Gucci store Bicester Village | Source: Thread
Luxury shoppers travel to UK for bargains (FT)
“The changing appetites of Asian shoppers have driven share prices of luxury groups up and down during the course of 2011… Angela Ahrendts, Burberry’s chief executive, has coined the term ‘Travelling Luxury Consumer’ or TLC to describe its key customer group, arguing this is a more powerful force than the Chinese market alone.”
A leg up for Condé Nast (China Daily)
“Cao Weiming, managing director of Condé Nast China, the publisher of the Chinese edition of Vogue and other lifestyle magazines, says behind the glossy cover of Vogue are years of hard work and perseverance. He says one major hindrance for foreign media companies is a lack of understanding of the local culture, regulations and how things operate in China.”
Stars, stripes and selling clothes (FT)
“It’s not only blogs about celebrities that are having an impact. Bloggers writing about everything from watches to their own lives are becoming more influential. As Martin Raymond, co-founder of the Future Laboratory, a London-based trends consultancy, puts it: ‘The influenced are influencing.’ And when it comes to moving product, fashion bloggers are increasingly pulling our strings.”
InStyle Takes Editorial to Retail (WWD)
“The line between fashion magazine editorial and advertising? Getting blurrier by the day… Next up: taking a fashion magazine, combining it with a digital experience… InStyle will take over a 19-by-42-foot storefront… Collages, in a similar vein to Polyvore’s model, can be created and instantly sent as a digital postcard to smartphones. Essentially, these cards provide a detailed shopping list, with special offers and a photo stamp.”
‘Black is perfect, you can fill it with any emotion’ (Independent)
“Ann Demeulemeester’s influence is evident in every pair of wide-leg, drop-from-the-hip trousers on the high street, every starched and mannish white shirt, every boxy blazer and androgynous model. With a return to Nineties grunge tailoring on the cards, her signature ascetism is more relevant than ever.”