Last night’s Third Wave Fashion Meetup was a packed house with many guests turned away at the door due to capacity issues, despite being held in a fairly large space. Why was it standing room only? Social media. On the panel were the women behind the tweets at Fashion Indie, Bergdorf Goodman, Michael Kors, and Bauble Bar. They were followed by a keynote address from the former VP of Brand and Social Media at American Express. Before anyone even arrived, a powerful lineup in great shoes, to be sure.
story and photos by Charles Beckwith
Last night’s Third Wave Fashion Meetup was a packed house with many guests turned away at the door due to capacity issues, despite being held in a fairly large space. Why was it standing room only? Social media. On the panel were the women behind the tweets at Fashion Indie, Bergdorf Goodman, Michael Kors, and Bauble Bar. They were followed by a keynote address from the former VP of Brand and Social Media at American Express. Before anyone even arrived, a powerful lineup in great shoes, to be sure. Continue reading “Fashion Mingles At Third Wave Social Media Event”
There was an open call for panelists for the most recent Fashion + Tech NY event, held January 29th in a beautiful little auditorium at the Hearst building on West 57th Street. Organizers overbooked, and ended up with nine panelists plus a moderator who participated in the discussion, all on the stage at the same time. It was understandably a bit hard to follow, but keenly represented was the gold rush currently happening somewhere between the Garment District and Silicon Alley, with footholds from Dumbo to Greenpoint, taking financing from the direction of San Francisco. Moderator and Third Wave Fashion founder Liza Kindred said her group is currently tracking over 600 initiatives in the field. Technology start-ups related to fashion are booming.
story and photos by Charles Beckwith
There was an open call for panelists for the most recent Fashion + Tech NY event, held January 29th in a beautiful little auditorium at the Hearst building on West 57th Street. Organizers overbooked, and ended up with nine panelists, plus a moderator who participated in the discussion, all on the stage at the same time. It was understandably a bit hard to follow, but keenly represented was the gold rush currently happening somewhere between the Garment District and Silicon Alley, with footholds from Dumbo to Greenpoint, taking financing from the direction of San Francisco. Moderator and Third Wave Fashion founder Liza Kindred said her group is currently tracking over 600 initiatives in the field. Technology start-ups related to fashion are booming. Continue reading “Technology Will Swallow Fashion”
modaCYCLE editors Charles Beckwith and Seth Friedermann are collaborating on a just-launched fashion investment project called Fashion For-Profit. Each month they will select three very talented designers to invite for a panel discussion in front of potential investors, organized through Meetup.com. The editors will moderate the panel, advise the investors and designers on current market forces which might impact what is going on with the brands, and then the panel will be followed with one-on-one meetings between the designers and interested potential financiers.
modaCYCLE editors Charles Beckwith and Seth Friedermann are collaborating on a just-launched fashion investment project called Fashion For-Profit.
Each month they will select three very talented designers to invite for a panel discussion in front of potential investors, organized through Meetup.com. The editors will moderate the panel, advise the investors and designers on current market forces which might impact what is going on with the brands, and then the panel will be followed with one-on-one meetings between the designers and interested potential financiers.
Brands to be showcased will be a mix of emerging designers who have passed their second collection, and established smaller designers who are ready for a boost to take their labels to the next level of development.
For the moment, the editors have more than enough ideas about which designers to bring in, but it may open up for submissions after a few months.
The group is now live on Meetup for potential investors to join, and the first event will be held at the end of February.
On December 5th, Fashion + Tech NY held a panel discussion on the retail hot topic of the last two years, curation. There is no question now that consumers get their primary sense of products from media, be it broadcast or social. There is also millions of times more information immediately available than ever before. The role that used to be filled by topical mavens, the old man who knew where to fish and how to do it, or the woman who hit the dress shops in the surrounding towns frequently enough to know where you could find a long yellow one at a discount, they have been heavily supplemented by Twitter and Facebook friends (although that’s becoming highly suspect), by Amazon and Yelp reviews, by Google Shopping tips returned with search results, and by friends who spend all their time at work looking online for clues as to when the next iPad is going to be released. What businesses are currently obsessing over is how to profit from curation.
story and photos by Charles Beckwith
On December 5th, Fashion + Tech NY held a panel discussion on the retail hot topic of the last two years, curation. There is no question now that consumers get their primary sense of products from media, be it broadcast or social. There is also millions of times more information immediately available than ever before. The role that used to be filled by topical mavens, the old man who knew where to fish and how to do it, or the woman who hit the dress shops in the surrounding towns frequently enough to know where you could find a long yellow one at a discount, they have been heavily supplemented by Twitter and Facebook friends (although that’s becoming highly suspect), by Amazon and Yelp reviews, by Google Shopping tips returned with search results, and by friends who spend all their time at work looking online for clues as to when the next iPad is going to be released. What businesses are currently obsessing over is how to profit from curation. Continue reading “The Curation Question”
On October 10th, a new conference premiered in midtown, Fashion Digital New York. It is a retail-focused event, and a crowd of tuned-in attendees packed the McGraw-Hill Conference Center to hear from a power list of online fashion retail’s key players.
story and photos by Charles Beckwith
On October 10th, a new conference premiered in midtown, Fashion Digital New York. It is a retail-focused event, and a crowd of tuned-in attendees packed the McGraw-Hill Conference Center to hear from a power list of online fashion retail’s key players. There were about a dozen sessions, many running concurrently, so you had to chose between them, broken up with networking refreshment breaks. I attended the Social Commerce panel, The Disruptors panel, and the keynote. The keynote will be discussed in Part 2 of this article. Continue reading “Fashion Digital New York Conference (Part 1)”
It’s tough to be a new designer. There are a million problems to deal with but you’re out of school, so you can’t turn to a professor for help at every step. Combined with the down economy and the changing marketplace, what hope is there for someone trying to independently get their own label off the ground? Enter the CFDA Fashion Incubator, a project sponsored and mentored and contributed to by a fairly large number of concerned parties in the industry. The Incubator provides most importantly mentorships, most obviously visibility, and most enticingly cheap studio space, to a class of twelve emerging designers every two years.
story and photos by Charles Beckwith
photo editing by Bonnie Rodriguez
It’s tough to be a new designer. There are a million problems to deal with but you’re out of school, so you can’t turn to a professor for help at every step. Combined with the down economy and the changing marketplace, what hope is there for someone trying to independently get their own label off the ground? Enter the CFDA Fashion Incubator, a project sponsored and mentored and contributed to by a fairly large number of concerned parties in the industry. The Incubator provides most importantly mentorships, most obviously visibility, and most enticingly cheap studio space, to a class of twelve emerging designers every two years. Continue reading “Fashion Incubator – CFDAI 2.0”
The recent passing of Loulou de la Falaise, style icon, close friend and “muse” to Yves Saint Laurent, and designer in her own right, had me reflecting on how far-reaching one’s personal style can be. I encounter women of style on a daily basis. Some come to it from “within.” Some… well, they have a bit of help through stylists or PR teams, while others developed their style from a personal connection, like a mother or grandmother, whose influence has stuck with them for life with the clothing being the culmination of this influence.
story by Evan Ross, proprietor of Frock
illustration by Aya Rosen
photos by Tal Shpantzer
The recent passing of Loulou de la Falaise, style icon, close friend and “muse” to Yves Saint Laurent, and designer in her own right, had me reflecting on how far-reaching one’s personal style can be. I encounter women of style on a daily basis. Some come to it from “within.” Some… well, they have a bit of help through stylists or PR teams, while others developed their style from a personal connection, like a mother or grandmother, whose influence has stuck with them for life with the clothing being the culmination of this influence. Continue reading “Regarding The Muse”
As the Fall-Winter shows begin, an unusually wide window opens into the shadowy world of the actual business of fashion. We as an industry are, in general, very secretive. Quick, which brands had the best retail season for their Spring-Summer collections? Which emerging designer picked up the most new accounts? Which labels are predictably in financial trouble? Whose arrival in the red is a surprise? Don’t have any answers? Well, that’s not a surprise because we don’t talk about it…ever.
story by Seth Freidermann
photos by Charles Beckwith
As the Fall-Winter shows begin, an unusually wide window opens into the shadowy world of the actual business of fashion. We as an industry are, in general, very secretive. Quick, which brands had the best retail season for their Spring-Summer collections? Which emerging designer picked up the most new accounts? Which labels are predictably in financial trouble? Whose arrival in the red is a surprise? Don’t have any answers? Well, that’s not a surprise because we don’t talk about it…ever.
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With the notable exceptions of Irmen Armad’s outstanding Business Of Fashion site and the venerable Women’s Wear Daily, no one discuss the actual sales of designer clothing and accessories. Usually in the modern age even privately held businesses of any size have their sales increases or decreases chatted about ad nauseam, but not so in fashion. We here in the rag trade like it murky and opaque. The problem is, I believe, that prevailing attitude is a sign of an immature industry and is damaging to brands.
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The fashion industry has an unhealthy tendency to whistle past the graveyard. We like our house the way it is, even if part of it is on fire. This industry must get honest with itself about one thing in particular that most of us know is not working. The area I am speaking on is fashion shows and the growing desire of designers not to do them. This New York Fashion Week reveals a disturbing trend of a fair number of brands that showed at Lincoln Center in recent seasons not returning. While it is true that there are an equal number of new brands in the tents for the first time, most of them will not likely return for next season, opting instead for “off site” venues or no public show at all. Brands are more and more simply having press and buyer appointments in a showroom, either their own, a multi-line, or temporary showrooms set-up in places like hotel suites. This is not intended as an attack on IMG, who have done wondrous things for fashion and New York City, this is an attempt to rip away all artifice and expose the following simple truth: increased spending on fashion shows does not increase sales of your brand. These brands that are turning away from shows are for the most part good businesses simply honoring the math in their face. The return on investment on a large public fashion show does not make you more money, so why do them? But the public spectacle of the shows and the fashion weeks is exceptionally good for our industry as a whole, and there’s the rub. Fashion Week good for fashion but shows no longer worth it for individual brands.
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Here is what I propose as a solution. Sell the broadcast rights of the shows of New York Fashion Week and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week to a major television network. This is our Olympics, and it can and should be covered like one. The amount of advertising revenue that a network could generate would be enormous, and the increased exposure for brands would quickly return their appetites for shows to the point of salivating. The major shows would be the prime time slots and the emerging designers would fill the roles of rising talent shows in the manner of an American Idol without the distasteful enforced competition. The eight or nine days of New York Fashion Week could be filled with premieres of fashion videos and interviews with our industry’s stars and characters. There would, in fact, be zero difficulty in filling up air time, what with over two hundred fashion related events crammed into eight days. While IMG and Milk can negotiate on behalf of the brands that show in their respective venues, the brands that opt for “off site” shows can conduct their own bidding process. It could add up to nice chunk of change for brands and venues even for some of the smaller spaces and labels who have great talent and can produce visually stunning shows that quickly get a reputation as “must see”. Honestly, who wouldn’t want to watch The Blonds show or the visual feast of Marchesa? I will say that this would absolutely kill the traditional stand and model presentation, but I’m not so sure that would be all that horrible, I suspect the models wouldn’t mind seeing it die. I always welcome feedback on these monthly pieces of mine but I’d love a robust discussion on this one in particular. Let’s hear it, are we ready for “The CFDA Open” in Prime Time?
Attention, attention, world of fashion commerce, you have 30 minutes to make up your mind about your future. That is all. It’s no secret that a vast number of cultural and economic systems are at worst collapsing or at best mutating. Retail fashion is, of course, just as seemingly chaotic and unsettled as everything else right now, as hundreds of companies, entrepreneurs, and financiers try to “best guess” their way to riches and influence. In the absence of long term data and faced with still developing technological platforms and mechanisms, history shows that most of the billions of dollars that are being doled out will be lost on companies that last a decade or less. In the face of such a sobering rapidly on-rushing future reality, how can the industry tell what to do and which horses to back?
story by Seth Friedermann
photo by Boris Marberg
Attention, attention, world of fashion commerce, you have 30 minutes to make up your mind about your future. That is all. It’s no secret that a vast number of cultural and economic systems are at worst collapsing or at best mutating. Retail fashion is, of course, just as seemingly chaotic and unsettled as everything else right now, as hundreds of companies, entrepreneurs, and financiers try to “best guess” their way to riches and influence. In the absence of long term data and faced with still developing technological platforms and mechanisms, history shows that most of the billions of dollars that are being doled out will be lost on companies that last a decade or less. In the face of such a sobering rapidly on-rushing future reality, how can the industry tell what to do and which horses to back?
Despite all of the knocks against new talent, boutiques and department stores ignore fresh faces at their peril. It’s important for retailers to remember that everybody who is a superstar now was an emerging designer once. To break a new star designer adds tremendous cache to your store and will increase your destination foot traffic by giving you the status of “a place to go for those who know.” Of equal importance is the fact that after the designer breaks out you will never see wholesale prices that low again if you don’t establish an early relationship of some kind.
All Keyed Up is a monthly column by managing editor Seth Friedermann
There is no degree or certificate in fashion buying, it’s an occupation that professionals succeed in via a mix of training, instinct, and fiscal discipline. A department store buyer will often study under a more experienced buyer for many seasons before being promoted or accepting a head buyer position elsewhere. Whereas opposingly, a boutique owner is instantly thrust into the role repeatedly before their store is even open. It’s an exceptionally difficult job in a good economy, so you can imagine how hard it is today. When a buyer enters the seasonal market, the severe constraints within which they operate quickly shackle their freedom to choose. A fashion buyer has to be 99% correct at least twice a year. Add in the holiday, resort, and pre-fall, and the opportunity to be wrong increases. To choose incorrect pieces is to end up with dead stock, which can be the kiss of death in the fairly narrow margin world of retail fashion. Add in the fact that an established buyer enters each season with an inflexible budget and labels that they already know will sell to their client, and that leaves precious little money left over to spend on emerging designers. Now factor in the current mess that is the world economy and the chance of a new designer’s work being purchased by a buyer has shrunk to a pauper’s slice of the pie, irregardless of talent, skill, and inspiration. Continue reading “All Keyed Up – Some Words For The Garment Buyers”
modaCYCLE editors Charles Beckwith and Seth Friedermann are collaborating on a just-launched fashion investment project called 
