UK fashion industry statistics. Explicit cookie consent. “CHINA through the Looking Glass” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a spectacular new show.
It looks at the way Western fashions once reflected distorted conceptions of China, and makes abundant reference to the glory days of Hollywood. Given that the exhibition is a collaboration between Andrew Bolton of the museum’s Costume Institute and Wong Kar Wai, a Hong Kong-based film director strongly influenced by romantic cinema, this is not surprising. The show pays homage to a time before the rise of Mao Zedong, when Westerners saw China as essentially mysterious and exotic. Though China's visual imagery, its silks and embroideries, were celebrated, it was often dismissed as toothless, dangerous perhaps in terms of sex and drugs, but not economic and military might.
The exhibition has music, film clips, photography, elaborate headpieces, clothes (of course) and what seem like acres of mirrors. And on it goes. In an exhibition of such excess, it is surprising to come across vulgarity. Economy Of Fashion: How Different Trends Reflect The Financial State. It's common knowledge fashion is cyclical in nature.
The concept of “newness” in fashion doesn't refer to the premiere of a trend, but rather its revival. Why fashion cycles in this manner, however, is less obvious. There are lots of factors at play: cultural trends, politics, celebrity influence. One one of the most surprising factors to influence the cycle of fashion, though, is the state of the global economy. If you think about it, it makes sense. During tougher times, if you need new clothes, the focus is less on passing fads and more on classic, quality pieces worth the expenditure because they’ll last (which also aids in cutting down cost per wear). As FIT professor John Mincarelli tells ABC News, “In rough economic times, people shop for replacement clothes,” adding “basics” prevail during an economic downturn.
Economist George Taylor was the first to notice the correlation between fashion and the economy; he developed the “Hemline Theory” to describe his findings. Pinterest How? How should fashion prepare for global instability? How Zara's founder became the richest man in the world - for two days. Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Browsing the rails at Zara, you might not be aware of this: but there's an 80-year-old grandfather in northern Spain who helped pick out what you're taking to the till.
Amancio Ortega stepped down as chief executive at Zara's owner, Inditex, five years ago. But he didn't give up work. Not at all. Even this week, when the company's rising share price made him the richest man in the world for two days, he wasn't ready to retire. Image copyright Getty Images Every day he still makes the 10km journey from his town centre house to the Inditex headquarters, based just outside the coastal town of La Coruna where he first launched the Zara brand. Sometimes he sits down with the Zara Woman design team and they kick around ideas for the coming weeks and months - the new layout for a store, a new design for the upcoming winter collection.
This was not Mr Ortega's first time at the top of the tree. "When Amancio was telling me this, he was terribly emotional. Primark blames the weather for falling sales. Image copyright Getty Images A warm winter and a cold spring has been blamed for a fall in sales at low-cost fashion retailer Primark.
Shoppers left winter clothes on the rails in the run up to Christmas due to unusually warm weather, and a cold March and April depressed sales of summer clothes. As a result Primark, like other stores, had to cut the price tag to sell them. The retailer expects like-for-like sales, which ignore new-store sales, to fall 2% for the year to 17 September. "If the weather's warm consumers make do with clothes from the previous year," said Maria Malone, principal lecturer for fashion business at Manchester Metropolitan University. For retailers like Primark that causes a problem as they source their clothes from the Far East and South Asia and cannot adjust their stock to reflect the weather conditions. "Once stock is on its way you can't turn the ships around," points out Ms Malone. Pound impact Pension deficit.