How to survive Internet and Blogs???

 

Vogue’s Newsstand Sales Fell 15 Percent in the Last Half of 2009

 

Some says that the www and the down turn is killing the publisher’s.

I think that what is killing them is the long time that they are taking to understand the new medias.

The fashion houses are giving the first steps to update the way they communicate with costumers and so mags need to go the same way.

Blogs and internet bring  all the news and content even before the mag comes out for sale.

Today to sell a mag you need more than a celebrity in the cover… you need content and be in line with  readers.

New days needs new solutions.

Who will survive??

News stand sales were down nearly across the board for fashion and lifestyle titles in the last half of 2009. Those that took hits include Vogue, with a 15.1 percent drop in single-copy sales; Allure with a 17.2 percent decline; Lucky with an 11.7 percent decline; and Marie Claire with a 14.6 percent decline. Faring better was Elle, sales of which only dropped 0.2 percent. Of course, the economy is mainly to blame for the declines. Many magazines are soothing themselves by holding on to the belief that, well, print is dead, and newsstand sales matter less in the face of many online revolutions, late to the party as theirs may be.

Yet some titles gained, like Harper’s Bazaar, with a 0.3 percent increase, and Vanity Fair, with an impressive 5 percent increase, buoyed by strong sales of the August issue with Heath Ledger on the cover. But the titles seeming to fare the best in the women’s fashion category are health-oriented magazines, including Health, with an 11.1 increase in newsstand sales, and Women’s Health, with a 3.3 percent increase. Just goes to show, no matter how crummy the economy and unemployment is, women will always find resources to pour into not being or getting fat.
Read more: Vogue’s Newsstand Sales Fell 15 Percent in the Last Half of 2009 — The Cut

Wake up Donna! No time to look back… Fashion is about tomorrow!

Read the article and leave your opinion.

 Ms. Karan completely  miss the point.

Fashion business changed and today is all about to find out a new way to do business.

The old formula is over. Think she needs to recycle her ideas … a lot.

Donna Karan on the Current Fashion System: “We’re Killing Our Own Industry”

 Last night, in honor of two new graduate degrees at Parsons which she helped initiate, Donna Karan sat down with FIT’s Valerie Steele for a little chat before a sold-out audience in the school’s auditorium. Karan, who has also been a major proponent of updating the fashion schedule, explained how she proposes the changes be made:

It’s very simple, we just stop. It is not nuclear science, it’s really simple.  We deliver Fall clothes in August like back-to-school, we change the calendar, we go to stores and say, ‘Okay, no more getting Fall clothes in July or June so they’re on sale in September when the weather hasn’t changed. We have to go into a system where we’re talking in-season. It’s the way we eat, it’s the way we dress, it’s the way we think. We’ve conditioned the consumer to buy on sale — I don’t want to buy it full price because I can buy it on sale . . . We’ve turned our business into the white sale business.

 

She not only wants to change the clothing delivery schedule, but also the fashion show schedule.

“When I launched my company, the shows were in April and May, now they’re in February. So my question to this industry, and I say it to myself for my own company: Why am I showing clothes in February? I don’t want the consumer to see next week [at New York Fashion Week] what is going to be in stores in Fall, because it’s confusing. In the movie industry, the consumer doesn’t know about the movies until they’re ready to come out. Why do we give the consumer so much information about fashion six or seven months beforehand? It makes no sense to me.”

And she wants the fashion shows to be industry-only.

“We need fashion shows, but that’s industry, it’s not for the general public. All the communication has to stop. It doesn’t go out on the wire, it doesn’t go out on the Internet, it doesn’t get out for the manufacturers to copy the designs. I mean, we’re killing our own industry . . . There’s too much information going out there. We have to learn the word restriction.”

On first starting out:

“I will always remember being told, ‘Oh, you’ll never be a fashion designer.’ Before being a designer I actually wanted to be a fashion illustrator. I went to Women’s Wear Daily for a job, and they said, ‘Oh, I don’t think you should take up fashion illustration.’ So there I was, not knowing what to do, I just felt unwanted.”

On her education:

“I almost didn’t graduate high school.”

And at Parsons (which she dropped out of to work at Anne Klein after two years):

“I failed draping and had to go to summer school.”

On her design philosophy:

“I think when I’m designing I hope that I’m creating pieces that have longevity. Maybe the shoulders get a little bit bigger or smaller, the hemlines go up and down, but it’s classic.  It’s like a man’s wardrobe [in practicality], but the sensuality and power of a woman.”

On the future of fashion:

“I think there’s been a shift in a fashion designer’s approach to fashion. The old system is ‘Let’s create a dress, let’s put it down the runway, that’s the end of it.’  I think it’s far more complicated right now . . .I think we’re on the cusp of something major.  I really think conscious consumerism is where it’s at . . . There are so many more messages out there than just, ‘This is the hot new item of the season.’ There has to be consciousness within the clothing . . . and something that people want to wear, something that makes them feel good, feel good on the outside and feel good on the inside.”

On going green:

“It’s hard to talk about black and work that way organically, so it’s a learning curve.”

http://www.fashionologie.com/7293694#read-more

Is there enough air in the room for both editors???

Yesterday in between couture shows, Anna Wintour, Carine Roitfeld, and Hamish Bowles sat down with French industry minister Christian Estrosi for a half hour meeting Wintour requested. She told Estrosi that France doesn’t do enough to support fashion and encouraged more support for young designers.

“She’s right,” Estrosi admitted during a press conference afterwards — for which Wintour wasn’t present. “Everyone knows the role Anna plays in making New York a great fashion capital. My objective was to benefit from her experience.”

Estrosi has plans for a state-owned bank to offer financing for fashion start-ups, with more details to come by the end of March; the state will act as loan guarantor. “I want Paris to remain the world’s capital of fashion. Today, we need people to share the risks.”

He also pledged to Wintour that he will relax the country’s 35-hour work week for fashion house employees who need to work twice that amount in the weeks leading up to the fashion shows.  And a master’s degree to help French students compete with peers who attend schools like Central St. Martins is being developed.

http://www.fashionologie.com/Anna-Wintour-Urges-France-Better-Support-Fashion-7180141#read-more

The monster doesn’t want to go back to the cage……

Fashion Companies Don’t Like It When Blogs Run Ads Early

 

 

 

You might think fashion companies would be thrilled when blogs like this one run images of their ad campaigns in posts. It is a part of the industry deemed worthy of such coverage by many fashion blogs, and free advertising for the labels. However, this being a notoriously — and often inexplicably — hypercontrolling industry, the early leaks of spring ads, such as those of Dior, Balenciaga, and Celine on sites like Fashionologie and Modelinia caused “puzzlement and consternation at some design houses,” according to WWD. Heavens — a free ad for people to ooh and ahh over. Terrible indeed.

A few ads leaked on Love magazine’s blog. Loewe and Givenchy gave Love permission to post their spring campaigns, but others “were snatched from fellow blogs,” according to WWD. Damn us all! We are bottom-feeding ad snatchers hell-bent on breaking rules we didn’t know existed!

Love editor Katie Grand is doing damage control so as to not screw up relations with these companies in such dire economic times:

“This was a genuine human error, made in enthusiasm, and it was certainly never our intention to upset anyone, in particular designers we hold in such high esteem,” Love editor in chief Katie Grand said, assuring “practical steps have been taken to ensure no unauthorized campaign content can appear on the blog at any point in the future.”

Longtime editorial stylist Venetia Scott recently called attention to the growing problem of magazines exerting control over advertisers by trading ad pages for editorial coverage, often forbidding stylists from styling their clothes in any way but how they want them to look. So what is the point of having stylists work on shoots if editorials are becoming, even more so than they already are, additional advertising? And now companies have a problem with their ads getting run — for free, in a terrible economy — for thousands of adoring fans? If they’re so worried, they may as well start their own magazines, not share any images with any editors but their own, and do things just as they like them.

Read more: Fashion Companies Don’t Like It When Blogs Run Ads Early — The Cut

The dark side of Fashion Mags. Great Interview!

 Longtime editorial stylist Venetia Scott, who’s been photographing for magazines for the past five years and moonlights as creative director for both Marc Jacobs (she styles the show) and Marc by Marc Jacobs (she’s involved in researching color choices, fabrics, and prints), told Ponystep recently that despite their contribution to her livelihood, magazines are failing to intrigue her:

“I find magazines less and less interesting — I don’t really buy magazines or look at magazines. I mean I’ve got a twelve year old [daughter with ex-husband Juergen Teller] and we were talking about it yesterday — she’ll go on the internet and probably look at something like your [online] magazine [Ponystep] more. She would not ever go to a newsagent and buy a magazine. And even here when we get sent ones that I’ve got work in, she’s not really interested in it. In a way I’m doing less editorial because it seems a bit tired now.”

 

On advertisers’ increasing influence over magazine editorials:

“When I first started at [British] Vogue [around 1987] you’d get all the clothes in, have your rail and you’d make looks. Whereas now the designers do the looks. You can’t mix Chanel now with other designers — the power of advertising is that if you don’t do it in the way that they want you to shoot it then the magazines become scared that they’ll lose the cash. When I first started there wasn’t really any bargaining power between the advertisers and editorial; they were two completely separate things. Now it’s ‘I’ll take out a couple of pages and you give me a couple of pages.’”

“Maybe I’m very lucky because I’ve got a contract with Marc Jacobs. While that goes on I’m ‘safe’, so it’s very easy for me to say ‘f*ck it!’ It’s like a safety net.”

“On the styling side now, even if you work for big, biannual magazines, before you start you’ve got ten designers you have to include over twelve pages . . . How can you do that when you’ve got those restrictions on you? I never really do that, and maybe I’m lucky because I’ve done it for so long. I don’t really have the fear that if I use a pair of sneakers on the end of a Chanel outfit that I’m never going to work again. If you’re new and you’re given ten outfits for ten pages you’re going to shoot them because if you don’t then there’s a real fear you’re not in the magazine next time; you didn’t follow the rules. Whereas I tend to think that I won’t do it — if I don’t work for them again it doesn’t really matter because I’ll work for someone else. Which happens a lot. Someone gets fed up with you and you don’t work for them the next season.”

On how the pressure is affecting other stylists:

“I think [many stylists] play the game much, much more. And there’s even some who I’m so surprised that they’re playing this game — they don’t realise that if they didn’t play it they’d still get the work because they’re good, you know? I was talking to someone, saying ‘why are you doing all this stuff, why are you doing all these shoots?’ And he says because his agent says so, he has to do this, that and the other. You’re the one that’s really in control, you know? I’m amazed that they’re listening to their agents. And I’m amazed by stylists that are also maybe a bit younger than me but sort of my contemporaries, who are established and good, and they’re saying they have to include all these credits. I’ve done shoots with these stylists and I think ‘just say f*ck it, it didn’t work’. It doesn’t work within the story. The sense of belief is going to be broken because there’s a Prada shirt sticking out like a sore thumb and we’re meant to be doing Russian prisoners. If you put that in, it’s not believable anymore.”

Full interview:http://www.ponystep.com/fashion/article/VenetiaGreatScott_413.aspx

You better work…. supergirl!

Here we go with some lessons about something that a lot of girls think they know but……

To master the catwalk art you need to practice, practice and practice.

Nothing elevates my spirit like the vision of a woman who knows how to carry a dress and high heels.

Alek Wek is one of the best for me….

You will see this all over the place…. again!

 

Givenchy Spring 2010 Campaign Preview | Natalia Vodianova & Mariacarla Boscono by Mert & Marcus

 

Beauty is relative….

There Is Hope for a Non-Skanky Spring

The New York Times, a paper that is often months or years late in identifying trends on the streets, reports mannish looks are in for ladies and frilly pastel stuff is out. Women prefer the “model off-duty” look of filmy oversize T-shirts, worn jeans, and strong biker jackets or boyfriend blazers to pink floral dresses. But duh, you knew that. This has been the preferred look for years, thank you, Times. But maybe this story — late as it may be — offers renewed hope in womankind.

Although it’s not even January, the fashion industry has moved on to spring. February spring fashion issues come out soon, heralding all the new styles that are supposed to catch on. For spring, it’s a lot of panty bottoms and feminine ruffles and bras we’re supposed to wear as tops. You know, conventional femininity of yore, skank gear, whatever you want to call it. But maybe all that stuff won’t take.

Fashion magazines hardly ever show women what they want to wear. Androgynous looks never replaced the damsels in distress frolicking through the forest in some frilly ballgown or other, or the hookers (for all intents and purposes) lounging on a white pleather couch in thigh-high boots and ass-cheek exposing dresses. So this spring they may give us overt femininity — ruffles, pastels, corsets — but they’ll probably continue to be out of touch. If women really do prefer the covered-up looks of Carine Roitfeld and Agyness Deyn, maybe we won’t see so many prancing around in negligees instead of dresses when the weather warms up. (Say what you will about Deyn’s wacky garb, but the girl keeps it covered.) The Times quotes plenty of women who still like their mannish stuff, so why would they relinquish it for 2010?

Think about it: What’s the goal of most women when getting dressed? To look like they didn’t try, even though they did and always do. A girl who walks out the door with her boobs pushed up to her chin in high-waisted diaper shorts with perfectly curled ringlets and fuchsia eyeliner looks like she tried. Carine Roitfeld never has an air of such desperation.

Read more: There Is Hope for a Non-Skanky Spring — The Cut http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2009/12/there_is_hope_for_a_non-skanky.html#ixzz0asqUVWR3

also:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/fashion/24APPEAL.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=fashion

Home Fashion Week

Will Fashion’s Biggest Names Kiss the Runway Goodbye?

Soon you may not have to be an A-list celeb, department-store buyer or magazine editor to get a front-row seat at a fashion show. As the luxury and fashion industries continue to struggle with sagging retail sales and consumers’ diminishing interest in $2,000 It bags, designers are looking for alternative ways to show their wares. And more and more of them are turning to the Internet for a bigger audience and to shrink their overhead.

“The cost of a fashion show has become prohibitive,” says David Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren’s marketing chief. “And because of the economy, fewer members of the press and buyers are making the trip to New York to see the show.” The result is that many designer-initiated brands — including the less-expensive lines, like Donna Karan’s DKNY, that are presented during New York Fashion Week — are rethinking the traditional fashion show. This fall the British designer Alexander McQueen made a splash by live-streaming his Paris show on his website. The season before, Louis Vuitton live-streamed its show on Facebook. And Lauren is the mastermind behind a new initiative to present his company’s brands in virtual fashion shows as opposed to have-to-be-there runway extravaganzas.

On Dec. 11, Rugby, Ralph Lauren’s collegiate brand, will show its holiday collection in an online fashion show that Lauren calls a mix between Harry Potter and Rock Band. Instead of walking down a real runway, the models will be walking on a treadmill in an office with a green screen behind them. Once the clip is produced, a virtual backdrop will be superimposed so that it will look as though the models are walking through New York City or a college campus, or jumping off flying books. The idea, says Lauren, is to bring a cinematic feeling to the brand’s advertising images. And instead of the company’s spending $1.5 million on an audience of approximately 700 members of the fashion press and department-store buyers, the virtual show will cost less than $50,000 to produce and is expected to attract more than 40 million page views.

One advantage to replacing the traditional biannual runway show — which features clothing that won’t be available in stores for another six months — is that designers can close the six-month gap between the show and the products’ availability. Ideally, consumers who watch a show online would then be able to click on a product they see and buy it immediately. “Now we can serve the industry and our customer simultaneously,” says Lauren, “which is critical to the survival of this industry.”

Historically, high-end fashion brands have not fared well when they’ve relied solely on virtual fashion shows. In 1998, Helmut Lang made a statement when he replaced one season’s runway showing with a video recording of a show that went up on his website and was distributed to editors on discs. But the reaction was lukewarm, and the following season Lang returned to the runway. More recently, brands like Viktor & Rolf and Yves Saint Laurent have experimented with online shows.

Next spring Polo Ralph Lauren is planning virtual shows for its less-expensive Lauren line as well as its children’s line. But the company isn’t ready to present its most prestigious line, the Ralph Lauren collection, online. “It’s certainly up for debate,” says Lauren. “It’s making us think differently about how we show our product and how we can show the Ralph Lauren collection.”

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1946717,00.html

X Men – The next generation

Remember this name: Walerio Araujo.

He just walk his collection at the Casa dos Criadores in Sao Paulo, Brasil.

Beautiful dresses and shoes.

Jean Paul Gaultier will be proud of you.

Influence doesn’t means copy.

Love it!!!!