Peculiar behavior or in need of sales?
This season, we’re seeing a lot of double takes of designers choosing to showcase in both Montreal and Toronto’s fashion week. Designers like Andy-The Anh, Denis Gagnon, Lucian Matis, and Evan Bidell will present their collections for the second time next week at L’Oreal Fashion Week. I’ve also noticed a few designers who have jumped ships and decided to only show in Toronto, namely RUDSAK, Bodybag by Jude and Morales.
Could it be that the American buyers I had talked to last season were right? Designers are traveling to several tradeshows often showing the same collection again and again, in desperate need of buyers. Yet showcasing in a coveted Fashion Week is expensive, let alone two. Given that Denis Gagnon has been plagued with financial troubles in the past, I wonder how he was able to bounce back to two Fashion Weeks this season.
What does that say of the state of the Canadian fashion retail business? Are Canadian cities not doing enough to stimulate local sales? That in turn, it is forcing local designers to seek their fortunes elsewhere? New York Fashion Week, the circus that is has become, also generated a lot of concern this season by nearly squeezing London Fashion Week out of the calendar next Fall, and the city has become a viable target for talented emerging London designers. It would seem that Montreal, like London, is unable to keep its designers at home as they’re vying for the bigger fashion weeks where they know the media and buyers will be abundant.
Let’s just say – thank god for blogs!
The shuffling of the cattle (me and the public) and disorganization at MFW hasn’t changed since last season. It’s amazing how such a large number of people like to consider themselves ultra important therefore are allowed to cut in line and act like the prima donnas that they are. Learning from previous seasons, I repeated “patience is a virtue” to myself as I inched along to my awaited seat.
Andy The-Anh’s show was delayed 30 mins due to crowd mismanagement, but everything was cool once we filtered into the showroom. I was seated near the backstage, up on the last row in the bleachers. MFW figured out that bleacher seats were prime and labeled an entire section as “VIP”. I was not VIP, I was just able to sneak into VIP (nobody really checks except the front row).
As mentioned previously, the show is to raise funds for the Breast Cancer Society. Now, I have nothing against raising funds for cancer, but I do have a problem in trying to associate a fashion show with morose poetry reading. My only question is…with all the money the Breast Cancer Foundation receives every year, wouldn’t you think they would’ve found a cure by now? Or are the money grubbing pharmaceuticals really just jerking our chains in saying there isn’t a cure for cancer? That’s for another blog….
MFW officially kicks off Oct 13th with Aqua Di Lara at Koko Restaurant at the Opus Hotel, corner Sherbrooke and St-Laurent. Though most of the shows are for industry people only, MFW has made available two shows where you can buy tickets to attend.
La Diva
Laboratoire Creatif is a union of over 100 local designers who share the same facilities to confect their creations. This season they will be collaborating to raise funds for women living with breast cancer. The show will happen Oct 16th at 7pm at Marche Bonsecours.
Tickets are $30 and can be purchased at Admission.com, type in “La Diva” in the search engine.
Glamour
Andy The-Anh will be showcasing his Spring collection at MFW for an event called “Glamour” where all profits will be donated to the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation.
**Edit** The date for Andy’s show is Oct 14th at 9pm at Marche Bonsecours.
Regular tickets are $25 which will allow you to see the new collection and a chance to win a raffle
VIP tickets are $150 which will guarantee you a reserved seating inside the the runway show, a complimentary brooch by Andy-The Anh, admission to their private cocktail hour and a chance to win the raffle.
I know I said I wasn’t going to go to MFW, which is sort of true. I’ll actually be attending only this show and no one else’s since I’ve never seen Andy’s runway show and I might as well see one. I’ll be seated up in the back bleachers (where they have the best view after the front row seats, anywhere else has a pretty craptacular view).
Have you ever wondered why clothes go on sale? Sure, it’s to make room for the new stock, and when people aren’t buying at full price, retailers will slash it until they can slash no more.
But if you can get a “$500″ dress at a mark down price of $230, somewhere down the line, retailers are still making a profit from that $230 price tag, albeit a smaller one. So it goes into question, what exactly is the real price of that “$500″ dress? I came to this question as I was browsing the Forever 21 site, the US counterpart of an H&M fast fashion chain. There, hundreds of items are listed one by one, each sporting a cheap price tag. But as I further analyzed…what makes this tunic cheaper or more expensive than the one next to it? Who makes these prices and why are they so varied?
If you’ve read Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Some luxury bags are made with $250 worth of materials, yet are marked up to $1200 on the retailing floor. Of course, you’ll need a profit margin to pay for your laborers, distributors, rent, etc. But I mean, we’re talking about selling at more than four times the production costs.
Taking an example of Forever 21, they do the same, they mark it up “dirt cheap” to our eyes, at $20-$30 a garment, and can slash it as low as $14-$15 on sale. That means the piece is probably worth a mere $5 in production cost, copied and reproduced by the thousands. Wholesale is of course, always cheaper than retail pricing. You buy in bulk, you sell for more. This is really unsurprising, I suppose most consumers know this and don’t really care. This is how business has to be conducted right? To earn a profit, to earn a living.
I believe there are 3 factors that determine the price of a garment:
- Branding
- Emotional attachment (labour of love)
- Production cost
Branding is an obvious factor that plays a huge role on consumer choices, why choose the Brita water filter instead of Evian’s bottled water?
Emotional attachment is connected to the designer’s love for a certain piece. Surely a more complex, hand embroidered, hand dyed dress, with a gazillion of embellishments will fetch a higher pricing. The more time a designer spends on it or loves the piece, the higher the pricing. I mean local Montreal designer Helmer made a dress out of toilet paper fabric and it was worth around $12,000, and we very well know that you can get a six pack of toilees for $7-$8 at the grocery store.
Production cost is obvious. Labourers of fabric usually get the short end of it as they have to sell the fabrics cheap for designers to buy them in larger quantities. More specialized houses will create unique more expensive fabrics, but in general, you won’t ever find the price of a garment equal to the cost of its materials.
As a consumer, the question remains the same: do you believe what you’re buying is worth it? This comes down to personal knowledge and taste. Some people are fine with Payless and others find that spending $585 for a pair of Christian Louboutin is highly justified (I am one of those people, and I own Payless shoes).
The truth is, there are clearly no right or wrong answers when it comes to determining the value of clothes (or any other product for that matter). It all depends on how influenced you are, how much money you’re willing to spend and if you feel any emotional connection to what you’re buying. I say if you love fast fashion, knock yourself out. Buy 100 outfits. Just pray you have a big enough closet to fit all of it in. For those of you who can’t live without the luxury of fine fabric, with $1800 Pringle of Scotland sweaters and $5000 corset dresses from Alexandre McQueen, enjoy it. Just make sure you really want it.
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
