21st Century Retailing

•  Retailers get excited to clinch onto the New York Glamour collections.
• The calender trend for fall 2011 embellish sleek looks from established leaders such as Ralph Lauren and Donna Karen , to arising talented designers like Joseph Altuzarra. The exceptional collections included Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors, Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, Theyskens’ Theory, Rodarte, Jason Wu, Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, Thakoon, Chado Ralph Rucci and Phillip Lim. "Bringing glamour back, it is usually good news for retail" says bloomingdales's vice president fashion director, Stephanie Solomon. Even the contemporary designers called attention to their market with dressed up clothes with luxurious fabrics, bead work, real and fux fur & leather that were wearable, while also making prices more affordable. After seeing the collections many retailers had comments to say. 
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• Saks Fifth Avenue: Fashion director, Colleen Sherin thought the standout collections were: Carolina Herrera, Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, Rag & Bone, Phillip Lim, Jason Wu, Theyskens’ Theory and Calvin Klein. The fashion key trends she identified were: High-impact outerwear such as parkas, anoraks, puffers, peacoats, capes and vests, often with hoods and dramatic fur collars; new takes on shearling; culottes; tuxedo-inspired looks in blouses, jackets and pants; feminine skirts and dresses pared back to chunky knitwear, and global-inspired prints.

                   Marc Jacobs RTW Fall 2011



Marc Jacobs RTW Fall 2011

• Bloomingdale’s: Vice president of fashion direction at Stephanie Solomon, thought the Standout collections were: Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors and the contemporary designers showing collections filled with references to Hollywood glamour. 
• The identified key trends she was analyzed: Trim or fur on vests or jackets; statement coats with leather sleeves or other interesting details; longer lengths such as pencil skirts, and ladylike blouses. It feels right to dress up again. Key trends — losers: Very wide-leg, pleated palazzo pants won’t fly off the shelves this fall. Linda Fargo, 
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• Bergdorf Goodman: Senior vice president for the fashion office and store presentation, Linda Fargo
  Standout collections: Adam, Alexander Wang, Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors, Carolina Herrera, Rodarte, Narciso Rodriguez, Jason Wu, Naeem Khan, Diane von Furstenberg, Oscar de la Renta, Altuzarra, Derek Lam, Theyskens’ Theory and Chado Ralph Rucci.  
• Key trends — keepers: As a reaction to this winter, outerwear and fur were exceptionally strong and diverse. Longer lengths, clean tailoring, plaids, pleats and lace. Black, gray and inky colors with reds — bright color for winter has broken through and will be in demand.
  
  
  Lane Crawford: Fashion director, Sarah Rutson at Hong Kong
  Standout collections: There were very few. Alexander Wang for his reworking of tuxedo shapes; Rag & Bone; Proenza Schouler’s Santa Fe prints and macramé; The Row’s spot-on tailoring, and Marc Jacobs, who gave us something different from everyone else’s huge lack of diversity. 
• Key trends — keepers: Colored fur and Mongolian lamb; fantastic knitwear; wide-leg pants, and some very well-executed tailoring. Lush color in berry tones and a strong pop of sharp blue, orange or red.  
• Key trends — losers: Midcalf-length skirts and dresses don’t look good on any woman and look so frumpy and old that they’re very hard to pull off; kilts and plaids, and, after three seasons, parkas.

  

  Altuzarra RTW Fall 2011

  
  Harvey Nichols: Chief buying director, Averyl Oates from London
  Standout collections: Rodarte’s exquisite long dresses; Marc by Marc Jacobs’ Forties and the Seventies looks with a modern vintage feel; Alice + Olivia’s flapper-era dresses; Donna Karan’s sophisticated urban clothes and Oscar-worthy gowns, and Theyskens Theory’s slouchy jackets, coats and knitwear. At Marc Jacobs, all of the trends came together, but his Seventies influence was more strict and severe. The clothes, although in some cases extreme, were ladylike and sexy. 
• Key trends — keepers: Outerwear, Forties silhouettes.
  
  
  Neiman Marcus: Senior vice president and fashion director Ken Downing.
• Standout collections: Proenza Schouler’s multicultural references balanced with a ladylike point of view; Marc Jacobs’ knits and ruby red cigarette pants; Jason Wu’s ladylike elegance; Prabal Gurung’s outstanding show; Donna Karan’s clothes that will go from the runway straight to a woman’s wardrobe without a second thought; Alexander Wang’s return to the future; Altuzarra’s aggressive outerwear, and Thakoon’s electric blue and tomato red jackets.  
• Key trends — keepers: Colors such as cranberries and merlots mixed with magentas and shades of pink, and winter white — it’s becoming the new camel. 
• Key trends — losers: The whole idea of Seventies and boho was perfect for the spring season. My eye is laser-focused on the polish and elegance of ladylike dressing.
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• Nordstrom's: Executive vice president of designer merchandising, Jeffrey Kalinsky
• Standout collections: Jason Wu; Theyskens’ Theory; Alexander Wang’s cool outerwear; Joseph Altuzurra’s fur-trimmed parkas, and Michael Kors’ glamour.
  
  Key trends — keepers: Fur; a big move toward grunge, and lingering Seventies influence. Being of the generation that grew up on the Seventies, I never get tired of that decade.
  
  Key trends — losers: There were a lot of long skirts and, while I always love a good long skirt, I’m not feeling them as much for fall.
  

  

  Theyskens' Theory RTW Fall 2011

  Barbara Atkin, vice president, fashion direction at Holt Renfrew, Canada
  Standout collections: Marc Jacobs summed up the season — a return to elegance that was refined and polished. Marc by Marc Jacobs took that signature to an accessible price point. Also, Michael Kors’ easy man-tailored coats and perfect cigarette pants; Alexander Wang; Theyskens’ Theory’s sensibility, and Rodarte’s clothes, which were more accessible in their wearability. We’re on the lookout for new collections. We’re picking up Rachel Zoe and we’re buying Kelly Wearstler.
  
  Key trends — keepers: Elongated hemlines; higher-waisted pants; rounded shoulders; knits, and a return to the suit.
  
  
  Nicole Fischelis, group vice president and fashion director at Macy’s Inc.
  Standout collections: Doo.Ri, Jason Wu, Altuzarra, Prabal Gurung, Chris Benz, Richard Chai, Eden, Suno, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Chado Ralph Rucci, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren and Marc Jacobs.
  
  Key trends — keepers: Fur is very important, for example, parkas with fur trim; chubby jackets, natural or recolored fur coats or vests; knitwear with interesting textures, patterns and colorations; midlength skirts; cropped skinny pants and wide-leg pants; tuxedo looks; pant suits, and interesting new greens and reds and shades of blue.
  
  
  Amanda Brooks, fashion director, Barneys New York
  Standout collections: Alexander Wang’s young and cool show was wearable for a diverse audience; Rodarte’s more realistic approach to wearing [the collection] in real life; Altuzarra’s great separates and inspiring coats; The Row’s beautifully made investment pieces; Prabal Gurung; Phillip Lim’s great clothes at a great price that all the cool girls will want to wear; Thakoon’s feminine silhouettes; Zero + Maria Cornejo; M. Patmos; Proenza Schouler, and Derek Lam.
  
  Key trends — keepers: Sporty parkas with fur, shearling bomber jackets and anoraks; unconventional hemlines; chunky knit sweaters, and high-waisted pants.
  
  Key trends — losers: Sweaters over long skirts for day.
  
  
  Ed Burstell, managing director, Liberty
  Standout collections: Alexander Wang for street-inspired luxe and glamour; Daryl K, a woman for a woman’s body; Joseph Altuzarra’s sensual and tough show with amazing outerwear; Theyskens’ affordable drama, and Marc by Marc Jacobs’ focused, cheeky and easy looks.
  
  Open-to-buy: Our budgets are up 10 percent with additional money for new resources; we’re looking at four new brands.
  
  Key trends — keepers: Vibrant color; winter white; street glam, and fashionable, functional outwear.
  
  Key trends — losers: Colorblocking again; fake heritage; camel overload, and wearing everything plus the kitchen sink just to get your picture taken.
• Retailers Praise New York Glamour - Retail Store and Industry News - WWD.com
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• "The Coming 21st Century Store"
• RIT Retail Expert Predicts ‘The 21st Century Store,’ But Who Will Survive? - RIT News
• The Retailing business seems to have been experiencing retail bankruptcies, employee layoffs, and consolidations growing daily--playing a toll in manufacturing, service, and wholesale firms, says Eugene Fram, emeritus professor of marketing at Rochester Institute of Technology's E. Phillip Saunders College of Business. "The Battle of Retailer Giants" has been a competitive struggle since the beginning of 1990. It seems to be the final engagements for larger and well managed financed retail corporations have bumped smaller businesses out of the way in the market share. The only surviving giants will advance with some smaller retail chains, which offer unique merchandise and friendly customer service. At National level, Federated Department Stores, now Macy's, acquired May Company stores. At regional level, Home Depot and Lowe's forced the Super Markets Wegman to close its subsidiary 17 store home improvement chain retail stores. Best Buy has gossip that it is obtaining some of the closed Circuit City locations. Consumers have interest to have access to more material possessions and Fram predicts that retail stores will reduce to just a few main large retail chains like Wal-Mart, Target, Barnes & Noble and Costco. Also he said likely to survive are regional chains like Fry's and Magnolia known for being well-branded. Also, it is said by John Zogby, a well known pollster that consumer buying consumption with continue to decline, along with a counter further attention on both environmental and financial savings. There is less focus on material acquisitions and people will be looking in their closets for apparel instead of looking to retail stores for the latest trends. The development of new electronic retail technologies will help guide the way to the next innovative way of a retail store. Some of the future and already technical future advances are"Operating costs will be substantially reduced by RFID chips, self checkouts, completely automated supply chains, automated grocery purchasing, virtual apparel purchasing and electronic dressing rooms. The department store could be an advance way of retailing with electronic support that grants the customer to virtually see herself immediately in a garment. If garment is bought immediately at the store it will be sold at regular price but it can also be purchased with a discounted charge if delivered from a central warehouse within a few days. The advantage for this, huge retailers would save a huge amount of money if sent from warehouse because of the reduced inventory-carrying costs and customers would benefit if they were in a hurry shopping.
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Trunk Show

Alexander McQueen Trunk Show Autmn/winter 2010-2011

A French contact of Alexander McQueen showed trunk show at a boutique in Downtown Beirut. The Collection was inspired by the Byzantin Art; the carvings of Grinling Gibbons, and Old Master paintings, works by Jean Fouquet, Sandro Botticelli, Stephan Lochner, Hans Memling, Hugo van der Goes, Jean Hey and Heironymus Bosch. 

The art pieces works were captured digitally, woven into jacquards or embroidered and engineered to fit each garment.

The key media and VIPs attended the event and there was a strong presence of key social feminine figures along with Suzi Miquilini, Sales Executive at Alexander McQueen. Female figures admired every unique piece.

Fabrics include silk duchesse jacquards, over-dyed vintage brocades, gold metal jacquards, metallasse, washed single and double duchesse satins, fil coupe satin organzas, silk chiffons, taffetas.

The illusion of two pieces is achieved by the draping and folding of single garments designed to discreetly reveal delicate gold and silver bullion embroideries on sleeves.

Private Label/Private Brand

Private Label/Private Brand Apparel

• Retailers have moved rapidly into developing their own apparel products.
• These apparel lines are referred to as private labels or private brands, which are exclusive to a specific retailer
• Concept of private label was first introduced by retailers  in basic or generic products that could that could be offered at lower prices than the brands.
• These products were used by retailers as pricing incentives during promotional periods & provided higher margins than branded merchandise.

Private Labels:

• Private label products or services are typically those > manufactured or provided by ones company for > offer under another's company's brand. 
• Private label goods and services are available in a wide range of industries from~ food to> cosmetics to> web hosting. Often positioned as lower cost alternatives to regional, national or international brands, although recently some private label brands have been positioned as "premium" brands to compete with existing "name" brands.

         American Rag CIE

• Name: American Rag CIE
  American Rag CIE is a private label marketed from branding the innovative American Rag Store. American Rag CIE is for juniors; men & women. American Rag CIE features casual & sportswear apparel & is features in over 100 of Macy's stores.  The American Rag team were excited to make business with Macy's… Feczko said "We felt we needed our own denim resource." In addition with an assortment of American Rag merchandise, the president of American Rag, "Mark Werts" hand-pick vintage apparel for Macy's, American Rag CIE private label collection.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  CIE FLOWER DRESS

  , $35, AMERICAN RAG CIE, MACYS, in DRESSES

• Retailer: Macy's is American Rags retailer. Macy's private label brand & American Rag teamed up.
• Price Points: Affordable $25-$200
• Manufactured: China
• Competition:Urban Outfitters, Buffalo Exchange, ETC
• American Rag~Store Merchandise: The Store carries a selection of vintage and new apparel
• Clothing Merchandise; Dresses, Jackets & Coats, Jeans, Jumpsuits, Shorts, Skirts, Swimwear, Tops, and Trousers..ETC.
• Footwear Merchandise; Boots, Sandals, Shoes, Sneakers & Trainer
• Accessories: Merchandise like hats & gloves, Sunglasses & Glasses, Wallets & Purses…ETC.
• Jewelry Merchandise; Bracelets & Cuffs, Earrings, Necklaces, Pins, Rings & Watches
• Lifestyle Merchandise: Art, Books & Magazines, Homeware and Toys & Gadgets
• Vintage Merchandise: 
• The pursuit of the unique apparel and merchandise of the American Rag stores is from the world travels done by founder, Mr. Werts and his buying team
• They have a huge floor space in the American Rag stores for their vintage selection
• The merchandise & apparel for their vintage wear is-exclusive to them as a specific retailer.
• They keep a lot of different styles in the stores for there is a variety of everything. 

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• Where it is made/manufactured, etc. 
• They shop the whole world and look for the best collections and they trim them down.
• He works closely to the buyers so he is tuned in to what everybody is doing.
• Designer Brands that are Featured in Store: Chanel Vintage, Vivienne Westwood, Warriors of Radness, 10 Deep, 2627, A.P.C., Acne, Adriano Goldschmied, Aether, All Black, American Vintage, Amoskeag, Angel Court, JBrand...and much more!
• New Merchandise: They carry specialty designer/name brands in the most current styles & trends. The benefit of this goes both ways for American Rag & brands featured in the retail store. The American Rag apparel retail buyers seeks style content like new apparel & products to add to their retail store &… the labels that receive this offering/ business deal get their products & apparel in a well branded retail store.
• Warehouse Merchandise: The American Rag wearhouse has 25,000 lbs compressed bells in storage. 
• Millions of garments are awaiting to go into store. 
• They constantly buy all year round world wide because they don't want to miss anything.
• Price Points: Man in charge doesn't think it is a question of price, but value. For example he rates a pair of white Levi Jeans about $50 where as something else in the store can be like $800.
• Examples of price points...A Warriors of Radness for a beach club sweatshirt would be $80. A Chanel Vintage diamond shape gold tone necklace is $850.00
• Competition:
• Owner and founder of American Rag, Mark Werts has been recognized as one of the most innovative and trendsetting retailers in the United States.
• In 1970 he opened his first store called "Salty Dog" in the Netherlands in a city in Amsterdam and was basically doing the same thing he does in American Rag stores today.
• In 1984 he started his first American Rag store in San Francisco, first selling only vintage clothing.  It was a struggle to get great apparel manufacturers to sell to his company at first, but then his plan for a mix of vintage and trendy apparel clothes in the same store together succeeded.
• Why Shop Vintage?
• Vintage sets you apart from everyone else.
• There are certain garments that may be even the only one of three more like that left in that pattern in the whole world, which can also be an investment!
• The clothes are special and the fun idea of having them from decades ago
• Good for the environment
• you can find American Rags website here: www.amrag.com
• www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/branding-brand-development
• American Rag founder Mark Werts became inspired in clothing as young teenager boy when he discovered with the proper clothes on, he could get more ladies, so he became interested in clothing.
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• Detroit Takes Aim at Fashion Industry

Fashion in Detroit

Photo By Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

General Motors and Chrysler wants to take a ride in the field of the fashion industry. The Motor City Casino Hotel in Detroit held their second annual fashion show on Oct. 22 & Oct. 23. The show production was impeccable with a 40-foot runway accompanying a dozen designers.

A guess named Castaldi-Roselli attended the Fashion show in Detroit
assisting Di Santo and the models stated what the overall message the show wanted press to hear  “The goal of this show is to get people to think Michigan and to shop in Michigan.” 

From WWD.COM: 

Detroit Takes Aim at Fashion Industry - Fashion and Retail Business News - by Doron LevinPosted THURSDAY NOVEMBER 4, 2010

A youth-oriented fashion outlet called, "Moosejaw", is one of the city’s most successful fashion attractions in Michigan. Moosejaw is a leading multi-channel retailer featuring quality outdoor apparel & gear. It originated in 1992 as a store for mountaineering & camping gear in Keego Harbor, Mich. With the success from the mountaineering camping store, "Moosejaw" expanded to owning seven stores & A widespread business online. More than half of the company's business comes from its Web site: The website features Patagonia, The North Face, Arc’teryx outdoor apparel & gear. Moosejaw is a growing private-label brand and has 200 working employees. Employee Allison Capaldi works as the brand manager in charge of Moosejaws's private-label brand, she says “We were known for cotton goods, T-shirts, sweatshirts,” Also, the business has elaborated their line to a yoga collection for women. “Our customer base is very broad; we are high-end in customer service and want to be the most fun retailer you can shop.”

From WWD.COM: Detroit Takes Aim at Fashion Industry - Fashion and Retail Business News 

Name: Moosejaw

Retailers & Brands: The North Face, Patagonia, & Arc'teryx outdoor apparel & gear, Mountain Hardwear, Marmot & Black Diamond Climbing

Moosejaw Women's Katie Swartzloff Down Jacket

$199.00

Type of merchandise: moosejaw.com;www.prweb.com/releases/Moosejaw

MooseJaw Clothing: The customer's are active individuals who enjoy outdoor activities. These customers range from high-school to college students.

Men's & Women's: Jackets, Vests, Short Sleeve Tees, Long Sleeve Tees, Hoodies, Racing Shirts, Hats + Scarves, & Pants

Kid's: Short Sleeve Shirts, Long Sleeve Shirts, Sweatshirts, Baby Apparel

Men's & Women's & Kid's Jackets: Casual, Down, Fleece, Insulated, Ski, Snowboarding, Softshell, Water-Resistant, & Waterproof.

Gear: Biners, Discs, Poster, Water Bottles, Camp Chairs, & Hats + Scarves

MooseJaw Yoga

Price Points:Prices range from very affordable to very high. Moosejaw Men's Royal Tee= $999.00

ON SALE: Moosejaw Men's Goodnight Takashi SS Tee Shirt $8.99 - $19.95

Top Jacket Brands: Arc'Teryx, Marmot, Moosejaw, Moutain Hardwear, Outdoor Research,Patagonia, & North Face 
Competitors:Any other outdoor apparel & gear stores: Rivanna Gear & Apparel ETC.
Manufactured: .4000 32200 NORTH AVIS SUITE 100, MADISON HEIGHTS, MI 48071, Moosejaw Mountaineering & Backcountry Travel 

GQ's Menswear Finalists for DESIGNER of the year

Memo Pad: GQ's Menswear Finalists... Bill Keller's New Column... - WWD.com