The Age of Carine is no more. Image by Hedi Slimane.

After reading several articles pertaining to 2010 in retrospect, I have to say that 2010 was filled with exciting new progressions in social media and its relationship to fashion. Scandals, death, revolving doors, parties, and fashion, 2010 has been a difficult year to keep up, I have to admit.

Last year was really the year of the fashion bloggerati, featured left and right in fashion magazines, news media, and at front row seats during fashion week. Included in the latest spin, H&M will be confectioning a mini capsule collection designed by Elin Kling, a Swedish fashion blogger who owns Style By Kling. Kling’s success into fashion is not singular though, FashionToast‘s Rumi Neely paired up with jewellery brand Dannijo to launch her own collection of stylish neck and wristwear for Tobi.com. Not to be outdone, Style Rookie‘s Tavi Gevinson had styled her first photoshoot after pitching the idea for BlackBook. All we’re missing is Bryan Boy to join the fray, he has sort of, as he was one of the more flashier bloggers to speak at the first Independent Fashion Blogger Conference.

What with social media tools being refined, new collections, new designers, new editors joining into the new year, is it any wonder that it would be easy to get lost into the brouhaha?

As I’ve distanced myself a little from fashion in the past couple of months, it’s amazing what little I would know of fashion were I not to keep up with it. It was only by happenstance that I came across news that Andy-The Anh’s business has shut its doors due to poor sales since the economic downturn. Meaning that his two stores in Montreal, and the ones in Toronto had to be shut. It was surprising, yet not.

Despite rave reviews, Andy The-Anh may have had the talent, but he didn’t have the marketing strength to compete with other brands at the same price point. While it’s nice that a lot of Canadian designers choose to stay within the country and market themselves as Canadian-made, it’s of little comfort when even the local luxury retailers like Holt Renfrew (and recently The Bay) would not carry his lines like they did for Denis Gagnon. The latter made several efforts in several areas that I think other Canadian designers should take note of. Venturing into social media, creating a documentary, establishing an exhibition in a museum, creating a capsule collection for Bedo, and even inviting non-Canadian bloggers to see his collections, all have contributed to Gagnon’s current media darling success. When a designer thinks outside of the box and is willing to take chances into the new, the results can be wonderful. Andy The-Anh’s lack of online presence and restricting himself only to the fashion arena for professionals and editors may have contributed to his lack of sales. To say that the “market isn’t willing” to take on new collections is completely inexcusable. New collections pop up 24/7, I mean if a fashion blogger, rather than a bonafide designer, can create a capsule collection for the masses, there’s plenty of space. Although Business 101 may not be taught in fashion school, let this be a hard earned lesson to all new designers that if they want to make it into the business, they have to be willing to take risks. Especially considering how Andy was one of the few who had investors willing to expand his brand, but didn’t have the marketing savvy to levitate him as far as he could’ve gone.

I would hate to see similar brands like Greta Constantine, David Dixon, and Pink Tartan to suffer a similar fate. They’re hot now, but if they don’t do anything to get their social media mojo going, they won’t be sticking around for long.

While I myself, sometimes wish for the times of yonder when the fashion conversations weren’t so convoluted, I know that time waits for no one. While 14 yr olds are able to decipher today’s library of technical jargon, my aging Generation Y (yes, aging!) genes sees that the light in the tunnel is getting further and further for me to catch up. And perhaps one day soon, a blog will be a thing of the past.

And so then, what would the future of fashion writers be?

Alexander McQueen Fall 2009

I’m always delighted to see that despite my long pauses between my posts, there are still some fellow bloggers out in cyberspace who enjoy my writing.

Many thanks to those who continually contribute to the blog with their thoughtful comments. A special thanks for Helene of The Luxe Chronicles to pass on the Stylish Blogging Award to me with 5 other recipients that she has mentioned, all very worthy blogs to read. I am humble and honoured! As I’ve received this award, I must reveal to you 7 things about me that I would like to share in this vast universe of cyberspace.

1. I own only one single pair of jeans. I’ve fantasized much about purchasing other pairs, but I find them sort of inconvenient to wear during the summer (too hot) and winter (transfers the cold like metal). But I like them for their infallible durability, hence only owning a single pair.

2. I have thought about collecting fashion pieces just for display rather than to wear. Like a mini museum in a room. Alexander McQueen, Christian Louboutin, and Lanvin are among some of the designers I’d wish I could collect a piece from.

3. When I was 10, I made a stencil of a high heeled pump, drew and designed 20 or so shoes in the same format but in different colors and patterns. I later learned that the best of creativity and innovation are stemmed from what little resources we are given.

4. I love doing things on my own. Watching a movie, eating in a restaurant, travel to different countries, taking walks around the city. I was never much of a social butterfly, and I’m pretty content with that.

5. I love Pepsi. I love the taste of it, and wouldn’t mind drowning in it. However, with much will and discipline, I have stayed away from soft drinks for about 5 months now due to health issues with the contents of soft drinks.

6. My favourite movie of all-time is Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

7. My first website that I designed was in 1996, a Sailor Moon site that was called “Sailor Moon’s Super Fun House” (now defunct). I was 14 and had my first foray into HTML by simply looking at the source code of other websites. I never thought my foray into making anime webpages would lead to my current job today.

Many thanks again for stopping by and reading this blog!

I stumbled upon this article in the NY Times concerning health diets of the imaginary kind. A study that showed that people who were told to imagine themselves eating M&M are less likely to actually eat them afterwards. This imaginary diet isn’t a full proof method that will guarantee that you’ll be losing those extra pounds you’ve gained over the holidays, however it rang a bell with me since I’ve been applying the same method towards shopping for clothes.

I often peruse Net-a-Porter, mainly because nearly everything they sell there is mouthwateringly fantastic. Amazing choices, great style suggestions, and cute shoes to boot. It’s an irresistible site to peruse, but what stops me from clicking that “add to cart” button or even the “check out” button is due to two reasons:

1) I often can’t afford most of the items in this store.
2) Before I give into my impulses I actually think about what it would be like to own the item I’m looking at.

If one would stop to think what it would be like to wear that Alexander McQueen dress, or those hot Givenchy or Louboutin shoes, I run through a list of practicalities.

When am I going to wear this dress? How is this going be worn in the dead of Montreal winters? Based on experiences with Louboutin shoes, you know those 4 inch pumps will murder your feet, no matter how cute they are.

I have once said that we should not suffer for fashion. It would be kind of ridiculous like Cinderella’s stepsisters trying to fit that tiny glass slipper onto their gigantic feet.

But what marketers and retailers are aiming for are emotional connections to these clothes. They want you to imagine how fabulous you would look in a drapy Phillip Lim 3.1 crepe de chine top. They want to sell you the fantasy. If your impulses get the best of you (which is what they hope in achieving) you’ll be click your way into the check out line in no less than 5 mins. But nobody really ever stops to think a little longer about it. The longer you think, the less likely you’ll get it (unless it’s an absolute necessity and you’re just in love with the thing).

I’ve been on a shopping “diet” for the past 3 months, I do this on a regular basis, and stopping the urge to shop is like stopping yourself from lighting up that next cigarette. It’s extremely difficult at first, the palpitations, the anxiety, the withdrawals. But after a while, it becomes second nature, and you don’t really think about it at all. While it’s great to surround yourself with things that make you feel good, at the end of the day, they’re just things.

Just to show how restrained I’ve been, I’ve been oogling over Net-a-porter for a few years now but I’ve only bought one thing from them, which was a pair of Christian Louboutin kitten heel slingbacks. Unfortunately the size was slightly too big. However, that first and only experience taught me that gratification in actually receiving the item was far less than imagining it in the fantasized world that the site had projected to me initially. A kind of disappointment on my part.

While shopping has many joys for most, on the bigger picture, it just doesn’t do it for me anymore. When I feel the urge to get something pretty, I just look through a bunch of online sites and start dreaming away. In the process, I’m saving a ton of cash and still get the satisfaction of seeing myself in a Roland Mouret dress.

Image credit: Net-a-porter

Japan has been, for many designers, a place of great inspiration.  Personal street style prevails in East Asia, where the wildest and most creative fashion visionaries are inspired by every day life and mixing in international influence. While street style remains popular online, there has been limited exposure of Japanese designers on the international market and that brought upon a lot of questions.

I was fortunate enough to fall upon Tokyo Fashion Daily, a business blog written by Timothy Schepis, a fashion consultant based in Tokyo, that reports on the state and financial welfare of Japanese retailing businesses around Japan. Unlike most fashion weeks, which have grown to accommodate bloggers, there has been few reports about Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo. Here to bring us an insight on fashion retailing business in Japan and the current status of fashion bloggers, it’s my pleasure to present to you Timothy Schepis in my ongoing series of interviewing fashion individuals in the know.

1. Blogging has been a worldwide phenomenon, and more recently fashion bloggers are breaking out into stars. We’ve heard from the West, are there any fashion bloggers stirring in Asia making headlines?

There are popular fashion bloggers in Japan i.e., Kyary Pamyu Pamyu though the biggest limiting factor is language. Many fashion bloggers in Japan only blog in Japanese, hardly a world-language. The same can be said for Chinese and Korean fashion bloggers, they usually blog in their own language. For fashion bloggers living in Japan/China/Korea who do blog in English the following tends to be smaller and the audience mostly from overseas. One of my favorite fashion bloggers in Japan who blogs in English is TokyoFashion.com.

For Japanese blogs, Timothy shared a few of his favourites below:

- http://cocohico.exblog.jp/ a blog about food, traveling and living in Europe by a Japanese expat
- http://mdpr.jp/ about Japanese magazine models
- http://fashionjp.net/ one of his favorites, a Japanese fashion blog

2. In recent exchanges, you’ve mentioned that fashion bloggers have not been generally accepted as a credible media source during Japan Fashion Week. Why do you think Japan has lagged in this area? Especially when fashion brands could use a boost in getting people to buy their products.

In Japan bloggers are still seen as amateur journalists who blog for a hobby rather than offer credible insight into the fashion industry. One reason that main stream media in Japan does not readily accept bloggers is fear of losing advertising dollars and they are also able to influence the advertisers. Though this is beginning to change especially with more companies taking an active interest and part in social media in Japan i.e., Gucci, Coach, Dunhill as well as bloggers like TokyoFashion.com

3. Japanese designers saw a rise in popularity in the 1980s with their deconstructive approach to fashion. But since then, there’s been little to no mention of any new young blood into the international fashion fold, why is that? What are the obstacles young Japanese designers facing today if they want to expand internationally?

It has been a while since a Japanese designer has made a name for themselves internationally. The trend I am noticing now is Japanese designers are focusing more on the Japan market with one of the main reasons being the costs of overseas expansion.

Those Japanese designers who are making a name for themselves overseas are based outside of Japan and are not really part of the Japanese fashion scene.

4. Recently, there’s been a report that Japanese consumers are no longer willing or unable to pay a premium for foreign brands and are clamoring over stores like Forever 21 and H&M for cheaper fashion. Why did the Japanese consumer have to pay more for the same goods that can be found 2-3 times cheaper abroad? Couldn’t they protest these prices by boycotting brands?

The Japanese are a target for premium pricing because…well, just because. For years import fashion brands have been increasing the price of their products to reflect overhead; shipping, rent (Ginza boasts some of the most expensive rents in the world), labor (employees are also paid very well), currency, etc…these are all excuses because really it has just become a common and accepted practice. When most executives of foreign fashion companies are asked why they increase the price the answer is usually because they can. For years higher-prices = a very high-level of service which still holds true though consumers in Japan do not care as much for the higher service especially at the higher cost. David Marx of NeoJaponism makes a good critique of the premium-pricing problem in Japan.

5. I bought my first used Louis Vuitton bag from mega online mall, Rakuten, due to its transparency of mentioning the flaws of the bag, and offering an affordable price. Do you think that with a shrinking luxury economy, consumers will be flocking more to sites like Rakuten to purchase luxury goods instead of official sites? If so, what can luxury brands do to counter this migration to these online malls?

Japan as the rest of the world is experiencing a surge in popularity in online retailers as well as grey market retailers. Some of the companies are quite good as they work directly with the brands i.e., GLS but besides them most do not. I am not a fan of most of the online retailers as they do not work with the brands and their product assortment is not very diverse as well I see the grey area auction sites hurting luxury brands by discounting the price and overall the brand. The way luxury

brands can counter this is by establishing a strong online presence including social media to pull the customer in and get them involved, along with strong Customer Social Responsibility campaigns i.e., Gucci.

6.Which foreign and local (Japanese) fashion brands do you think are rising above the global recession in terms of business strategy in Japan? What are they doing that’s making them profitable?

Fast Retailing and Shimamura were really stepping up but of late their same-store sales have steadily decreased while their inventories have steadily increased.  Samantha Thavasa was a bit of a one hit wonder as they closed 36 stores last year.  Muji is doing okay with their clean and simple product lines.  A favorite for young Japanese women is Cecil McBee and Indivi which both have strong sales.  Takeo Kikuchi is doing well vs. brands like Paul Smith, Brooks Brothers, and Tommy Hillfiger, though one brand that is really standing out and competing globally would be Undercover by Jun Takahashi.

One of the main issues of the luxury industry and aspiring clientele is that often their products are incredibly expensive and unattainable for the general public. While any educated person can learn to appreciate the craftsmanship of luxury products, the financial confinements of their incomes often limits them from supporting the industry.

This is especially true in the fashion industry, where in days of old Haute Couture were only for the rich, and Ready To Wear was created to be more “accessible” to the public. Yet nowadays in business, RTW is not affordable enough, and the business has trickled down to bridge collections to fast capsule collections.

While I personally don’t want to downgrade to fast fashion level, I can certainly appreciate the revived interest in vintage wear. Now, most friperies are based on no-name brands from past eras, where much of the revival is based upon. But I was introduced to a new store in Montreal that has a higher level concept of the word vintage.

LXR Produits de Luxe is a boutique that specializes in selling vintage luxury brands of Hermes, Chanel and Louis Vuitton in NDG. Baptiste Ballet, Vice-President of the store, which is run with his partner and President, Frederick Mannella, took his time to explain to me the concept of the store.

Established away from the busy streets of downtown, LXR is exclusive enough that had I not received an email from them, I wouldn’t have known of their existence at all. This cachet of being known only to their private clientele already establishes a sense of personal service that is often lacking while shopping in higher end stores in the downtown area. Though small, the boutique is large enough to give people space to peruse, stare, and even sit down and have a glass of wine while Frederick or Baptiste chat with them about their exclusive collections. The pieces are acquired mainly through an existing clientele in Europe who are seeking to resell their used luxury bags at a discount price, often at 40-60% of the original. Most bags were in pretty good condition, namely the Chanel bags, others looked tired and worn out like some Speedy Louis Vuitton bags. But evidence of the state of these bags confirms that these aren’t just any bags acquired randomly from random women, they’re acquired from women that they have met and known, and whom they can trust to sell something authentic. By selling these vintage bags, the state of many of these bags prove through the test of time that the price tag they command are worth every penny.

A prime example would be the now discontinued Hermes Pullman bag, an 80 year old bag from the 1930′s in pristine black crocodile skin, in the unmistakable Hermes trapeze shape. The handles are unlike the standard poingée ronde (round handles) made today, they were thin and flat (probably because women didn’t carry as much stuff as they do now). Inside, it has an extra pouch that has two metal latches (like a briefcase) that must be simultaneously pushed outwards in order for it to open, it also has a lock on it. During its pre-war days the bag cost 250€, today, in Hermes prices, it’s a bag that could’ve sold for at least $20,000. At LXR, I saw it retailing at a fraction of the price and sitting prettily at their window display. If only I had the money, I’d snatch it up in a heartbeat!

Of course, the biggest question of all would be: how can they guarantee authenticity? Well, in general, they can prove it, they keep the receipts of the original purchase and they often come with their original boxes. But keeping in mind that for a purse as old as the Pullman bag, receipts from the 1930s are probably long gone and thus could make it harder to tell from real to fake. However, because of their close relationship to their suppliers, there are many telltale signs to show if a bag is authentic, such as alignment of the stitches, quality of the leather, in some cases little number stickers (Chanel) or printed series and numbers (Louis Vuitton). Some of these tips I didn’t even know existed and helped me check my own used LV bag to see if it was authentic (it passed).

For Louis Vuitton, though currently it’s a more fashionable brand, there were some limited edition bags like the 2008 collaboration with Stephen Sprouse to a unique 1960s travel suitcase bag, which sort of looks like today’s Satellite travel bag. I love the vintage luggage of Louis Vuitton more so than their handbags, so having a piece from the 1960s was pretty fascinating to see.

Other items would be sort of harder to tell from authenticity such as the jewelry or some unorthodox bags like a Chanel tied bag from the 80s that was nearly all in gold with embroidered fabric, big round gold spheres with the Chanel logos. But clients who usually shop here trust their sellers and despite the discount price, they’re still large enough sums that they can’t really afford to lie in these particular circumstances.

So, while the luxury industry pushes forward, it’s refreshing to see that some brands’ products prove that their high price tags are justified. LXR has carved out a nice niche for itself in a too crowded room of fashion competitors, as I think they’re probably the only kind of their kind in Montreal. Definitely worth seeing.