Gone are the days of the 80’s when Japanese designers such as Kansai, Matsuda, Comme des Garcons, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto were supreme in the fashion world. Looks like Japan Fashion Week exhibited edgy collections that show a hopeful future for talented Japanese designers.
Finally, Superdry will open their first major US store right here in NYC’s Noho. This U.K. based apparel brand has been a success in Europe and now Americans can shop the full collection stateside.
Major retailers have jumped on the rock themed bandwagon that seems to be a hot seller amongst teens and adults alike. Converse has a great line of rock band sneakers of which I especially love The WHO Union Jack sneaker.
Read some of today’s WWD highlighted articles below.
–Nikki Cho Russo
At Japan Fashion Week, Edgy Looks Prevail
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TOKYO — Designers here showcased everything from frilly Victorian lace numbers to hard-edged looks with an Eighties feel at the ninth edition of Japan Fashion Week, which wrapped its six-day run on Saturday.
Although fewer people attended the spring shows than the year before, there are signs that Tokyo labels are gaining some international momentum — albeit in very small quantities.
The number of people attending the official spring shows actually slid to 15,311 from 17,774 people last year, a phenomenon government-subsidized JFW blamed on some brands choosing smaller venues this season. But there were more foreign media and buyers present this time around. Some 249 representatives of foreign media organizations came to the shows, up from 212 last year, while the number of international buyers rose to 125 from 19 the year before.
Nobuyuki Ota, president of Issey Miyake Inc. and chief of JFW’s collection project committee, said the shows attracted more buyers from Asia than expected and he’s thinking about staging a fashion-related event at next year’s World Expo in Shanghai.
“It’s very important to get more buyers and press from China,” he said at Tokyo Midtown, the week’s official venue.
Tapping into the ever-growing Chinese market can help designers offset sluggish demand in Japan and other mature markets. Bain & Co. recently forecast that luxury goods sales in Mainland China will grow 12 percent this year, while those in Japan will fall 10 percent. Over the next decade, growth in China and other Asian countries could propel Asia past Europe and the Americas to become the largest global luxury market region in the world, the consultancy said.
Japanese designers, many of whom run extremely small businesses with a string of retail accounts, are facing plenty of challenges as the economic crisis persists, consumers trade down to fast-fashion labels and retailers continue to be hesitant about stocking untested brands. This month’s news that Yohji Yamamoto filed for bankruptcy protection and lost control of his company to a group of investors dealt another blow to the Japanese fashion industry’s image.
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Superdry to Open U.S. Store
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Superdry, a U.K.-based apparel company, will open its first U.S. store next month at 718 Broadway in Manhattan’s NoHo area.
The company tested a successful pop-up store in Los Angeles in July, prompting the opening of the New York store. The 6,200-square-foot unit will carry men’s and women’s apparel and accessories including belts, scarves and bags. Superdry apparel is constructed from cotton and premium fabrics that feature vintage washes and Japanese-inspired hand-drawn graphics. The collection is carried in retailers such as Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom as well as Atrium, Ron Herman and E-Street Denim.
Price points include jeans for $89-$140; polo shirts for $69, T-shirts for $39-$49, skirts for $69 and leather jackets for $350-$700.
Charles Turlinski, chief executive officer of Sunrise Brands, LLC owner of Superdry North America’s license, said the first Superdry U.S. store “will serve as an anchor for the company’s future expansion in the U.S. marketplace.” It is slated to open on Nov. 9.
Founded in 2003 by James Holder and Julian Dunkerton, Superdry Clothing debuted in Cheltenham, England as Laundry Athletics before eventually opening its first store under the Superdry name in Covent Garden, London. It is sold in 26 countries and has 26 freestanding stores around the world.
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Pop Rocks Retail
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From Kiss to the Beatles, rock-themed T-shirts and other merchandise related to pop music are hot properties at traditional stores, vintage boutiques and online shops despite the tough economy.
The players range from the Kiss Korners at Wal-Mart stores rolled out nationwide on Oct. 6 to Restoration Hardware’s new limited edition Beatles merchandise, including five album Ts portraying front covers of “Rubber Soul,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Hey Jude,” “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be.” (Customers who ordered the $59, pigment-dyed, cotton jersey, Resto Ts at the home retailer’s Web site started receiving deliveries Oct. 19. Beatles editions of Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly will follow in November.) At Wal-Mart’s Kiss Korners, there are Mr. Potato Head Kiss collectibles, Kiss T-shirts, makeup, wigs and the group’s first album in 11 years, “Sonic Boom.”
Sales of rock-themed items have been rising at Wal-Mart, spokesman John Simley said. At Target, spokeswoman Jana O’Leary said, “Music T-shirts are performing very well, often exceeding our sales expectations each week.” Led Zeppelin, Run-DMC and Metallica tops are bestsellers at Target, and shirts with images of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley are staging a comeback.
Music marketing and entertainment firm Bravado introduced Michael Jackson “This Is It” fashion goods this month, such as varsity jackets, hoodies, totes, premium sunglasses and baby clothes for sale at Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Kohl’s and Target, among others, said Tom Bennett, Bravado’s chief executive officer. (The “This Is It” movie opens worldwide today.)
Also on tap, in November, are collectibles for about 10 artists, such as Green Day, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Jackson and the Stones. These goods, marketed by Bravado — rereleases of classic albums on red vinyl, paired with complementary album Ts — will be sold exclusively at one retailer in each of several countries, including Hot Topic in the U.S.
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H&M Eyes Expansion in U.S. and Canada
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Upper East Side, East 86th Street, Between Lexington and Second Avenues Photo by Courtesy Photo
Daniel Kulle, H&M’s new president of North America, has a can-do attitude.
Neither the recession that has sapped consumers’ fervor to shop nor the competition from lower-priced mass merchants has dampened Kulle’s desire to expand in the U.S. “The potential in the U.S. market is very big,” he said. “We have the strength of a very good business. We have the people here. We have logistics, with three distribution centers. We have the framework to move more [product].”
Of H&M’s 169 U.S. stores, most are on the East and West Coasts and in the middle of the country. Now the retailer wants to make a move on the South. In addition, Kulle said, “there’s loads of potential in Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles. We have seen that the U.S. customer likes us.”
At the opening of H&M’s 10th Manhattan unit, a 25,758-square-foot, two-level store that bowed in May on the corner of 86th Street and Lexington Avenue, 200 people waited in line for the doors to open. Meanwhile, a store opening at the Florida Mall in Orlando drew more than 800 consumers.
“At the moment, we have to open stores in the big cities,” Kulle said. “The next is Phoenix. In the long run, we’ll be looking everywhere. We will not turn down any opportunities. We can open smaller stores. That’s the beauty of it. We can
Look from the Jimmy Choo for H&M collection. Photo by Courtesy Photo
make a big, 20,000-square-foot store or a 10,000-square-foot ladies’ store in South Coast Plaza [in Costa Mesa, Calif.]. We have that flexibility.”
Kulle said stores could be segmented into women’s only, men’s only and children’s only.
“Every day we’re looking at building more distribution centers,” he said. “We want to lower operations and transportation costs. Retailing is a lot of logistics.”
H&M, which was one of the first retailers to make daily deliveries to stores, ships the same core assortment to all its units, but tests new products in smaller volumes in certain locations. Stores in big cities receive an extra fashion assortment and trendy merchandise. Use of organic cotton and recycled fabrics, including those made of wool and polyester, is growing. “It’s a demand from customers,” said Ann-Sofie Johansson, head of design.
“There’s an opportunity for new customers who may have shopped at department stores to come to our stores,” Kulle said. “Our garments and price points are the message.”
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Devi Kroell Launches Madison Ave. Flagship
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The interior of Devi Kroell’s store. Photo by George Chinsee
NEW YORK — Devi Kroell’s store is an amalgam of what the designer stands for: daring design steeped in classic techniques.
Kroell’s flagship opened Tuesday at 717 Madison Avenue in a landmark building dating from the late 1800s. The boutique offers a view into Kroell’s world, offering consumers all of the designer’s categories — including ready-to-wear, handbags, shoes and fashion jewelry — merchandised together for the first time in the 3,000-square-foot space.
“The customer doesn’t know the whole breadth and width of my designs,” Kroell said. “It’s going to be a big surprise for a lot of my customers.”
Designed by New York design firm Space4 Architecture, the old-world facade is juxtaposed with an ultramodern double-height ceiling.
“I wanted to come up with a design that will transcend time, that we can hold onto for a decade or two decades,” Kroell said.
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Funnyman Franco…Fete for Duquette…
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James Franco Photo By Steve Eichner
FUNNYMAN FRANCO: Celebrities with contractual ties to the fashion world tend to take those connections very seriously — always walking the red carpet flawlessly dressed and speaking perfectly on point. Which is why it’s so refreshing to see James Franco have fun with the hand that feeds him. The Gucci spokesman told WWD on Friday that if it weren’t for the brand giving him free clothes, “I wouldn’t know what to wear.” Now a video has popped up on funnyordie.com in which Franco spoofs his own commercial for the Gucci by Gucci fragrance. When it comes time to name-check the fragrance, Franco, doing the voice-over in a nondescript recording booth, pronounces it “Gookie by Gookie.” A producer corrects him and points out that as a spokesman he should know how to say the label. “Yeah, whatever,” Franco says. “I always thought it was Guckie.” He gives it a dozen more tries, getting increasingly frustrated, until the label devolves into a mush of slobbering sounds. “F–k you, Gooshi by Guckie,” Franco finally pleads at the end of the video and then bursts into tears. No word on whether the henley or cardigan Franco is wearing in the film is by the Italian house.
TO THE MAX: It’s not often these days that you see excess like Champagne flowing freely and oversize jewels worn with gusto. But on Monday night at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York, revelers celebrated Tony Duquette Fine Jewelry creative director Hutton Wilkinson’s new tome, “More Is More” ($75, Abrams), with such aplomb. Harper’s Bazaar editor in chief Glenda Bailey — who cohosted the event along with Saks president and chief merchandising officer Ron Frasch — pulled out a gem-studded necklace with oversize stones designed by Tony Duquette. “It was a gift for my 50th birthday,” effused Bailey, who watched as Wilkinson signed books, greeted fans and talked jewelry. “After a maximum of minimalism, this is what the world needs,” said Wilkinson, whose second book on Duquette explores the designer’s fanciful aesthetic and elaborate taste in art, decor, horticulture and jewelry. “What we all need is a visual stimulation of beauty.”
