look good in their suits. I get this feeling of sophistication, grace and success.

This is a quote from their website.
They took the words right out of my mouth.

"Today we provide the gentleman with beautiful, elegant tailoring! Think Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair (the original version) or Sean Connery asJames Bond in Dr No and Thunderball. Two of the most stylish men in the world! Chester Barrie's new collection is a modern updated version of the style adopted by these two luminaries. They espouse style, masculinity, confidence and authority."