Luxury Brands Must Develop Their Customer Experience To Survive Luxury retailers must focus on providing a rounded customer experience, rather than simply flogging goods, if they are to survive the ongoing recession. According to a new report by The Future Laboratory, commissioned by the property company Grosvenor, has found there are five key areas luxury brands must improve to keep their customers happy. 1) Providing one-on-one experiences 2) Micro-events that are highly tailored to suit VIP shoppers, larger community moments that are shared via digital tools and clever event management. These events are now about much more than pop-up and publicity; they will be highly tailored to suit VIP shoppers. 3) The creation of luxury villages where familiarity and conviviality are key - providing a healthy mix of amenities such as coffee shops on retail streets These five are driven by research which has shown consumers want “intimacy, meaning, story, quality, provenance and a true sense of wonder”, according to Tom Savigar of The Future Laboratory.
Culture - How hip-hop style critiques society It’s rare that a new hip-hop album is greeted by a story in US Vogue. All the more so when the story is about the artists’ fashion preferences rather than his music. Yet earlier this year, in May, the magazine marked the release of rising rap star A$AP Rocky’s new album At.Long.Last.A$AP with a list of the many fashion references on the record, a roll call that included Rick Owens, Dior, Martin Margiela and Saint Laurent alongside luxury accessories brands such as Audemars Piguet watches and Goyard, the bespoke luggage maker. Rocky’s own fashion interests run deep. Hip-hop is often thought of as music of uncompromising authenticity in which staying true to the streets and ‘keeping it real’ is all-important. It’s impossible to track the development of rap without looking at who wore what when Authenticity and artifice In the mid ‘80s the couturier of choice for the hip-hop world was Harlem tailor Dapper Dan. From gangsta to Gatsby Combs' rise was also hip-hop's.
In Pictures: African fashion comes to London - BBC News News navigation Sections Advertisement Africa is sponsored by is sponsored by In Pictures: African fashion comes to London 8 August 2015 From the section Africa London is hosting its own Africa fashion week, showcasing the latest designs influenced by the continent: Share this story About sharing More on this story Around the BBC Africa Today podcasts Africa DRC 'Terminator' at war crimes trial 7 hours ago From the section Africa Full article DRC 'Terminator' at war crimes trial South Africa race row case dismissed 2 hours ago From the section Africa Full article South Africa race row case dismissed Sport Durban hosts 2022 Commonwealth Games 2 September 2015 From the section Sport Full article Durban hosts 2022 Commonwealth Games More Videos from the BBC Recommended by Outbrain Elsewhere on BBC You Might Also Like Top Stories Fresh migrant protests in Budapest Stranded migrants protest for a second day in Budapest, as the EU struggles to agree a common response to unprecedented numbers of asylum seekers. Most read
Top Paris stores embrace art chic It's an age old recipe for success. Naked skin and lots of it - but not necessarily the sort of skin you might expect to find at that Parisian purveyor of luxury luggage and handbags, Louis Vuitton. The world has become accustomed to Vuitton's initial-branded signature luggage, but this time, the naked skin is Art, with a capital A. For Louis Vuitton's recently opened emporium in Paris is now not just a consumer temple but, from Thursday, boasts a chic art gallery on the seventh floor that will be open to the public. The Espace Louis Vuitton is a separate space for contemporary art and culture. Is it art? But just how separate or independent can that art be when it is commissioned by a commercial patron such as this powerful global brand? Very independent, according to Yves Carcelle, the chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton Malletier. Even the shop downstairs incorporates some bold works, such as the video wall by James Turrell, an American artist whose main medium is light. In fashion
10 Influential Fashion Designers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of It’s curious to wonder why some designer’s legacies are preserved and others fall to the wayside. Is it the lack of PR, no heir to the design house or were they just bad designers? While certain designers of the past are remembered today for their ingenuity or are attributed with the "invention" of a particular garment, such as Mary Quant and the miniskirt, scores of designers--like Redfern, Lucile or Mainbocher--who were widely influential in their time have seemingly been forgotten. The task of resurrecting these legacies thus falls upon the fashion historian, so sit back for a mini fashion history lesson of 10 fashion designers you've probably never heard of but should definitely know. For more fashion history by Part Nouveau, click here. John Redfern - The Tailor Designer English designer John Redfern, operating predominately under the name John Redfern and Sons, was a widely influential designer in the late 19th century. Jacques Doucet - The Art Collector Designer
Luxury brands must redefine the way they do business | Media Network There were times when China was the holy grail for global retailers. Logo-obsessed Chinese buyers seeking opulence were armed with cash fresh from the economic boom. Luxury retail brands flocked to the new market, with the result of 35% of sales for brands such as Omega, Harry Winston and Balmain coming from Greater China, according to estimates by Exane BNP Paribas. The region is responsible for a whooping 25% of sales at Burberry and 20% of sales at Prada. The strategy of growth by opening stores in emerging and existing markets is neither new nor unique to luxury retail. The logic of this is that if consumers aren’t buying your stuff, create more stuff. From 2008 to 2011, there was a 42% spike in the number of luxury retail stores in Asia, compared with a 28% rise in Europe and 5% rise in North America, according to Lux Redux report by Boston Consulting Group. Overexposure is a bad strategy. Exactly how dangerous, luxury retailers are only about to find out.
Why 2015 is the year fashion’s casting is changing 2015 has, so far, been a big year in fashion. We’ve been witness to a full-frontal fashion statement thanks to Rick Owens’ trouserless models, seen Galliano’s triumphant return to the industry at Margiela, and been treated to Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson’s reprisal of their iconic Zoolander roles at the end of the Paris catwalk. But today, as we officially put the first quarter of the year behind us, there’s one theme that has risen from of the haze of 2015’s Instagram moments to dominate the past three months of fashion – casting. “Through the internet people all over the world are getting more acquainted with all types of people, faces and identities and starting to realise how insular fashion is,” explained Nafisa Kaptownwala, founder of outsider modeling agency Lorde Inc to Dazed last week, as she reflected on why fashion shows remain dominated by white models and whether the world is prepared for her collective’s radical vision of streetcast diversity.
What NOT to Wear to London Fashion Week | PETA UK Five models stand with handbags dripping with “blood” to highlight why exotic skins have no place on the catwalk. The graphic protest on Bond Street, taking place the day before London Fashion Week gets into full swing, was a plea for fashion to be beautiful, not bloody. Tens of thousands of crocodiles, alligators, snakes, eels, kangaroos and other animals are killed for their skins every year. Often, they’re kept on crowded factory farms for their entire lives before being bludgeoned to death or skinned alive. A recent PETA exposé of farms that supply crocodile and alligator skins to Hermès-owned tanneries documented that alligators on one farm had their necks sawn open. Some of them were still alive and moving minutes afterwards. Our message to designers, fashionistas and kind people everywhere is to steer clear of shoes and accessories that are stained with animals’ blood.
Lulu Guinness's Top Ten Fashion-Meets-Art Moments | Tate The British accessories fashion designer Lulu Guinness OBE shares her top ten moments where the worlds of art and fashion collide following a recent visit to Mondrian and his Studios at Tate Liverpool Lulu Guinness with Tate Liverpool Director Francesco Manacorda in the recreation of Mondrian's studio in 'Mondrian and his Studios' © Pete Carr Anyone that knows me knows that art is, and always has been, such a huge passion of mine so when I was invited for a tour of the Mondrian exhibition at the Tate in Liverpool I was overjoyed! For me fashion and art go hand in hand, with so many designers taking influence from artists both past and present, resurrecting their work with a fashionable twist on the catwalk. Love Lulu x Richard Prince X Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Spring 2008 ready-to-wear collection in collaboration with Richard Prince, inspired by his 'Nurse' paintings Andy Warhol X Versace James Tissot X Alexander McQueen Louise Bourgeois X Comme Des Garcons Pablo Picasso X Jil Sander