Check Out Line: Technology Getting Front-Row Seat at NY Fashion Week
September 24, 2008 — blendnewyorkCheck out how designers at New York’s Fashion Week are using technology for inspiration, on the runway, behind the scenes and for business.
In its most obvious cameo, technology showed up at Vivienne Tam’s Spring 2009 show, where models sashayed down the runway clutching slim, red HP notebook computers instead of evening bags.
The limited-edition computer, which she called a “digital clutch,” featured the Tam collection’s signature red peony print on its cover. It will be available early next year, sometime around the Chinese New Year, Tam told a Reuters reporter backstage before her show.
She added that the peony’s petals on the laptop cover symbolize multi-tasking, which is synonymous with being a woman in today’s tech-oriented society she said.
HP said it’s the first time a fashion designer has partnered with a computer company, though others are teaming up with mobile phone companies.
LG Mobile Phones said it is partnering with budding fashion designer Christian Siriano, who made the media spotlight for winning Season Four of Bravo television’s popular reality show “Project Runway”.
At Siriano’s fashion show, he showed a scarf designed for LG’s newest phone, the LG Lotus.
Polo Ralph Lauren Corp recently unveiled a mobile phone technology that allows consumers to scan barcodes found in magazine ads and shop from their phones.
Other designer houses, including Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, and Zac Posen, are now using technology offered by Fashion GPS, which uses global positioning technology to keep track of inventory and samples. DKNY also used a barcode technology for invitations and seating for its fashion show, asking guests to r.s.v.p. on line and then scanning their invites at the show.
But Karan did have some uninvited guests, so maybe the system is still evolving.
Depending on how you look at it, technological advances can both help and hurt our free time. On one hand, it gives us more time to do the things we love, like shopping and going to fashion shows. But it also means we can now work from cocktail parties and black-tie events without toting a clunky computer.
(Posted by Martinne Geller – Reuters)
Fashion Week Meets the Weak Economy
September 7, 2008 — blendnewyorkNew York Fashion Week is here again, only now the semiannual bacchanal of fantastic excess and hard-nosed haggling takes place amid a weakening economy and spreading insecurity. The fashion tribe has to be wondering: Will anyone buy our $10,000 dresses and $3,000 handbags?
For many of the designers and retailers who swarm Bryant Park during Fashion Week, the answer is chilling. Even Vogue, the bible of the spend-anything aesthetic, is bannering “Value-Conscious Chic, When to Spend, Where to Save” on the cover of its September issue.
“There are some people out there still buying clothes, but it’s a smaller pool and there’s more competition,” says Araks Yeramyan, 34, who has been showing her ready-to-wear collection, Araks, at Fashion Week since 2006. “This is the first time where I’m really getting scared.”
No wonder: Showing under the tents is hugely expensive.
“It’s a fortune — $28,000 just for the tent!” exclaims Mara Hoffman, 31, best known for creating memorable frocks for Sex and the City. “It totals maybe $70,000 for everything — it’s nuts.”
Plus, sponsorships have dried up, Yeramyan reports; now the fashion companies have to pay for alcohol, catering, makeup and hair styling for the runway shows. “I can’t have the same markup, because if we used the same price that we pay for some fabrics from Europe, customers would freak out,” she says.
But few designers, established or up-and-coming, can afford to sit out Fashion Week. “It’s an investment in brand awareness,” says Hoffman. “It gets press, it reaches potential customers, it really helps your sales.”
Fashion needs all the sales help it can get these days. “Buyers are definitely skittish and price-conscious,” says designer Rebecca Taylor, 38, a 10-year veteran of Fashion Week. “People are not buying as many things as they once were, and what they’re buying is versatility — like a T-shirt that is beaded so they can wear it with jeans or black pants.”
Aware of their customers’ anxieties, buyers for department stores will be looking to buy deep rather than wide, says Nicole Phelps, executive editor of Style.com, the online home of Vogue.
“Retailers will be looking for young designers, where they can make discoveries and buy clothes more affordable to the shoppers,” says Phelps. “Shoppers are going to want investment pieces built to last — really, really signature and stand-out pieces, rather than a wide variety of pieces by many designers.”
Cindi Leive, editor of Glamour, predicts that heavily beaded-and-sequined “Dynasty-inspired looks” are over. “There’s been a turn away from the extreme, in-your-face over-opulence, when the whole point of an outfit was to say ‘I’ve got more money than you can shake a stick at,’ ” says Leive. Once, the fashion industry cared mostly about the ultra-rich, the people with incomes in the millions who are largely unaffected by a sputtering economy. But now fashion appeals to a mass market — people with incomes way south of millions who become more resistant to buying when the economy goes south.
Pam Danzinger, CEO of Unity Marketing, which tracks luxury consumers, regularly surveys people with incomes of $100,000, and since last year there has been a sharp drop in confidence and the average amount spent.
“They’re spending less because they don’t feel as confident,” she says. “In marketing, perception is reality. These people could buy a $3,000 handbag, but they’re resistant to spending so much because they don’t feel as flush as a year ago.”
The established super-high-end fashion houses, such as Chanel or Louis Vuitton, have deep-enough pockets to survive and maybe even pick up market share, says Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute marketing research firm. “The young designers trying to swim upstream in a competitive marketplace, they’re doing Fashion Week with Scotch tape and glue.”
Paradoxically, despite the economy, Fashion Week is bigger than ever, and fashion editors, both print and online, are preparing to cover more collections and designers than ever before.
“Fashion shows have become a huge marketing tool, so (designers) can’t really cut back on that,” says Patrick McCarthy, editorial director W and Women’s Wear Daily. “It looks like there will be at least as many shows this season as last year and maybe even a few more.”
By MARIA PUENTE
USA TODAY
Farewell Yves Saint Laurent
June 3, 2008 — blendnewyork
Yves Saint Laurent, one of the greatest designers of the 20th century, died at his home in Paris on Sunday after a long illness. For more than 40 years, Saint Laurent captivated the world of fashion and beyond with an extraordinary repertoire marked by his unique color sense, provocative androgyny and passion for fantasy.
Funeral services for Yves Saint Laurent are scheduled for Thursday afternoon in Paris, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy expected to attend. Pierre Berge, the late designer’s longtime business partner, said the service is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at the Eglise Saint-Roch at 296 Rue Saint Honore. Afterward, Saint Laurent will be incinerated, and his ashes will rest at his famous Majorelle Garden in Marrakech.
Yves Saint Laurent, one of the greatest fashion designers in history, died at his home late Sunday at 71 after a long battle with brain cancer. He had been bedridden recently and friends said in the last week he had been unable to eat or talk. Saint Laurent had been rarely seen over the last year, and even then he was wheelchair bound and weak. The legendary couturier passed away in the presence of Berge and longtime friend and muse Betty Catroux. Catherine Deneuve arrived shortly after he died, at 11:10 p.m. Paris time.
The designer’s health had been precarious throughout his life. At age 21, he burst onto the scene as the sensational new designer at Christian Dior, replacing the late Monsieur Dior himself. The bespectacled, shy, soft-spoken designer quickly became an icon — and would remain so for the next five decades.
Saint Laurent’s contributions to fashion were unquestioned — even if, in later years, many of his collections were considered repetitive of his signatures. In this century, only Dior, Coco Chanel, Cristobal Balenciaga and Karl Lagerfeld, his peer and rival, were said to be on the same plateau.
Saint Laurent’s grip on the world of fashion that if he made a slight change in a hemline or a subtle shift in a waistline, the repercussions rippled around the globe. At the minimum, fashion owes him credit for the invention of ready-to-wear through the launch in 1966 of his Rive Gauche collection. But there also were his iconic tuxedo suit “le smoking,” beatnik fashions, the use of safari jackets as a style statement for women and men, the Ballets Russes collection, his unparalleled sense of color combinations, the artistry of his cut, designer denim and the launch of a significant fragrance and beauty business with a designer name.
One of his newest designs :
Go Green Expo! A Full Weekend of Green! April 25 – 27 at the Hilton NY in Manhattan
April 25, 2008 — blendnewyork1335 Avenue of the Americas (6th Avenue at 53rd Street)
FRIDAY, APRIL 25!
Business Goes Green (Daytime):
Go Green Expo has partnered with the producers of Hollywood Goes Green and created a compelling Business to Business summit in NYC. Business Goes Green will discuss how “Going Green” is good for the bottom line. We have a tremendous line up of experienced industry leaders and experts to discuss the eco-friendly roles of Advertising, Technology, Communications, Building and more. Speakers include CEOs, VPs, Managing Directors and a variety of representatives from Intel, Verizon, Ogilvy & Mather, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Green Team Marketing, BBMG, Davis & Gilbert LLP and many others.
If your company is interested in sponsoring the Business Goes Green Summit, please email BRand@GoGreenExpo.com before April 18th as time is of the essence. There are multiple levels of sponsorship that grant you access to eco-minded CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business executives.VIEW the agenda. Tickets will sell out in advance, purchase them HERE
Go Green Expo Gala Awards Dinner (Evening):
A black-tie benefit dinner featuring the eco-fashion couture of Maggie Norris. The menu for this special dinner has been created by Rachael Ray.
The following individuals will be honored for their excellence in Environmental Awareness:Alex Matthiessen, Anderson Cooper (accepting via satellite), Bryan Welch, Congressman Steve Israel, David Bach, David Zaslav, Graham Hill, Laura Turner Seydel, Kevin Wall, Nina Guralnick, Kevin Burke & more!
7pm ~ Cocktail Reception by 360 Vodka
8pm ~ Maggie Norris Eco-Couture Fashion Show
8:30pm ~ Go Green Expo Gala Benefit Dinner & Awards
Tickets: $500 each • $5,000 Table of Ten • $10,000 Table with prime location
Kindly RSVP to Allison Chamberlain at: AChamberlain@Riverkeeper.org or (914) 478-4501 x232
Limited Sponsorship Opportunities are still available. Please contact Bradford Rand at BRand@GoGreenExpo.com or call (212) 655-4505 x223.
The Great Designers Symposium at FIT
March 15, 2008 — blendnewyorkMarch 14th and 15th -
The Museum at FIT, Seventh Ave., at 27th St., rm. E301; 9:30–5.
The Great Designers symposium starts today.
Two full days of lectures from top industry professionals like designer Maria Cornejo,
Bergdorf senior VP Linda Fargo, and fashion-history professor Caroline Evans.
Official Launch!
January 30, 2008 — blendnewyorkHi Everyone!
This is the official launch of the Blend New York blog.
We will be discussing everything related to fashion, art, lifestyle and more.
Questions and comments are welcome.
Talk soon!
Join the United Shareholders of America And Stand Up For Your Rights
October 15, 2008 — blendnewyorkPlease Join In Supporting This Call For Action.
One of the biggest problems we face today is the egregious mismanagement and reckless incompetence of many American corporate boards which utterly fail to do their primary job of holding managements accountable.
Many board members are often beholden to managements for lavish pay and perks they get for very little work and oversight. The credit crisis we find ourselves in is a direct manifestation of board members’ lack of oversight. Alarm bells should have gone off in board rooms as crisis loomed, but many boards looked the other way.
It is sometimes difficult for outsiders to see the sheer extent of this mismanagement. Granted, there are a lot of good boards and managements. But in my 40 years in the financial markets and service on many boards, I have observed first-hand the egregious blunders and ineptitude of over-paid and self-serving boards who have little loyalty or accountability to shareholders. For sheer entertainment value, board antics rival skits on Saturday Night Live, but this value destruction is not entertaining.
On a regular basis, we see:
United Shareholders of America aims to create a grassroots movement of large and small shareholders who are looking to press boards to be more responsive to stockholders.
My campaign is designed to change state and federal rules that favor entrenched boards that allow executives to receive bloated compensation packages for lackluster performance and perpetuate themselves indefinitely in office.
Millions of shareholders will benefit from this campaign.
The list includes public pension funds that invest working peoples’ money, institutional investment funds that manage corporate pension funds, endowments that fund college educations and the legions of retail investors and other stakeholders in our economy. In short, it is in the self-interest of all that we see a campaign to make business run better succeed.
This is why I am asking you to join us and support us. Like my friend Boone Pickens who is running a campaign for national energy independence and my friend Pete Peterson who is running a campaign to cut down on our staggering national debt, I am determined to make this campaign succeed. But I need your support.
In coming weeks, I will be outlining our plans to press lawmakers, policy makers and others for changes that we are advocating. I will also ask for your ideas, feedback and input in this. We are looking to create a grassroots movement – it is long overdue.
Let’s not forget the most salient point: we all rely on business for our livelihoods and standard of living. Business and entrepreneurship are the engines of America’s growth. We must not let this great nation’s economy erode as it has in recent years due to self-interested and incompetent corporate managements.
Only with numbers can we create change in Washington. Remember shareholders vote.
Please Join In Supporting This Call For Action.