High-end Italian label Bottega Veneta is launching a new flagship in Tokyo this Saturday. The six-storey store at Ginza Chuo-Ku is the brand’s largest in the Asia region, and features men’s and women’s ready-to-wear, leather goods, handbags, eyewear, footwear, fragrances, jewellery and home decor.
The store’s facade is composed of more than 900 metal panels similar to a motif featured on the brand’s handbag range, while the understated interior design matches Bottega Veneta’s furniture aesthetic.
The label’s GM Claus-Dietrich Lahrs said in a statement that the Japanese clientele is important and extremely loyal – adding that Japan is one of the world’s leading markets for Bottega Veneta.
These are flush times for Gucci, the 96-year-old house that in recent years has become fashion’s all-conquering luxury brand. And amid booming sales, Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s creative director since 2015, has introduced the brand’s first high-end fine jewelry line, a series of extravagant styles that present the designer’s florid evocations of flea market finds as gem-encrusted treasures.
Talking of the nostalgic inspiration behind many of his creations, Mr. Michele said, “I’ve dressed a number of women in things that were gathering dust in vintage archives — they no longer existed.”
“That includes jewelry as well,” he added. “It’s beautiful to bring them back to life and give them importance once again.”
At the Gucci Hub, a former aeronautical factory here where the brand opened its headquarters last year, the jewelry showroom reflects Mr. Michele’s opulent touch: red velvet-covered walls, red velvet room dividers, red velvet-topped tooled wood tables around a densely floral Oriental rug, and bright-toned velvet coffers lined in silk to showcase the designer’s well-established motifs rendered as precious jewels.
Tigers, snakes, lions and foxes form necklaces, bracelets and rings, mirroring earlier versions that Mr. Michele created for both the costume and the mid-market fine jewelry lines at Gucci. But the new higher-end collection — which has no specific name — is more elaborate, its 25 design styles accented with a range of gemstones.
The new line appears to expand the reach of Mr. Michele’s remarkably successful universe for his most ardent and wealthy collectors. It’s Gucci style for Cartier spenders — at a time when Gucci has pledged to go fur-free, eliminating what had been the brand’s biggest-ticket items.
Mr. Michele, who calls himself “a passionate student of antique jewelry,” has resurrected animalier styles, like those of the midcentury American jewelry designer David Webb, and for this new collection he has employed some vintage techniques like the intricate hand engraving used to create the animals’ faces, skipping the rhodium plating now common on white gold so it retains a yellowish cast, and the use of old-fashioned raised settings for the tiny diamonds spangled across the fishtail of a ring.
“When you see the way I combine things with each other, you perceive everything together as a new language,” he said, referring to his fashion aesthetic that mashes up the animal motifs with Chinese silks and Mexican embroideries, Renaissance gowns, Victoriana, disco drama, high ’80s glam, shades of Elton John and Dapper Dan, and more. “There’s a complete fusion of ideas. This ‘disruption’ that everyone’s talking about is found in the dialogue between these elements.”
From the new collection, Marco Bizzarri, the chief executive of Gucci, wears a woven gold bracelet with black diamonds that is embossed with the phrase “Blind for Love” in capital letters across the top.
Mr. Michele himself has a gold ring with a fox’s head, a large brown diamond set between its ears.
Though the pieces look like styles that, in their antique forms, were made for women, in the Gucci context, anyone can wear them.
“Clothes, like jewelry, don’t have very revolutionary roots, meaning that what’s revolutionary is the way you wear a piece of jewelry,” the designer said.
So far the collection, with prices that mostly range from 15,000 euros to 70,000 euros (US$17,900 to US$83,500), has been offered only to favorite clients through private sales in Japan, China and the United States and private appointments that began in July.
Gucci refers to the pieces, which are not high jewelry (typically starting in the $100,000 range and going into the millions), as “medium-high,” or as “unique pieces” when it repeats designs using different gems.
However, the brand says it is considering a move into the bigger stones and larger price tags of true high jewelry for its next collection.
Gucci is not the first fashion house to enter the upper echelons of jewelry.
Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton have all made it big business, as the high jewelry market has flourished through and beyond the economic downturn of the last decade.
And the brand’s fortunes have been growing at a clip that has shocked industry watchers.
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Kering, its parent group, reported that Gucci’s revenue soared 42 percent to €1.5 billion in the three months to the end of September. And its biggest boost has been coming from millennials, who, Kering says, account for at least half of its 2017 sales thus far.
“The new generation is going to want a more modern jeweler,” said Maurizio Pisanu, the house’s director of jewelry merchandising. “So it’s up to the brand that realizes that first, and Gucci already had the right intuition two years ago — to break the rules.”
Gucci has hired its first staff gemologist to search for stones worldwide and maintains a jewelry workshop with about 30 goldsmiths and stone-setters near Milan.
All of the brand’s existing fine jewelry and now most of its high-end fine jewelry pieces are made there, with some help from an external atelier in Valenza, a center of Italian jewelry fabrication about 60 miles to the south.
According to the brand, sales of the initial pieces have been brisk (although it won’t provide specifics).
So if the collection does expand, Mr. Michele’s antique-tinged, everything-is-precious aesthetic might disrupt the higher stratospheres of the jewelry sector in the way that he has already reset Gucci and the fashion desires of a vast public.
The collection has arrived at a moment when the codes of high jewelry are in flux — important stones are becoming more difficult to find, and a new generation of customers is more interested in showing off wearable (and possibly recognizably branded) design than owning the special occasion gem-encrusted parures of the past.
Mr. Pisanu said design-driven jewelry customers “benefit a brand like Gucci, where jewelry isn’t our core business but we have the ability to make high-quality jewelry like the other brands — and with a different aesthetic that’s much more innovative than what a classic brand would ever dare to make.”
Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, was in Tokyo last week to celebrate the brand’s Ginza Six store opening and its Pre-Fall 2019 runway show, titled “Valentino TKY,” of which Japan’s wabi-sabi aesthetic was credited as one inspiration.
Kim Jones was also in town to present Dior Men’s Pre-Fall 2019 collection and a pop-up store Thursday evening, although his nod to Japan was a fraction subtler, having mined the Dior womenswear archives for Japanese influences to reinterpret as men’s garments.
It’s not the first time that luxury brands have turned to Japan: Last October, Tokyo was also the site of Valentino’s Resort 2018 pop-up, while Dior’s haute couture Spring/Summer 2017 show bowed in April. In May 2017, Louis Vuitton took their cruise collection a few hours away to Kyoto.
It’s also not unexpected that most designers who stage their collections in Japan find a way to reference the country on the catwalk, however fleetingly.
The nation is home to inspiration galore: eclectic street style subcultures, unparalleled artisanship, a thriving beauty industry and icons of design and architecture all makes the country a mecca for creatives of all persuasions.
But beneath the surface of very real enthusiasm that fashion creatives harbour for Japan, there is of course a carefully calculated business rationale for their choice of locale.
As Asian markets now account for a disproportionately large share of luxury sales, it is clear that brands need to find ways to launch meaningful marketing activations in the region on a regular basis. Such shows have become a tried-and-tested formula.
Unlike Korea, whose popularity as a location for pre-collection shows appears to have peaked, Japan is emerging as a perennial favourite. And although China continues to attract many brands looking for a place to present their catwalk shows in the world’s largest luxury market, recent examples tend to be repeats of shows that already had a debut elsewhere like last week’s re-staging of Miu Miu Resort 2019 in Shanghai or Chanel’s Cruise 2018 collection reappearing in Chengdu after also debuting in the French capital.
Japan, by contrast, is not in the habit of staging re-runs.
The value that luxury brands gain by using Japan as a staging post between their shows in Europe comes from several sources.
Logistical efficiency is one not-so-romantic reason for its popularity as a transseasonal show location. By bringing their pre-collection activation to Japan, brands embellish a requisite part of their global marketing strategy while creating an opportunity to meet local partners and management in Asia’s most mature luxury market — and the world’s third largest.
Piggybacking off the show in this way sends an important message at the consumer level too.
Having been eclipsed by the Chinese, Japanese consumers are no longer the object of affection and attention to the degree that they once were. Luxury brands are increasingly stretched, unable to devote as much time to Japanese activations as they once were. With so many emerging markets in Asia and around the world to tend to, they are less able to provide Japanese kokyaku (VIP consumers) with intimate access to designers or face time with the press.
With China consuming a third of the global luxury market, brands have been investing in strategic WeChat campaigns, optimising retail channels and desperately finding new ways of understanding the proverbial Chinese luxury consumer.
Yet unlike China, where brands are rapidly opening retail and digital storefronts, online luxury sales are less developed in Japan, with only 7 percent penetration, according to McKinsey & Co. With consumers preferring to shop offline, Japan’s department stores remain dominant luxury distributors.
The icing on the cake is that Japan remains one of the most attractive destinations for other Asians — and Asian fashion industry leaders are no different.
Whether they be the brands’ joint-venture partners from Vietnam, distributors from Singapore, fashion editors from Indonesia or influencers from Thailand, Japan has the magnetism needed to draw in brand stakeholders in a way that other markets can’t emulate across the continent.
Omotenashi — the philosophy of Japanese hospitality — usually tips the scales for potential show-goers in the region who may be wavering over an invitation.
According to the latest report by Bain & Company, luxury purchases in Japan softened slightly this year, pushing brands to find new solutions to bring consumers back to stores. Retail sales in Japan grew at 3 percent at current exchange rates to €22 billion ($25 billion).
Bringing an olive branch in the form of a pop-up or capsule collection to Japan is a way of balancing out the China-heavy luxury narrative, and assuring local consumers that they are still a priority for foreign brands and retailers. It’s also worth noting that Japan is a favourite holiday destination for Chinese luxury consumers.
In light of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, tourists are expected to further boost the luxury market — especially if the Japanese government takes key measures to improve the nation’s attractiveness.
However, following Beijing’s latest efforts to boost domestic consumption of imports, Chinese shoppers’ holiday purchases may see a drop. How this affects travel hotspots such as Japan remains to be seen.
A new era of Marc Jacobs is coming. Marc Jacobs is launching a new affordably priced label called “The Marc Jacobs.” The line will be introduced for pre-fall 2019. According to WWD, which saw an image from the line’s new look book, The Marc Jacobs will feature such items as colourful rugby sweaters, corduroy pants, and accessories.
The designer also hired Russian stylist Lotta Volkova to style the look book, which was shot by Hugo Scott.
While not much else is currently known about the new “democratically priced” label, a spokesperson for the brand did tell WWD that more images would be published in May – and that the line is part of a collection that also includes a “Runway” component.
On Instagram, Jacobs acknowledged the existence of the new collection, writing that the image of the line was leaked.
“Consider it a taste of things to come,” he wrote, before referring to the collections as “fantastic and fresh.”
Although there has been no confirmation, The Marc Jacobs may resemble the former lower-priced Marc by Marc Jacobs label – which was discontinued in 2015.
The announcement of the new brand comes after increasing speculation that the designer would leave his namesake brand amidst declining sales.
In the beginning of the year, it was announced by Business of Fashion that the LVMH-owned company Jacobs would close its London store, as well as other European brick-and-mortar locations.
This year the designer also announced the re-release of the Redux Grunge collection, a collection of 1993 looks that got him fired from Perry Ellis, and a collaboration with Dr Martens to create a range of limited-edition boots.
South Korean fashion label Handsome says it will release the country’s first clothes designed with artificial intelligence technology. Handsome, an affiliate of Hyundai Department Store Group, said it joined forces with Designovel to create new patterns for clothes released under the SJYP brand. Designovel is a startup specialising in AI fashion technology.
The fashion company said the first product, dubbed Dino Hood Tee, is printed with an image of a dinosaur and toy blocks designed by Designovel’s program, Style AI.
The graphic was based on 330,000 images, including characters and logos, provided by Handsome.
Style AI uses a convolutional neural network, which is an image processing technology to modify patterns.
Handsome said it will review whether the AI technology can be applied in other areas of its fashion business.
Customers draw inspiration from today’s hyperconnected world and they engage with luxury brands through the digital tools they use every day. In a fast-changing environment, the success of luxury houses depends upon their ability to offer creative propositions, and a consistent customer experience across all distribution channels and devices.
In December 2017, Kering appointed Grégory Boutté as Chief Client and Digital Officer with the mission to carry out Kering’s digital transformation and to take the lead on e-commerce, CRM, data science and innovation for the Group. Since then, e-commerce has been the fastest growing channel for all Kering’s brands and represents 6% of the Group’s total retail sales for the first half of 2018.
“Digital can be many different things at once – a distribution channel; a platform for offering seamless omni-channel services to clients; a driver of brand image and visibility; and a tool for engaging with customers in a personalized way. Digital technology, data science and innovation provide a way of offering our customers the best possible experience – on every touchpoint”, declared Grégory Boutté.
Drawing upon his vision, Kering’s digital approach is based on the following objectives:
to provide the Group and its Houses with a real-time 360-degree view of their customers, and to deliver rich and personalized experiences;
to offer clients high levels of service, from initial transaction to after-sales;
to enable Kering’s Houses to develop close relationships with their clients and to adapt their offerings in order to meet specific needs.
Today, Kering is announcing new milestones on its digital journey.
The following initiatives will strengthen Kering’s focus on enhancing the Group’s omni-channel capabilities and further developing its Houses’ digital activities.
In-store customer experience
Kering is working on a suite of apps in partnership with Apple to be used by Houses staff in store, the first of which is a store experience app that enables sales associates in-store to access stock levels in real time to provide their customers with a fully personalized service.
Via the app, sales associates know instantly if a specific size or color is available in-store or if it can be ordered from other stores; they can also give customized styling recommendations.
Client service
Kering developed a new approach to customer service with centralized teams in Europe and the US focused on addressing customers’ requests.
Gucci, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta have dedicated teams, while other brands grouped their efforts under a single customer service unit, operated by Kering on their behalf.
CRM and Communication
Kering has launched several pilot projects using data science techniques to deliver personalized messages and experiences to customers, based on their profile and purchasing history.
All Kering Houses have launched or are launching WeChat mini-programs in order to build as close a relationship as possible with their Chinese customers and to offer social commerce.
E-commerce
Kering will leverage its in-house technology and operations team to fully internalize the e-commerce activities currently handled through the joint venture with YNAP.
Following a highly successful and fruitful seven-year partnership with YNAP, these e-commerce activities will transition to Kering in the first half of 2020.
Coordinated efforts and shared expertise with YNAP have enabled Kering Houses to enhance the level of service of their e-commerce websites. Most of them now offer services such as check availability, reserve in store, make store appointment, pick-up in store, return in store, exchange in store, and buy online in store.
Kering will continue to develop partnerships with third-party e-commerce platforms when relevant.
Digital capabilities
A data science team has been created at Group level to improve the service provided to the clients of Kering’s Houses by making the best use of the available data.
A China-based Client & Digital team is currently being formed. It will be responsible for adapting digital practices to the Chinese market, along with identifying and promoting innovations from China to other markets.
Kering’s Group Innovation team has been tasked with two missions: to instill an internal culture of innovation (test-and-learn approach, quick sharing of discoveries, scouting business trends), and to work on disruptive technologies to further improve the client experience in the future in terms of business or environmental matters.
Kering’s Chief Client & Digital Officer Grégory Boutté added: “These exciting new initiatives have been designed to meet – and exceed – the needs of our Houses’ customers and to ensure we continue to offer them an exceptional experience across all channels in a fast-changing global market. These opportunities have been made possible by the experience and know-how that Kering has gained over the years, notably through its successful joint venture with YNAP. We will continue to work with them post-transition and to enjoy a fruitful relationship.”
Lanvin has announced the departure of its menswear creative director, Lucas Ossendrijver, adding to a turbulent few years for the French label. Appointed under the mentorship of former creative director Alber Elbaz, Dutch designer Ossendrijver served as the creative chief of the 129-year-old brand’s menswear department for 14 years.
Elbaz, creative director of Lanvin’s women’s wear since 2001, left the house in October 2015 after falling out with majority shareholder Shaw-Lan Wang over the direction of the brand.
In February this year, Wang sold the title to Chinese conglomerate Fosun International.
French designer Bouchra Jarrar, who was Elbaz’s replacement, left Lanvin after just 16 months before her successor, Olivier Lapidus, stepped down after only eight months.
Bruno Sialelli, former head of Loewe menswear, is reported to the front runner to replace Ossendrijver.
After Hedi Slimane premiered Celine menswear via a co-ed catwalk show on September 28, the brand has announced that it will join the Paris menswear calendar in January 2019. Celine is currently negotiating a show date with the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, and it is not yet known whether the brand will present solely menswear, or whether Slimane will pepper the offering with womenswear as per his debut.
The move is indicative of the fact that Celine’s parent company LVMH has got its sights set on the burgeoning menswear market.
When Slimane took the helm in February 2018, it was made clear that the new category will be a key sales driver, along with leather goods, accessories and fragrances.
“The objective with him is to reach at least two billion to three billion euros, and perhaps more, within five years,” LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault said of Slimane’s appointment.
In the last year, LVMH has appointed new head designers at Berluti, as well as the menswear divisions of Louis Vuitton and Dior. And, just weeks ago, Givenchy, another brand within the French conglomerate’s stable, announced that it will rejoin the menswear calendar for the autumn/winter 2019 season.
As a growing number of brands, including Maison Margiela, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Haider Ackermann and Sonia Rykiel, merge their menswear and womenswear for the sake of presentations, LVMH is making great strides to make a splash on both schedules and to take a hold of both markets.
A growing community of Korean women primarily in their 20s to 40s prefer renting high-end goods from subscription services such as Series Eight, The Closet and Reebonz Korea. Asked why they chooses to rent their wardrobe, they said the introduction of luxury goods rental services helped her prioritize living expenses and limit unnecessary spending on personal shopping.
By paying a monthly subscription fee of 79,000 won (US$70), Reebonz customers, for example, can rent up to two bags a month. Customers opting for pricier premium plans are given the option to rent a bag from the most expensive or popular brands for up to 10 days for prices ranging from 9,800 won to 19,800 won.
“Subscription-based business models have not seen much success in the local market compared to other countries. But, because luxury goods’ prices are so high compared to the low purchasing power of Koreans in their 20s and 30s, the (subscription) services are expected to see substantial growth in South Korea,” said Choi Kang-sik, a professor of economics at Yonsei University.
Choi said that with more women wanting to rent luxury goods, rental companies must better communicate with luxury brands in order to bring better products to the table.
“The power of luxury brands will always see an upward trend. The difference, now, will be that consumer groups won’t be women visiting department stores. It will be the luxury rental companies who will be supplying the bags to the original customer base,” he said.
Even though popular American designer rental services such as Bag Borrow or Steal and Rent the Runway launched a decade earlier, designer subscription services garnered attention from local consumers starting in 2016, according to Series Eight CEO Kim Tae-hyun.
Kim, who co-founded Reebonz Korea with current chief Ha Dong-gu, left Reebonz to launch the startup Series Eight under the Value Art Architect Group last year.
On the surface, the two companies share similar concepts with regards to lending customers a hand in renting high-end products.
If Reebonz sticks to a subscription model, Series Eight and its six-member team envisions a shopping platform beyond just a rental service where women can rent high-end bags whenever and for however long they please.
“We essentially did not want to give the idea of pressuring women to pick a bag every month just because they are paying a certain amount. The pressure in itself ruins the shopping experience,” Kim said.
In order for a business to be successful on a subscription-based model, it needs to provide convenience, value for the money and personalized experiences. Consumers will cancel services that do not deliver unique, excellent personalized experiences, according to Choi.
Park Sun-young, juggling being a mom and public relations director at an ad agency in Seoul, appreciates such unique value from subscription services. Unlike her younger colleagues who seem to have time to go shopping, Park would rather save money and time by renting her wardrobe online.
“I think young women may feel it’s weird to rent designer clothing and carry handbags that are ultimately not theirs. But, look inside your closet. How many bags are just sitting on the shelf collecting dust?” Park posed.
“Being a mom and having a job, the rental services make my shopping experience something I look forward to at the end of the night before I go to bed. Just scroll down, look through the catalogue and click order.”
As aftershocks of the clampdown on Daigous continue to reverberate through the luxury shopping community in China, e-commerce platforms are rising to fill the gap.
The launch of China’s new e-commerce law, coupled with the 928 Daigou crackdown at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, has stirred up uncertainty in the global luxury industry.
In fact, LVMH share prices reportedly fell in early October due to fears of a slowdown in Chinese spending.
Earlier this month, Luxury Society attended the live seminar “Reinterpreting the 300-billion Daigou market” hosted by Tencent media.
During a debate, luxury e-commerce platform OFashion’s CEO Xiao Yu and N5 Venture Capital’s founder Xiao Yiwei shared their insights on how luxury buying will likely evolve in the post-Daigou era.
According to Xiao Yu, the estimated Chinese luxury spending in 2018 is 600 billion RMB and Daigou purchases account for half of that, making it an estimated 300-billion industry.
Without Daigou, what is the next best alternative for Chinese consumers looking to buy authentic luxury goods at lower prices?
First, let’s revisit the 928 daigou crackdown in Shanghai’s Pudong airport and take a look at how China’s 300-billion Daigou industry is in danger.
What Happened During The 928 Daigou Crackdown
September 28 2018 marked an important date in the history of Chinese luxury consumption.
In Shanghai Pudong airport, all passengers returning from Seoul were stopped by Chinese customs for baggage inspection.
Seoul has been a classic shopping destination for Daigous to obtain global brands at a discount. More than 100 passengers from same Seoul-Shanghai flight were found guilty of illegal imports.
It was every Daigou’s living nightmare.
One of them relayed the unfolding events through WeChat text messages. Screenshots of this message thread eventually made its way online.
The messages read,
“In the line to pay my fine”
“I was live streaming in duty free shop during the day, but live streaming fine payment during the night (face palm emoji)”
Source: Sohu, A Daigou’s WeChat record of 928 crackdown got popular online.
Whether as a full-time profession or simply a hobby, the Daigou business is one based on relationships.
In fact, the first clients of most Daigous are generally from his or her own social network.
Since Daigous operate in a legal gray area and rely solely on private transactions, customers often have a hard time verifying the authenticity of their purchases.
Needless to say, seeking redress in the case of fraud is difficult or near impossible.
Within the last decade or so, Daigous have become rather ubiquitous.
Chinese netizens often joke on social media that “everyone has a Daigou friend on his/her WeChat”, or “Daigou is our generation’s best marketing guru”.
Rumors of Daigous making a minimum of $100k USD a year and buying houses while still in college flood the internet, making the Daigou profession both a mysterious and highly coveted one in China.
On September 28, however, this all came to a screeching halt.
Within a night, the image of Daigous as self-made businessmen was reduced to that of illegal importers.
Chinese Luxury Consumers Have Changed
The Daigou business flourished in China largely because of strong domestic demand for global luxury products. This demand is quickly changing.
During the seminar, OFashion’s CEO Xiao Yu offered his observations on shifting consumer tastes by analyzing the purchase data of its platform’s 3 million active buyers.
Here are our major takeaways.
1. Chinese Consumers Love Buying “Hits”
The biggest difference between luxury consumers from China and those from mature markets is that Chinese consumers prefer mainstream “hit” items, while mature market consumers also buy a brand’s long-tail (niche) products.
2. Entry-Level Luxury Sells Best
Out of all the luxury product categories, entry-level items with a price range of 2000-5000RMB (430-730USD) exhibit the strongest sales performance.
3. Consumer Tastes Have Diversified
While Chinese consumers concentrated their research on highly famous luxury brands in the past, they are now much more receptive to niche brands.
Bestselling product styles have also shifted from traditional classics like the Salvatore Ferragamo ballet flat, to streetwear brands.
Additionally, Chinese consumers are now searching more about domestic brands compared to four years ago, when most searches were about established global brands.
4. TheLipstick Effect Doesn’t Quite Apply In China
Considered an entry-level luxury product, lipsticks have been selling like hot cakes in the Chinese market recently.
While the “lipstick effect” – a global economic theory that postulates the correlation between beauty product sales and economic downturns – may hold true in many markets, industry professionals have stressed that it might not necessarily be the case in China.
While China might be in the midst of a lipstick craze, experts have noted that lifestyle brands that are inspiring, soulful, and fun, can still rise to the top of the market quickly.
How Platforms Can Rise To The Challenge
Now with the individual Daigou business in danger, it’s time for luxury cross-border platforms to shine.
As the live seminar’s two speakers noted, inefficiency is still a huge pain point in the cross-border industry.
That said, cross-border solutions aiming to improve efficiency would likely to grow fast.
As the luxury buying business faces tightening controls by regulators, consumers are turning to professional buyers, reliable platforms, or buyer’s platforms — a combination of the former two.
Besides established luxury e-commerce platforms such as Tmall Global, JD’s Toplife, Secoo and VIP, platforms that specialize in serving professional buyers are booming, too.
Tmall Global’s Luxury Direct has turned buyers into consultants and made fashion-consulting service a selling point.
The platform’s “About” page reads, “Our buying team takes orders straight from fashion weeks and selects products from brand official showrooms all across Europe.”
OFashion’s app “Buyer Box”, an app targeting professional buyers, has even a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system for users to personalize a client’s order.
Italian luxury label Furla has launched its largest store in Malaysia. The new 1290sqft boutique in Kuala Lumpur’s Suria KLCC has been lavishly decked out in rosewood and Italian travertine marble alongside opalescent glass and champagne gold finishing on product displays. Several local celebrities were spotted in attendance at the store’s launch.
The brand’s new range is now featured in store, including the Furla Cometa quilted camera bag and the Cometa tote. Furla is also offering its Cruise 2019 fur-free collection.
Hermes sales surged 11 per cent in the quarter to September, with all geographical regions performing well. Asia – excluding Japan – led the way, with sales up 14 per cent. The company reported a “significant increase” in Mainland China with new stores in Xi’an (which opened in September) and Changsha (in May) along with the Landmark Prince’s store in Hong Kong in January helping underpin growth.
A new commercial website hermes.cn, launched on October 17 and a massive duplex flagship opens tomorrow at Bangkok’s new IconSiam development. In Japan, sales rose 7 per cent.
Group-wide revenue reached €4.316 billion at the end of September, with sales through company-owned stores up 11 per cent as well, confirming the trend evident during the first half of the year.
“Hermes realised a very strong growth over the first nine months of the year, in all regions,” said executive chairman Axel Dumas. “We keep our optimism for the future, but we are also thankful for the past.”
By product category, Hermes’ ready-to-wear division achieved growth of 15 per cent, aided by the successful launch of the women’s Spring-Summer 2019 collection, presented at the Hippodrome Paris Longchamp. Demand was also high for fashion accessories and shoes.
Growth in leather goods and saddlery reached 9 per cent, while the silk and textiles business grew by 4 per cent. Perfume sales rose by 9 per cent, watches by 8 per cent and other business lines, encompassing jewellery, Art of Living and Hermes Table Arts, by 23 per cent.
British fashion designer Louise Trotter is Lacoste’s new Creative Director, the brand informed in a statement this Thursday. She is the very first woman to hold this role at the French label best known for its crocodile logo. Her first collection will be showcased at the next Paris Fashion Week.
“We are very happy to welcome Louise in our team. Her visionary approach to lines and materials and her expertise in designing highly technical pieces, are valuable assets to strengthen the positioning of our collections”, said Thierry Guibert, CEO of Lacoste Group, in a statement.
“I’m looking forward to joining a French brand with such a unique heritage. The brand managed to stay fresh and modern in throughout the last 85 years thanks to its unique combination of sports and fashion. I’m proud to be able to contribute to the next chapter of its history”, added Trotter.
Trotter replaces the Portuguese designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista who parted ways with Lacoste in May. She stepped down from the role of Creative Director at British luxury label Joseph in July, after nine years. Before Joseph, Trotter held the same position at Jigsaw.
Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto is this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award, awarded last Friday at the Design for Asia gala dinner in Hong Kong.
The 74-year-old design giant — known for his avant-garde tailoring featuring Japanese design aesthetics featuring over-sized silhouettes and a restricted, dark palette — was celebrated for his contribution to luxury fashion. Today, his two main lines Yohji Yamamoto and Y’s are stocked in high-end department stores around the world.
Moreover, the designer has been hailed for his pioneering of the fusion between athletic wear and luxury fashion. He began hid collaboration with Adidas in 2003, forming the now very popular athleisure brand, Y-3.
“Let me say, I think I’m a good dressmaker, but I am not a very good talker,” said Yohji Yamomoto, when he received the award.
“In my long career, in design, architecture, [I’ve been to] so many parties, this is the very first time that I have such a warm feeling, I really appreciate this. Please let me become your family,” said the designer, who spends most his time between Tokyo and Paris. The latter is where he shows his seasonal collections each year.
The designer has stores in Japan, France and the UK.
Yamamoto has received several other accolades in previous years, including the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters back in 2011 — the highest honour in arts and culture in France.
The Design for Asia gala dinner also paid homage to hotelier Adrian Zecha, founder of the Aman resorts, and a new affordable luxury hotel concept, called Azerai, for design leadership.
During the same night, organisers also awarded scholarships to 17 young designers of up to 500,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$640,000).
Alaïa was one of the industry’s few designers willing to follow his own conventions and ignore fashion schedules, creating his collections at his own pace.
His ability to do so stemmed from his prodigious talent and fashion’s seemingly insatiable appetite for his designs.
His skill at cutting and his idiosyncratic takes on classic silhouettes have made Alaïa popular for decades; his designs remain the aspirational zenith for many.
“It is with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Azzedine Alaïa,” François-Henri Pinault, Kering’s chairman and chief executive, told BoF. “In the fashion world, he was a great, a major couturier. Everything was at the top with him: couture, art, the standards he aimed at, his dedication to his work, his mastering of techniques, and all the women he dressed. He was an artisan in the noble sense of the term, and a man fiercely attached to his freedom. He was a friend.”
Alaïa’s love of fashion began through his reading of Vogue at a young age.
Lying about his age to attend the École des Beaux-Arts in Tunis, he began working as a dressmaker after graduating, before electing to move to Paris in 1957.
There he started his career at Christian Dior as a tailleur, but soon moved to work for Guy Laroche for two seasons and then on to Thierry Mugler.
He opened his first atelier in his Rue de Bellechasse apartment in the late 1970s, from which he dressed his private clientele, which included Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, Louise Lévêque de Vilmorin and Greta Garbo.
In 1980 he produced his first ready-to-wear collection, which was championed by the then doyennes of fashion, Melka Tréanton of Depeche Mode and Nicole Crassat of French Elle, who both regularly featured his work in their respective magazines.
That same year the designer moved to larger premises in Paris and by 1988 Alaïa had opened boutiques in Beverly Hills and New York, and was soon dubbed the “King of Cling” by the media.
During the mid-’90s Alaïa partially retired from the fashion scene for personal reasons.
In 2000, Alaïa signed a partnership with the Prada Group. He then bought his brand back from the group in 2007 before entering an agreement with Richemont.
