Net-a-porter Pulling An H&M Of Its Own
Everyone knows the bad economy is driving shoppers away from store retailers and into the arms of the internet to seek the best deals on clothes. As such, wealthy shoppers, who used to have lots of liquid money to play with, are now more guarded than ever and will only choose to splurge on the pieces that are worth the price.
However, every time I grace the pages of Net-a-porter, perhaps the most successful eluxury commerce site today, high end shoes like Christian Louboutin’s $1500 bootie or a cute Oscar De La Renta sweater, sell out immediately (at least in my size). They’ve also broken ground on pushing the online experience by collaborating with designers to be the first to exclusively sell pieces from runway shows before any other retailer can get their grubby little hands on. Last season it was Halston. This season it’s Alexander McQueen, with a sneak peak look at his collection, behind-the-scenes videos, and yes, be the first to shop 8 exclusive looks from his Pre-Spring 2009 collection right there on the site.
It would seem that designers these days are willing to take a risks in collaborating with non-typical retailers. H&M set the example by having a well-known designer (or at least bleeping on our fashion radars) create a collection exclusively for H&M for November. It’s been a smashing success and the crowds can’t get enough. Target and Gap did the same with Izaac Mizrahi and Roland Mouret. And now, Net-a-porter is boosting its profile as a premiere eluxury commerce site by featuring exclusive pieces from runway collections. Like H&M, I get the impression that perhaps brands like Alexander McQueen and Halston needed some of the publicity to boost up sales, especially with such a current economical meltdown Americans are having. The unique take on this is that neither brand had to resort to designing an affordable collection for the public, they are selling high end collections right off the bat - and they’re flying off the virtual shelves.
Net-a-porter has crafted a great presentation of videos, with an informative and attractive narrative describing the clothes (albeit sometimes a lil too promo for my taste). But it’s great to see the clothes in movement without the “noise” of media people crowding on the benches. There are also bits of slow motion, which is great to really analyze and see how the clothes shift (an option you’ll never get by being at a live show or by watching tv).
Were it not for the fact that money would be an issue, I would’ve definitely snatched up the Column Dress (with removabe shoulder pads!) and the white tuxedo jumpsuit. Hats off to Net-a-porter!
Image credits: Net-a-porter
The Catwalk Crashers - Fresh Runway Entertainment
Every once in a while, fashion is a center for mockery when it’s Fashion Week. The catwalk crashers strut down the runway often in ridiculous outfits bearing signs of protest against fur, labor, and whatnot. Most recently there was British comedian actor Sasha Baron Cohen (known for his Ali G. and Borat characters) who burst onto one of the catwalks in Milan. He was able to fool security with fake passes with his crew and caused a commotion backstage. Cohen apparently was able to walk on the catwalk, cloaked in black cloth, to reveal seconds later a wacky concoction of different fabrics wrapped crudely around him with some boots hanging off the side. A Milan official grabbed hold of him before he was escorted off stage.
Last season at MFW Fall 2008, 2 crossdressers struted down the runway bearing signs that had nothing to do with the fashion industry to the utter indifferent reaction of the crowd. Everyone thought it was part of the show, but apparently, it wasn’t.
I find these comedic breaks or unforseen protests to be kind of a breath of fresh air in such a serious environment. For too many years the catwalks are laden with expressionless models who robotically move down the runway. If you look back to old 1980s footage of runway shows, there’s a huge difference in attitude and presentation of the clothes. Models swirved, smiled, lived and breathed the clothes they wore even if they were only for a few seconds. Being so brainwashed with robotic models, the 1980s runways look kind of kitschy, yet profoundly human. Only a few designers encourage their models to really act out during runway shows the ones that pop in my head are Jean-Paul Gaultier and Dior by John Galliano. These kind of theatrics may be over the top for saleability, yet for entertainment value, they are one of the most visually pleasing.
We don’t necessarily have to have catwalk crashers to be entertained, but a little more movement and expression wouldn’t hurt the shows.
Image credit: Reuters
TNT Without The Explosives
While there was much fanfare of another high end store establishing itself in Montreal, Toronto-based TNT was sort of lackluster in presentation when I finally made my way to their store last weekend.
I was anticipating a stylized interior with blue lit frosted walls, gray slated tables, and open spacing like the pictures I saw of Toronto’s stores. Unfortunately, even at 5000 sq.ft, the presentation was little more than bland and cozy. Montreal’s TNT had low ceilings and dark wooden walls with a white floor tiling. Clothes were hung up on one single rack that lined the walls in no particular order, finding brands mixed together. There were a few tables containing accessories, and on the main floor there were shelves displaying the shoe collection.
Looks cool right? Montreal’s TNT isn’t as snazzy.
Brand-wise there’s a lot to choose from, and for those who enjoy the hunt of finding something particular and special will perhaps enjoy the non-orderly mix. All of them are of pretty high quality and you can find some gems in here, so I have no complaints of the choices offered.
I myself settled on a Mackage woven wool coat with some leather details. I had to have the sleeves taken in even as an XS, but fortunately TNT offers free tailoring service (and the seamstress did a good job btw).
The problem with TNT is the shopping experience, had it not been for the good choice of clothing, I wouldn’t really return to this store. A store of this size should maximize the spacing and probably would’ve benefitted from multiple frontal (vertical?) racks rather than horizontal since the clothes aren’t properly presented. I like stores who make you want to fend for those looks on a mannequin, or arranges coats so that I can clearly see them when I pass by. These high end clothes deserve to be given some emphasis, they are too beautiful to be buried amongst others. Lackluster presentation can drive shoppers away especially in these difficult economic times, retail stores will really have to step it up if they want to survive here.
Image credit: TNTBlu
Label Review - Andy The-Anh and Bedo
It’s The Itchy Season
Bedo is a Canadian-based brand since 1975, offering 6 trend induced collections a year. Style-wise, I don’t have much to say about the brand, other than that it does well for itself as far a trends go, but I thought I should have a look and check out the quality of their clothing.
It’s Fall, so the entire collection has a lot of wool blends. Unfortunately, being that they’re all about “affordable” prices, they don’t use good wool blends. They use the super itchy kind, as I’ve learned at my time at Pellegrino, itchy wool are threads of yarn made of the shortest wool hair (from the back of the neck of the sheep), thus when twisted together, the short end hairs stick out, giving you that itchy feeling. Over time, your itchy wool yarns will tear because the short hairs can’t hold together. High quality wool are made of long hair taken from the back of the sheep, thus feel silky and smooth to the touch. They’re also the most expensive, especially the worsted (tightly twisted) kind.
That being said, I touched nearly the entire Fall collection by hand. All of it felt surprisingly itchy. If I touched anything smooth it was probably of cotton blend and or didn’t use wool at all. So their website and lookbooks may look really nice on paper, but go and touch for yourself, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Andy The-Anh - Made in Poland
I must admit that this is a disappointment coming from a man who has such a great sense of design and style. I have much respect for Andy The-Anh, but unfortunately, he’s lost some brownie points on quality.
I recently bought a white pencil skirt from his store from his Spring 2008 collection, and it was delightfully on sale for $170, originally priced at $300. I checked it (or thought I did), tried it on, loved it, bought it, end of story right?
I showed the skirt to my boyfriend, proud that I bought something so nice at a discount. He immediately checked the bottom hems and already found a hanging thread that threatened to unravel the hemline. Apparently, the stitching of the lining and the skirt has been shoddily done. Supposedly this hemline should be solid, but because of the stitching method (which leaves faint stitching traces on the surface), it barely kept both the main fabric and lining together. My boyfriend suspects it was a way to cut cost by choosing to use this cheap stitching method (who knew?). He suggested that I should cut the thread before it unraveled any further, and there’s really no method of repairing this at home and would have to seek professional help to get it fixed.
Further investigation has also led me to discover some crooked stitching of the lining and a few end threads sticking out.
Granted, I know I didn’t pay $1000 for this skirt and could probably forgive the crooked stitching, but the loose bottom thread is a real disappointment. This comes from a store that sells $1000 cashmere knit coats, so I was expecting better. So lesson learned: when buying skirts try to get past how gorgeous it looks and check the insides more thoroughly.
e-Magazines Still Archaic?
The Wall Street Journal was rather cocky about the release of their new lifestyle magazine, WSJ. (with the period) last week, taking slight swipes at their competitions like T Magazine from The New York Times.
After some reflections and analyzing e-magazines, I’m starting to wonder if e-magazines really offer you a different web experience or are they really just spruced up versions of their printed counterparts? We’re now expecting more and more from fashion websites, we want them to be updated daily, we want RSS feeds, we want comment capabilities, forums, and tons of pictures and videos to look at.
Unfortunately, I don’t understand why big reputable newspaper companies such as the WSJ and NY Times cannot afford to give its magazines the same web usability as their newspapers. Granted, these magazines only publish monthly or quarterly, but I believe the extra online features should be added.
Here are some of things lacking from WSJ.
- No comment feature - Are we not allowed to have dialogue in the luxury world?
- Only one RSS Feed of a blog-ish type of daily update called “WSJ. Magazine Today”, of which a couple of the articles don’t show up in the feed, or a few appear in the feed but not on the same page of the site? Where are you pulling your posts WSJ.?
- Videos - Ok. I’m going to rip this apart. What is up with their videos?? I really like Roland Mouret and his interview “The Shape of Things To Come” is a good read. But the videos on this site are little more than decorative and have little to say. I usually like WSJ’s reporting videos on the newspaper’s site, even if they do lack pizzazz. These videos’ intros sound off to the beat of something coming off of MTV’s Cribs. On top of that, you can’t even share the video, not that they’d be worth it… Is this really luxury? I’m not even rich but I know crap when I see it.
I’ve revisited T Magazine’s site and also found a few gripes.
- No comment feature - except for their blog “In The Moment” which I’m starting to believe is really a blog post overload of anything fashion related. Hardly anybody comments.
- RSS only for “In The Moment”, so you’d have to scroll through a maze of articles on the site itself.
- Videos are non-linkable, non-adjustable, and a tad too small for my taste (make it YouTube size at least). I like their “Screen Test” series, and can find a few gems in “Exclusive Films”, but I would do away with “T Takes” of short films, they don’t belong on this site.
I’m split between what e-magazines today should represent. As a print publication, it’s obvious we’re only doing the reading and there’s no interaction whatsoever between the content and yourself. But as a web experience, especially seeing how interaction is now possible between the content and the user, I’ve come to expect this extra feature to be available for online publications (whether they have printed counterparts or not). I suppose magazines don’t want to lose their authority on fashion, and open the gates to dialogue will expose them to direct, unfiltered critique of their content. But so far I think being able to comment and share content has only heightened the interest in fashion and we could get some very insightful opinions from individuals you wouldn’t never hear about. Cathy Horyn’s “On The Runway” blog is a prime example of being able to voice her opinions, and still be respected and receive both favorable or unfavorable opinions from different users. This interaction shouldn’t be ignored and for the fashion industry, reknown as a tough skin industry, to shrivel up so easily to opinionated consumers is sort of an oxymoron.
