What is Actually Driving the Successful Revamp of Gucci? Gucci has taken its newfound fame and capitalized on it, using celebrities as leverage. Christina Binkley, fashion columnist for the Wall Street Journal, told us recently that Gucci is the celebrity’s go-to brand at the moment “because it’s the hottest brand around, their photos go viral when they wear it, and Gucci is brilliant about working with celebs.” This proves true as this award season saw Gucci being draped over the backs of Cate Blanchett at the Spirit Awards; Harry Styles at the American Music Awards; Nicole Kidman at the SAG Awards; Brie Larsson, Jared Leto, Lee Byung-Hun and Ryan Gosling at the Oscars; and, let’s not forget the event bigger than any red carpet in the U.S.: the Super Bowl, for which Lady Gaga wore custom Gucci.
“It’s just good business on everyone’s part,” Binkley explains. “Also, particularly with men’s wear, there really isn’t anything out there to compete with those zany printed suits, so if you’re Harry Styles, there you are!” Meet Alessandro Michele, Gucci's New Creative Director. Gucci’s new creative director, the unknown Alessandro Michele, is a lot like the woman he champions: daring, curiously compelling—and with a streak of mystery and eccentricity. When Alessandro Michele was appointed the new creative director of Gucci at the beginning of this year, the fashion firmament expressed a certain surprise at the positioning of a relative unknown at the helm of the storied billion-dollar Italian luxury brand.
No one, however, was more surprised than the 42-year-old Michele himself. With the quirky, long-haired looks of a Merovingian king and a personal style that runs to flower-sprigged Lisa Corti hippie blouses, neckerchiefs that he scissors from lengths of Indian silks, and fistfuls of antique rings, Michele could not be further removed from the sleekly controlled understatement of his predecessor Frida Giannini, who left the company abruptly in January with her partner, then–Gucci CEO Patrizio di Marco. “It’s not easy to live now,” he says. Kering Replaces Gucci CEO, Creative Chief to Quit. The top two executives at luxury goods brand Gucci will leave the company early next year, as parent Kering SA KER -1.09 % moves to stem falling sales and the perception of a creative drift in a business known for its shoes, handbags and scarves. Chief Executive Patrizio di Marco will be replaced Jan. 1 by Marco Bizzarri, currently the head of Kering’s luxury division.
Designer Frida Giannini, Mr. di Marco’s partner, will leave after showing the next autumn/winter collection in late February. No replacement for her has been announced yet. The abrupt management change comes as the pair have stumbled in efforts to revitalize the storied fashion house’s appeal amid increasingly harsh competition. “Clearly, they haven’t been able to excite consumers enough,” said Exane BNP Paribas analyst Luca Solca, noting the brand’s recent sales declines. Mr. di Marco and Ms. Mr. di Marco has been Gucci’s CEO since 2009 and has tried to relaunch the Italian house after years of neglect. Mr. Jaden Smith for Louis Vuitton: The New Man in a Skirt. Translation: This is the natural end stage of the fashion revolution started in the 1960s and ’70s when women took off their aprons and girdles and appropriated jeans.
This posits millennials as the real heirs to the Me Generation, though it’s questionable whether many of Mr. Smith’s 2.4 million Instagram followers are also actual Vuitton customers. But whatever the motivation of both parties, and however pure (or not), the result has its own substance. It’s not unisex. It’s not gender neutral or gender bending or gender free or any of the other expressions we’ve been using to describe the current clothes-fluid moment, because it is, in fact, entirely gendered, at least going by traditional definitions of men’s versus women’s clothing.
And therein lies the rub. But while runways, even in the age of social media, are largely for the fashion-centric few, global ad campaigns have a wider reach. How will we know what floors to shop on? Happy new year. Continue reading the main story. Sophia Webster: 'Social media has become part of the business' | Features | Drapers. Sophia Webster Chiara Sandal The Chiara Sandal You have more than 750,000 followers on Instagram, 92,000 likes on Facebook and 16,200 followers on Twitter. How do you go about creating a strong social media presence that’s distinctive to the brand? We try not to look too much at what other people are doing, and we try and focus on what we want to get across and what we want to say. We have a schedule and within that we feature our core product range, so people come to know the names and styles. But then have more fun things to engage more people. We ran a competition called “Pimp My Chiara’s” when we reached 500,000 followers and then again when we reached 750,000.
How do you use analytics? We try not to get too hung up on actual likes, but we do a report every month so we can set targets and track what does well. How effective is social media at actually driving sales? The quality of the image of so important, it needs to be an image that makes you fall in love with the shoe. The top five designer collaborations from 2016 so far | Features | Drapers. However, they can be far more than that, allowing fashion retailers to attract new target markets, as well drumming up large amounts of media interest for the parties involved.
Drapers looks at the five of the best examples of fashion collaboration from 2016. Uniqlo x Liberty liberty london for uniqlo 008 Bringing together British floral prints and modern daywear, Uniqlo x Liberty launched on March 18 and was met with a positive response from customers. Liberty managing director Ed Burstell described the collaboration as a great opportunity to promote brand awareness, pointing to Uniqlo’s 1,700 stores and strong presence in China.
The launch coincided with the re-opening of the newly refurbished Uniqlo flagship on Oxford Street. Lou Dalton x River Island Lou Dalton Lou Dalton x River Island British menswear designer Lou Dalton is the most recent of a long line of designers to create a capsule collection as part of River Island’s Design Forum. LK Bennett x Bionda Castana Supreme x Stone Island. Tamara Mellon Sues Jimmy Choo | British Vogue. TAMARA MELLON has filed a lawsuit against Jimmy Choo, the company that she co-founded in the mid-Nineties. In the civil suit, she alleges that her former employer “set out to punish her by effectively helping themselves to an indefinite ‘extension’ of the one year non-compete provision,” after she launched her own brand, reports People. The complaint, which was made in a New York state court last week, claims that Jimmy Choo threatened to remove its business from shoe manufacturers if they worked with Mellon or any brand affiliated with her, The Business of Fashion reported.
The designer - who left the label in 2011 and insists that she adhered to a one-year non-compete agreement before starting her own business in 2013 - asserted that this resulted in these footwear factories boycotting her new brand. Tamara Mellon Brand LLC filed for bankruptcy at the end of last year which, according to Mellon, was due to Jimmy Choo's interference. Tamara Mellon has been contacted for comment. Jane Shepherdson Exits Whistles As CEO | British Vogue. Rex JANE SHEPHERDSON has stepped down from her role as Whistles CEO after eight years in the role. The British fashion brand told us this afternoon that the reins will now be handed over to the existing team, led by brand director Helen Williamson, managing director Justin Hampshire, and creative director Nick Passmore. "I am really proud of what we have achieved at Whistles and am confident that I am handing over to a strong team in Helen, Justin and Nick, to continue the development of the brand," Shepherdson said in a statement released by the brand.
Since arriving in 2008, Shepherdson has been pivotal in positioning the brand as an aspirational fashion company, weathering what the label described as "challenging trading conditions" last year to return to profitability in 2016. "We would like to thank Jane for her outstanding contribution to the rebuilding of the Whistles brand," Ben Barnett, chairman of Whistles, said on behalf of the board. H&M Kenzo Collaboration Chloe Sevigny Iman Carol Lim Interview | British Vogue. FEW collaborations evoke such speculation and hype as H&M’s designer partnerships, the yearly high-street, high-end mash-up that has well and truly earned its place on the fashion calendar.
This year has seen Kenzo’s Carol Lim and Humberto Leon embark on the challenge – the fruits of which are almost ready to be unveiled to the public - and it seems that they were both clear on what the focus of their collection should be from the start. “It’s very, very diverse,” Lim revealed to us, at an intimate launch dinner on the candlelit rooftop of Kenzo’s Parisian headquarters - as Lim described, she and Leon wanted to “create a once in a life time experience” for their guests. That they did - Massimo Bottura, the renowned 3-Michelin star chef behind Rome’s Osteria Francescana (2016’s number one restaurant in the world), was flown in to cater a sumptuous 10-course feast.
“The list of people in the campaign, it’s incredible - people who stand for more than just what meets the eye. Getty It's true.