Yes, It’s True…I’m Joining Fashionista!

As of tomorrow, I’m joining Breaking Media’s Fashionista.com. But not to worry, The Fashion Beat isn’t going away. I’ll just be posting with less frequency for the first few months of my new gig. (So expect two to three posts per week instead of five to seven.) Thanks to everyone for supporting The Fashion Beat, and I hope to see you on Fashionista! Cheers, Lauren

Trendology: Tracing The Origin Of Lego Fashion

As a Lego lover, these Dee & Ricky x Roc Star brooches featured on The Chic Report caught my eye. They also got me thinking: From where did this Lego-as-jewelry trend emerge? It must go further back than the brand’s work for the Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring 2008 collection, right?

In the first installment of Trendology–a fashionable spin on entomology, or the origin of words–I’ve attempted to pin the starting point of Lego fashion as we know it in 2010.

Like many trends, it’s been bubbling for quite some time. In fact, the first high-fashion interpretation of traditional Lego “culture,” if you will, occurred in 2004 when Brazilian designer Jum Nakao created Lego hair helmets for his Spring 2005 collection. Here’s a time line of key moments in Lego fashion, starting with Nakao.

2004

• Brazilian designer Jum Nakao creates crazy black Lego hair helmets for his Spring 2005 collection that resemble Anna Wintour’s bob.

2007

• Balenciaga debuts a Lego-inspired shoe for its Fall 2007 runway show.
• Dee & Ricky become fashion-household names when Marc Jacobs’ then-boyfriend Jason Preston meets the SoHo duo. Of course, he introduces them to the designer. Jacobs uses their Lego pins in his Marc by Marc Spring 2008 runway show.

2008

• Kanye West rocks D&R’s heart pin. Fashion girls squeal with delight.
• Several style Web sites offer D.I.Y. tutorials on Lego accessories.
• Neiman Marcus uses life-sized Lego models in its holiday catalog.
• East London designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac creates Lego accessories for his Spring 2009 collection.

2009

• Balenciaga sues knock-off king Steve Madden for copying its Lego-inspired heels.
• Lego attempts to cash-in on its trendiness by introducing a limited edition series of architectural micro-scale models of famous buildings like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water.

2010

• Design team Dee & Ricky create a series of bird pins with Japanese label Rock Star.

Guest Commentary: Sorry, But Fashion Is Not A Celebration Of The Everywoman

Image: Karl Lagerfeld for V Magazine

I adore fashion and I have never been thin. My size has taunted and tormented me for as long as I can remember, not because I necessarily wanted to be thin as much as I wanted to look different in clothes. It’s difficult to trust someone who says they love fashion when their appearance screams comfort, practicality or negligence, so in many ways I have always felt like something of a fraud. Even today, few things intimidate me more than a skinny, well-dressed peer. (Ed. note: WHA? For the record, Streib is fashionable and beautiful.)

But the never-ending and nauseating discussions of whether the idolization of super-skinny models and celebrities is ruining our culture—brought to light most recently with V magazine’s current size issue, which includes plus size models—is absurd. I’ll be the first one to admit that any issues I have with my size are fueled by my own insecurities, not because fashion magazines are beckoning me to fit some fabricated ideal. I’m never going to feel more comfortable with my body by seeing Crystal Renn in a bikini. Why? Because she’s just as gorgeous as any size two professional model.

Fashion magazines are not a celebration of the Everywoman, just like cooking magazines don’t include images of frozen TV dinners. Aspiration is part of the editorial appeal, it’s all about what’s new, what’s different, whatever can convince you to buy the magazine. V is getting tons of publicity because of this issue, which is great for them. But pretending that this is suddenly going to revolutionize the fashion industry or make women more accepting of their bodies is ludicrous. It’s the same thing in a different package.

Fashion is a business. Publishing is a business. Self-confidence, health, personal style…these are not things that can be purchased.

Lauren Streib is a journalist living in Brooklyn. She’s written for Forbes, The Daily Beast, Marie Claire and of course, The Fashion Beat.

Another ed. note: Magazines don’t give girls anorexia, their parents–pushing them to be perfect in every way–do. Growing up, I was certainly not a size O and I loved fashion magazines. Yet I’ve always been self confident because my mother was constantly telling me how beautiful and smart I was. While I commend V for its effort, I do think this is going to have a similar effect as the Italian Vogue “black” issue did: very little. Someday, I hope to see women of all sizes and colors in every magazine. Not because it’s politically correct, but because it’s more beautiful.

So Cheesy, Yet So Brilliant: Fashionista University

Fashion designer Kathlin Argiro, publicist Gwen Wunderlich-Smith and designer Courtney Zellmer have dreamed up a brilliant moneymaker that harks back to those John Casablancas modeling courses that were so popular when I was in middle school. At Fashionista University, teens who have watched way too many episodes of Project Runway and The City get a chance to take a course in fashion design or public relations and meet industry professionals ranging from designers to journalists to stylists.

While the program’s Web site design is more Bratz than Teen Vogue, the concept is actually pretty smart. Classes, which are $600 per person, take place at a working design studio in Manhattan’s Garment District. Students also get a chance to attend a show at New York Fashion Week.

And unlike Teen Vogue’s Fashion University, registration is first come, first served. However, each class is limited to just 25 people, so if you have a little sister or brother who you’d like to enroll, visit Fashionistauniversity.com asap. Classes start January 16.

Richemont/Prada Deal Rumor: Might Not Be True, But Let’s Hope It Is

Execs at Prada have vehemently denied the NY Post report that luxury goods conglomerate Richemont might scoop up a 30% stake in the company, which has amassed $1.7 billion in debt after failed acquisitions of Jil Sander (now owned by private equity firm Change Capital Partners) Helmut Lang (now owned by Link Theory Holdings) and others over the last two decades. I–and my sources–are not so sure that the report is true, but I’m also not going so far as to say that I think it’s “silly,” as an anonymous person did in WWD this morning. They’ve most certainly talked to Richemont over the past six months.

Why? Because they’ve had to. The fact is, Prada is in some deep sh*t and they need a trustworthy company with lots of money to help pull them out. While designer Miuccia Prada remained a critical favorite over the last decade, her husband–CEO Patrizio Bertelli–is seen by industry insiders as somewhat of a piranha. Along with the bad business decisions Bertelli’s made–numerous attempts at an IPO, poorly executed acquisitions and increasing the price point of the Mui Mui diffusion line, thus losing the entry-level luxury consumer as a customer–the label has also gotten flack for its diminished quality and questionable labor practices (best illustrated in Dana Thomas’ 2007 investigation Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster).

Do I think Richemont is the right conglomerate to pull Prada out of the red? Maybe. Like the Post says, it’s marquee brands are jewelry and watch makers, including Cartier, IWC and Van Cleef and Arpels.

However, Richemont also owns well-regarded and popular fashion labels Chloe and Alaia, which Prada would fit well with. However, as much as Prada could use the added infrastructure sure to be provided by Richemont, in the end it will be a private investor that saves the company. I just can’t see Bertelli giving up that much control, unless there’s some sort of hostile takeover.

Gilt Teams Up With Vogue For “Shop The Issue” Sales, Starting Tonight At 9pm

What may well be its most brilliant marketing move yet, Gilt Groupe has teamed up with American Vogue to hold special “Shop The Issue” sales. The first one happens tonight at 9pm and features See by Chloe, whose safari shirt was profiled by fashion writer Mark Holgate in the January issue of the magazine.

There is very little information available from Gilt–meaning no press release, no blog post–so I’m unsure as to whether or not other designers from the issue will also be featured or if the clothing will be discounted. (I have a feeling that if it is, it won’t be by much. Don’t expect 70% off in-season merchandise here.)

I’ve contacted Gilt and hopefully they can answer my questions. I’ll get back to you soonest.

Update:

The sale is filled with non-discounted items from several labels, including Dooney & Bourke, Giles & Brother and the aforementioned See By Chloe.

The model is doing a lot of Vogue spread-inspired poses.

Gilt is using Vogue’s new feature Steal of the Month as the centerpiece for each sale. That’s a good idea, as long as the designers involved are okay with selling his/her new goods on Gilt.

This biggest news here? Gilt has moved into full-price retail. Yes, it’s still a flash sale, but without the discount, what’s the point?  Gilt execs say that traditional retailers don’t understand the flash sale model. Will they be able to duplicate its success while charging full price?

Emersonmade Proves That It’s Never Too Early To Revive A Trend

When I first received a Facebook message from Emersonmade, a Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based brand specializing in fabric floral pins, I assumed it was another crappy, desperate label trying conjure a bit of press from an “up-and-coming” fashion blog. I might have been right about the push for press, but I was definitely wrong about the concept and quality of the product.

Emersonmade is doing something rebellious with its poppies, roses and dahlias. It’s attempting to revive a trend last taken seriously around 2000, when Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw made flowers as ubiquitous as Manolos on Sex and The City. This style was certainly not for everyone–some found the often-garish flowers to be vomit-inducing–but overall, it was seen as a sweet, playful accoutrement. Until it wasn’t.

But while Bradshaw’s flowers were wild, outlandish and above all, exaggerated, Emersonmade’s versions–in beautiful, muted colors like dusty pink and denim blue–are classic, preppy and definitely beautiful. It helps that the two founders, a married couple who recently moved to New Hampshire after spending ten years living in SoHo, are so fresh-faced that they could pass for a pair of J.Crew models. The floral pins of the early Naughts may have been worthy of Elle or Glamour magazine, but pieces from Emersonmade belong in Martha Stewart Weddings, on Design Sponge or maybe even in the Vogue Index.

By the way, Mickey Drexler, if you’re reading this: I would immediately approach Emersonmade regarding a collaboration with J.Crew. Glen Sank’s people over at Anthropologie are surely already on the case.

Full disclosure: Emersonmade sent me a box of floral pins before the holidays. While I haven’t worn one yet, it’s been useful because I was able to make sure the items were solidly constructed. (There is not a stitch out of place and the fabric is anything but flimsy.) Be the first to email me on lauren@tfbeat.com and I’ll send you this gorgeous Big Dandy clutch, which is going to be very difficult to part with!

Decade List: Ten Moments In Fashion That Changed The Business

Like every industry, fashion suffered quite a bit in the Naughts, with enough shuttered labels and disgruntled consumers for an aspiring fashionista to throw in her Hermes towel. However, in my opinion, the triumphs outweighed the missteps.

While the democratization of fashion may have feathered some ruffles, it–in the end–helped to establish a stronger, more lucrative industry. Here, in the spirit of those top ten lists that I know you love reading, I’ve named the ten moments over the last ten years I that believe changed the business of fashion. Maybe not forever, but at least for now.

2000: H&M Opens in the US
In high school, I read a lot of British magazines. (Yes, I was a bit of an anglophile, watching Are You Being Served when I didn’t have lacrosse practice after school.) I soon understood that while British women were terribly obsessed with fashion, they were also obsessed with not paying exorbitant amounts of money for said fashion. In the pages of British Vogue I discovered H&M, a Swedish retailer that sold clothes rivaling Target in price and Prada in style. By the time I was interning in New York City at a downtown magazine, H&M had arrived on 5th Avenue.

After work I’d take the N up to Rockefeller Center and spend an hour rifling through racks of asymmetrical blouses, wide-leg trousers and colorful plastic baubles.  H&M went on to change American retail, heralding in the concept of fast fashion–clothing that is made cheaply, stylishly and above all, quickly. Soon enough, European favorites like Zara, Topshop and Mango were also infiltrating US shores, leaving All-American basic labels like Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch in the dust.

2001: Vente Privee Launches
Remember life before Gilt Groupe? If you responded by saying “not really,” you’ve got to thank its predecessor, the France-based Vente Privee. You all know the story: Company launches exclusive online sample sales, reports $800 million in revenue in 2008. A decade later, the private sale is the hottest retail model around.

2001: PPR Wins Gucci
After an epic battle between billionaire Bernard Arnault of Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) and billionaire Francois Pinnault of PPR, the latter finally gained control of the Gucci Group, which includes Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent and more. As PPR moved from discount retail into the world of high luxury, it was obvious to designers that being a part of a big conglomerate like LVMH, PPR or Richemont was a way to build a brand without sacrificing design integrity. The corporate infrastructure of these companies helped brands like Balenciaga, Stella McCartney and Edun to increase profits through fragrance, accessories and other well-thought-out licensing deals.

2003: Target Signs Isaac Mizrahi
When Target brought him on to design a women’s fashion collection in 2003, Isaac Mizrahi was nothing more than a 1990s flash in the pan, better known for his documentary Unzipped and a short-lived talk show than beautiful preppy-glam clothing. Yet women couldn’t get enough of what Mizrahi offered at Target: Shiny shift dresses, polka dot blouses and pointy flats. By 2005, the cheap-chic collection garnered $500 million in sales for Target. Mizrahi has since moved onto Liz Claiborne, but his work at Target made it okay for high-end designers to collaborate with low-end retailers.

2004: Rachel Zoe Becomes a Household Name
While celebrity stylists have been around for decades, it was the Naughts that made them rich and independently famous. When Rachel Zoe transformed train wreck Nicole Richie into a chic hippie, she also made big sunglasses, tiered prairie dresses and honey-highlighted hair the look du jour. Today, stylists command thousands of dollars per day for their services, and more and more young women are clamoring to follow in their footsteps.

2005: LVMH Sells Lacroix, Proving that Fashion is More About Commerce than Art
After standing by his money-sucking side for nearly 20 years, LVMH exec Arnault finally sold off Christian Lacroix’s failing fashion business to Florida-based investment company Fallic Group for a measly 2 million euros. We all know how the story ended: Fallic was unable to revive the brand, which made beautiful six-figure couture dresses but could not connect with a consumer at the fragrance, accessory and ready-to-wear levels. It was reduced to a licensing operation at the end of 2009. As sad as it is that Lacroix is not making his beautiful dresses, his struggles serve as an example for the rest of the fashion industry. The lesson: If you want to stay small, stay small, but if you want to make a lot of money, you’ve got to play by retail’s rules. Design may be an art, but fashion is a business.

Jil Sander and Others Lose the Rights to Their Own Names
Another indication that fashion is serious stuff: After disagreements with their corporate backers, designers like Jil Sander, Helmut Lang and Camilla Staerk have lost the rights to their name brands, which are also their given names. Jil Sander returned with +J for Uniqlo, Lang stopped designing altogether to do fine art and Staerk now designs under her surname.

Versace, Ferragamo and Prada Hint At–But Don’t Go Through With–IPOs
From whispers at Salvatore Ferragamo and Versace in 2006 to Tommy Hilfiger, and Prada’s de-listing–then hopes of re-listing–at several points throughout the decade, many fashion companies sought out public funds, but for one reason or another, were not able to actually attain them. Of course, the 2008 crash made raising money even more difficult. Yet Hilfiger, Versace and Prada still haven’t ruled out public offerings. The Teens may just be the decade of fashion IPOs.

2005: LVMH Starts Suing the Heck out of Copyright Infringees
From eBay to Wal-Mart to Bad Boy Records, LVMH crusaded against counterfeit handbags and copyright infringements in the last half of this decade. The lawsuits resulted in an industry-wide debate over what could-and couldn’t-be copied. Intellectual property lawyers prayed to the Louis Vuitton gods each day, thanking them for making their profession more lucrative than ever.

2006: Tom Ford Proves You Can Still Build A Luxury Brand From (Almost) Scratch
After years of conglomerates buying the rights to old fashion houses and hiring the Next Big Designer to revive the brand, Tom Ford did something radical. He broke away from Gucci (where he had played the corporate fashion game, making both said brand and YSL financially viable) and launched a label under his own moniker. Tom Ford currently consists of fragrance–a partnership with Estee Lauder–men’s suiting, shirts, shoes, sunglasses and a few discreet shops that keep customer’s measurements on file for bespoke services. Next step? Women’s wear. Could Ford be THE brand of the Teens? I sure think so.

What Really Happened At Phi?

Phi, a much-hyped fashion label based in New York and backed by Susan Dell (yes, wife of Dell computer founder Michael Dell), announced yesterday that it was closing its doors due to recessionary woes.

I’m sure the recession had something to do with Phi’s shuttering, but I can’t help but question the real motivation behind this closure. How could a brand with so much hype and positive press fail during what seemed like its pinnacle?  (It was beloved by the folks at Vogue and also well-dressed socialites like Vanessa Traina and Dree Hemingway.)

In the end, Phi is pure proof that hype–and great press–doesn’t always result in sales. As a source familiar with the situation told me this morning, “It was just too niche. Great design, very hip and cool. But it appealed to a very limited audience.”

The source went on to say that Susan Dell was still pouring quite a bit of money into the company; she didn’t want to fund it any more.

What differentiates Phi from a similarly-styled–but infinitely more successful–brand like Alexander Wang? Momentum. Wang burst onto the scene in 2007 and quickly became a commercial hit. Phi, on the other hand, launched in 2003 and only began attracting substantial attention from the consumer press over the past two years. In fashion, like any other business, success has a lot to do with timing.

Label To Watch: Heavy Machine

I first heard about Taipei-based shoe label Heavy Machine on Style Bubble, my favorite personal style blog.

But while Ms. Susie Bubble pinned down the shoe’s aesthetics–a cool mix of colorful industrial plastic and smooth, sculptural lines–I wanted to know why two young women, educated at F.I.T. in New York, Palimoda in Florence and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, would want to move back to Taiwan to launch a shoe business when they were clearly talented enough to succeed in a cutthroat fashion capital.

So I emailed founders Michelle Wu and Yoyo Pan and asked. And yes, I also also bought a pair of shoes.

The Fashion Beat: Why are you based in Taipei and not New York, London or Paris?

Heavy Machine’s Michelle Wu: Because Taipei’s where we’re from and where our families are. Besides wanting to be physically close to them (which is very Asian), the cost to start up something in our own town is much lower.

TFB: Do you think you’ll stay where you are?

MW: It’s a tough question, this one.

TFB: What stores are carrying your Spring 2010 collection?

MW: So far it’s Babelfair (New York), Helianthus (New York), Mr. T (Taipei, Taiwan), Sole (Xinzhu, Taiwan) and Le Lutin (Shanghai). (Still working on the other possibilities!)

TFB: On your Web site, you talk about making shoes that women can run in. What technologies have you used to create more comfortable footwear?

MW: Nothing technically special. But we spent a lot of time developing and adjusting our shoe’s last shape to make it as comfy as possible.

TFB: Finally, what drew you to shoe design in the first place?

MW: We love shoes. We believe a good pair of shoes will take you to everywhere! It was hard for us to find affordable interesting shoes in our town, so we just started creating our own.