Fashion News Alert: Jay Z and Barneys Link Up, Victoria Beckham Lets it All Hang out on Skype, and Wal-Mart’s New Home Grown Initiative

Will it ever end, you know what I am talking about; fashion’s infatuation with celebrities and pop music icons? Well, if high-end retail store Barneys has any say, it will not end soon, evidenced in Barneys’ new partnership with hip-hop mogul Jay Z for a 2013 holiday fashion campaign.

According to Womens Wear Daily, Jay Z has teamed up with Barneys for or “A New York Holiday,” a Christmastime promotion that will include limited-edition products by designers such as Lanvin, Balenciaga, Balmain, Rick Owens, and Proenza Schouler. And 25 percent of the sales will go to Jay Z’s non-profit foundation the Shawn Carter Foundation Scholarship.

Jay Z also collaborated with all the brands in the limited-edition holiday collection. Products range from a leather backpack, an alligator-strap watch, to a cashmere blanket and a cotton t-shirt with products retailing from $70 to $33,900.  Barneys will release the collection online and in store windows on November 20.

Wal-Mart Brings it Home

Retail giant Wal-Mart has joined the economic movement around homegrown manufacturing. Wal-Mart pledged in January of this year to buy an additional $50 billion in U.S.–made goods over the next 10 years.

This decision has come on the back of some of Wal-Mart’s supplier’s decision to produce more products in the U.S. due to rising wages in China. Critics of Wal-Mart’s  homegrown initiative have expressed concern over the mega brand sincere efforts to support U.S.–based manufacturing.

“This is not a public relations effort. This is an economic, financial, mathematical-driven effort. The economics are substantially different than they were in the 80s and 90s,” Bill Simon, chief executive of the Wal-Mart U.S. chain, told the Reuters Global Consumer and Retail Summit earlier this month

Though Wal-Mart’s $50 billion dollar commitment is just a drop in the bucket toward bringing more manufacturing stateside, some economists agree that it a step in the right direction. “A Wal-Mart decision, however minimal or cosmetic, is a powerful signal, “says Suzanne Berger, a professor and manufacturing expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Victoria Beckham’s Skype Affection

Reality television often provides TMI (too much information). But in an age where consumers thirst after more and more revealing fodder about everything and anything, too much is never enough.

Victoria Beckham has now joined the club of nothing to hide by providing Skype five years of total access to her design studio. “Most evenings, I’m curled up in front of Skype, in my dressing gown, speaking with my studio in London,” Beckham told UK’s Telegraph.

With that thought in mind, providing full studio access to Skype is no stretch for the former Spice Girl. Viewers will witness everything from meetings to fittings and may even have an opportunity to chat with Victoria Beckham.

Hmm, is nothing secret and/or sacred these days? In the Beckham’s world, maybe not!!

—William S. Gooch