Historical Data in Fashion The Demise of Fashion
To paraphrase Hemingway, it happened slowly, and then very quickly. More costume than dress, they served as inspiration for the monochrome severity that characterized the tail end of the 1980s. 'Power dressing' became a buzz phrase. Lauren designed [his] outpost to feel like a gentlemen's club, with mahogany panelling and brass fixtures'. Ralph Lauren was the perfect brand for the 1980s, when fashion grew to become much less very important than 'lifestyle'. In The End of Fashion, Teri Agins suggests that women misplaced interest in fashion mainly because they were definitely far more involved about their careers: '[They] began to behave alot more like males in adopting their very own uniform: skirts and blazers and pantsuits that gave them an authoritative, polished, power search. Levi's, Nike and Gap seemed a lot more connected to quotidian reality than some ethereal vision on a runway. Tracksuit-wearing rappers and the chino-clad super-nerds of the dotcom boom were the new icons; 'casual Friday' elided into the rest of the week. Kate Moss, in her first incarnation as a grungy teenager, had nothing of the femme fatale about her. Calvin Klein built a phenomenally successful brand around posters featuring Moss and other androgynous youths sporting baggy jeans and nothing else; it was the 'simple chic' ethic taken to the nth degree. Fashion calls for a particular diploma of risk-taking and creativity that is unattainable to clarify to Wall Road. Branding played a critical role 'in an era when just about every store in the mall [was] peddling the same styles of clothes'. Today, while branding remains as crucial as ever, its raison d'être has changed.
The Renewal of Fashion
The next wave of upmarket fashion brand names would arrive from Milan and from Paris; plainly, stories within the demise for the French money had been significantly exaggerated. As Carine Roitfeld, the editor of French Vogue and a one-time collaborator of the American designer, says, 'In the historical past of fashion, there's without a doubt a pre-Tom Ford and also a post-Tom FRD period. He was one of the first contemporary designers who definitely recognized the power of advertising and marketing. Even better that he reintroduced the bamboo-handled bags that had been the making of Gucci back in the 1950s. According to Guillaume Erner, 'The Texan turned the style of the brand upside down: previously everything that bore the Gucci name had been brown, soft, and rounded. Ford brought lust back into fashion with a series of overtly erotic advertisements that happen to be promptly tagged 'porno chic'. While outwardly deploring the trend, the mainstream advertising got amazing fun with fashion's filthy new image. Sex, as everyone knows, always sells, and many consumers wanted in. At the same time, Miuccia Prada - with the aid of her husband and business partner Patrizio Bertelli - was blowing the dust off the old family luggage firm in Milan. Prada, too, understood that the brand message had to be carried right through from advertising to clothing to store. Taking the opposite stance to Gucci's sex-drenched imagery, Miuccia positioned her brand as creative, sensitive and politically engaged. New York intellectuals and London businesswomen loved it. Two decades later, he is president of both Dior and LVMH, with a glittering portfolio of brands that includes Céline, Kenzo, Thomas Pink, Givenchy, Loewe, Fendi, Pucci, Marc Jacobs and Donna Karan - not to mention Louis Vuitton itself. 'Dior now has 310 boutiques around the world, so it can't be described as a luxury brand in the classic sense of the term, which implies exclusive. [Arnault's] stroke of genius was to bring marketing techniques to a world that had previously claimed to have no use for them. Of course, as we've already pointed out, few ordinary folk could afford a Prada suit or a Dior dress. Even if they could stretch to a handbag or a pair of sunglasses, where did they get the clothes to match? Enter Zara, H&M and Topshop - high-street models employing talented young designers who made fun, fresh creations that wouldn't glance out of place to the Paris runways, and used being sometimes directly impressed by them.
Surviving the Downfall
In their latest incarnation as dream merchants, fashion brands appear curiously resilient. In September 2001, a minor war had been pre-occupying industry-watchers for several months. As LVMH continued its rapid expansion, the Gucci Group took possession of Boucheron, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga, and signed partnership deals with Alexander McQueen (who left LVMH's Givenchy amid considerable tongue-wagging) and Stella McCartney. Meanwhile, the bitter dispute over who had the right to take control of Gucci was tied up in court in the Netherlands, where Gucci's shares were listed. We all know what happened the next day. In New York, the fashion carnival was in town for that spring-summer collections. The huge marquees that would be the setting for countless with the shows experienced been erected in Bryant Park, practically among view from the Twin Towers. In December 2003, market researcher Mintel pointed out that high-street fashion makes H&M, Zara and Mango received all managed to double their sales between 1998 plus the end of 2002, despite slowing growth.
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