Grace Coddington is keeping busy since she announced she’s resigning her position at Vogue US. In collaboration with Commes des Garcons, Coddington is launching a fragrance, “Grace by Grace Coddington,” packaged in an “Alice in Wonderland”–themed bottle.
“My mother had a rose garden, and it just never occurred to me to smell like any other smell except rose,” explained Coddington in a recent fashionmag.com article. “Grace by Grace Coddington” is a combination of white musk and peach blossom that yields a gentle floral scent.
After more than two decades at Vogue US, in January of this year Grace Coddington stepped down as creative director. “I’m not running away from Vogue, because it has opened so many doors. But it will be nice to collaborate, and nice to go out [and] give talks to people. It’s just another approach. I’m certainly not going into retirement. I don’t want to sit around.
“Grace by Grace Coddington” will be available from April 19.
Moncler exclusivity
Do you know who Lord Norman Foster is? You don’t, well Moncler sure does!! Moncler is collaborating with Lord Norman Foster.
For the exclusive Coriglia Ski Club of St. Moritz, Lord Norman Foster has created a Moncler Puffer ski jacket. The Moncler Puffer ski jacket will come in a sleeveless jacket version with the historical logo of Corviglia, a crow holding a ski in its beak, can be made out amidst the blue of the high altitude sky, the map of the Club’s main trophy cups and the list of Life Members. The jacket is available for time-honored members of the Coriglia Ski Club.
Lord Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank of Reddish, OM, HonFREng is a British architect whose company, Foster + Partners, maintains an international design practice famous for high-tech architecture.
The empire expands
Rihanna keeps expanding her fashion empire. ReRe recently showcased her fashion brand, Fenty, for the first time during New York Fashion Week: The Shows. Now, ReRe is collaborating with footwear icon, Manolo Blahnik on a footwear capsule collection.
“It’s an incredibly exciting collaboration, and I’m delighted with the result,” explained Manolo Blahnik in a recent fashionmag.com article. “Working with Rihanna was an amazing experience. Her energy, passion, creativity and style are all reflected in the shoes’ design, for a fabulous end result. I think the whole world will love to see them,” he added.
The six-piece capsule collection features denim-made shoes inspired by Rihanna’s tattoos. The shoes come in knee-high bootie, stilletos, and ankle booties and are embellished with sequins. Because of the manufacturing expense only 45 pairs have been made.
At price points of $895–$3,995, the shoes will be available on May 5 in Manolo Blahnik stores, London, Hong Kong, and New York.
The survey says
The word is out that the CFDA has completed its New York Fashion Week survey conducted The Boston Consulting Group. The 13-page study reveals the following:
The fashion calendar is causing three major problems:
1. The failure to adopt “see now, buy now” models is hurting full-price sales potential, as in-season clothes are on markdowns during relevant seasons.
2. Technology is ruining newness; Instagram and livestreamed runways expose consumers to collections months before they’re shoppable, giving “fast fashion” brands enough lead time to replicate trends at a smaller price tag. This also means the original trend feels stale by the time it reaches stores, hurting full-price retail.
3. Designer creative burnout is real! The pressure of creating pre-collections and the up-in-the-air fashion cycle doesn’t allow designers sufficient time to fuel their creative process.
A few solutions:
1. Hold retail and press appointments and presentations early enough to allow buyers to place orders, and give long-lead press original content that’s more exclusive.
2. Create biannual, in-season consumer-relevant activations during or after New York Fashion Week around the main and pre-collections to be delivered to stores immediately and over the course of a few months.
3. Merge men’s and women’s shows, merge design for main and pre-collections, or move retail/press appointments or in-season activations to pre-collection timing.
As revealed in a last week’s Fashion News Alert, several European iconic brands—Chanel, Givenchy, Hermes, Balenciaga, and others—are opposed to changing the fashion calendar, contending that there core consumers have no problem waiting for the collections to hit the stores based on the current runway to store calendar. And the survey does not the tackle the issue of fabrication availability for manufacturing if the fashion calendar changes or that perhaps, consumers’ shopping habits have changed based on an economy that has yet to fully recover.
—William S. Gooch
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