Fashion Commercials Becoming Obselete?
I was perusing Business Week’s site and found this brilliant YouTube of an old Levi’s commercial made in the 1970’s.
Granted that the colors and style are dated, but the approach and conceptualization of the commercial I find is pretty relevant to today. I think the fashion industry is in dire need of a “stranger” to come and breathe life back into our wardrobe. Sure, fashion editors spew this mantra every season, but every so-called golden designer is yesterday’s news within 2 weeks of being announced.
Plus, when was the last time you’ve seen a memorable fashion commercial made by neither by Gap or Chanel? I don’t particularly recall any significant tv air time for fashion brands anymore. Perhaps because they are too costly to produce, considering Chanel No. 5 with Nicole Kidman cost a whopping £18million ($25 million) to produce in 2004. Too many brands rely too much on celebrity influence to sell their products when they could invest those millions into smart ad agencies and come up with a spectacular concept. If beer and sports companies can come up with the most original works during the Super Bowl, you would think fashion (who needs to be the best at - well, everything) would come up with the best ideas for their air time.
Fashion is drowning by clinging onto magazine ads, their life support needs to extend beyond magazine pages and into cyberspace and back to the tv airwaves. Mere runway shows won’t do, we want to be excited again by fashion. Calvin Klein ads begone! We want something fresh, new and exciting! This is a perfect time to bring back significant, original fashion commercials.
The Closet Price Tag | Calvin Klein sweater $100
I’m starting a new self-observing shopping section on this blog, to keep track of my spendings on the clothes that I buy. Starting with the first official purchase of the year, I’d like to know how long garmens will last considering of my somewhat rough handling of them. I call it “The Closet Price Tag” and made a special page for it to give a summary of my purchases.
The first purchase of the year goes to the Calvin Klein’s cable knit sweater. Bought on sale for $100 at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. 80% lambswool and 20% cashmere. Made in China. Dry Clean only.
Only A Handful of Stores
It’s perhaps the first and only Calvin Klein store I’ve ever seen or been to, as the brand has been out of the limelight for a while, it’s only recently re-emerging and repositioning itself in the market. Considering its previous success with its perfume and jeans line in the 1980s and 1990s, I’m surprised that CK had never officially opened any stand alone retail stores. As of late, since Francisco Costa, who had taken over as head designer for the brand, I’ve come to really appreciate the minimalistic look with luxurious fabrics on the runway. I’ve heard little about their bridge collections, so I was pleased to visit the Calvin Klein store in Vegas.
According to Wikipedia, the following brand names are as followed:
- Calvin Klein Collection (black label, top-end designer line)
- ck Calvin Klein (grey label, recently repositioned as bridge collection line)
- Calvin Klein (white label, better sportswear line)
- Calvin Klein Sport (sports version of the white label line for Macy’s)
- Calvin Klein Jeans (denimwear line)
- Calvin Klein Home (high end bedding, towel, bath rug and accessory collections)
- Calvin Klein Golf (launched in late 2007)
- Calvin Klein Underwear (underwear collections)
I have yet to see or notice an actual Calvin Klein Collection piece in the higher end department stores, it would be great to see anything up close and personal for judgement.
The store I’ve been to is clearly Calvin Klein (white label line), offering a nice collection of gray toned apparels in silks, cashmere and wool blends. The silk dresses were of nice prints, however upon touching them, they were unlined and had a familiar H&M quality to them. Prices are accessible like Banana Republic, around $50 to $500.
The cable knit sweater I bought was on sale, if you can call it that, for $100. I’ve been searching for a nice warm cable knit sweater, but can’t seem to find any in Montreal’s bargain hunting grounds. No doubt the Calvin Klein label doesn’t seem to make an appearance in our local luxury stores. It is indeed a warm sweater, however it has a tendency to leave pieces of itself on darker clothing. I had reservations about the Made in China label. An indication that it was made for cheap but with very skilled hands (or machinery). The debate comes down to: which of the evils do you choose? Have those dollars spent to support the overworked laborers in China so they can feed themselves of what little they can save? Or, not pay for the sweater and thinking of the risk that that factory may not exist in a year or so?
The purchase itself may seem like such an easy thing to do, however, our little action of buying somehow goes down much deeper to the person on the other side of the world. It’s hard to decide. Keep supporting Chinese manufacturers to feed those that need work (despite them being overworked) or not support them and take away their hard earned money.
In the end I went for the purchase. I don’t know if my purchase will help keep Chinese people their jobs or not, I don’t know if the manufacturers in Italy or Scotland should be better off with my money, eventhough on a certain standpoint, Chinese people need it much more than Europeans do. I’d like to think I’m helping the Chinese, but who can really say? This is what I wish I knew more about the manufacturing industry…where does your dollar really go?
Total spent for 2009 closet: $100.00
A Fashion Book for Smart People
This book should be a lesson to everyone. In fact, I think it should be mandatory for anyone with a serious interest in fashion to read this amazing book that I gobbled up in a mere 3 days.
“The End of Fashion,” written by veteran Wall Street Journal reporter Teri Agins, feels like the equivalent of 100 NY Times or Wall Street Journal articles. Journeying through several examples of popular fashion designers, she shows an evolution in the business of fashion up until the very end of the 1990s. From the flamboyant Isaac Mizrahi to the brutally honest persona of Zoran, she details in great lengths of the struggles of fashion businesses throughout the last 20 years.
Establishing a fashion brand is more than crafting designs. In today’s standards, you have to be as much as a savvy salesman with great marketing skills in order to break even in the industry. Fashion magazines will rarely give you a look of the other side of the moon. Should you wish to further expand your knowledge on fashion, pay attention to the business section of your newspaper, you might find some interesting tidbits.
What I loved about this book are some of the spectacular failures and shortcomings of powerhouses who thought they would be unstoppable.
