Online
In conjunction with long-term collaborator, Rem Koolhaas’ company OMA, Prada has launched an initiative, Prada Prototypes, which is an online auction of limited-edition Prada garments and accessories.
The ‘Prada Prototypes’ auction features 24 pieces including dresses, skirts, bags and shoes all hand-selected by Miuccia Prada. Initially created for the catwalk, the pieces have never appeared or been produced with the specific colour or material and some pieces have been made specifically for the auction.
The auction website lets bidders personalize the process by allowing them to include information about themselves, photo, or links to their websites. Bidders can also track the bid history of individual pieces through a graphic chart.
The Prada Protoypes idea works on several layers, both tactically and strategically. It creates a minor revenue stream for the brand, while also communicating ideas of couture, personalization, and buzz for the Prada brand.
In a marketplace where luxury brands still struggle with online representations of their brand personality, it’s a smart solution
To see the project in action, visit Prada.com and click on the Prototype Auction tab
Economics
Although millionaires reportedly “no longer feel wealthy”, they also feel optimistic that the economic situation from next January will be much brighter.
The millionaire mentality is that “today’s problem as tomorrow’s opportunity” and they are seeking to benefit…
Using a scale ranging from minus 100 as the worst to 100 as the best, the survey found that high net-worth individuals have a minus 50, or “very weak,” view of the economy right now. But when asked where things will be next January, the grade rises to a positive 18. — (Via Associated Press)
Fashion
One of the strategic issues around the weakening economy is that luxury brands have become increasingly aggressive at defending their trademarks, copyrights, and positioning against competitors.
The most unfortunate recent example is the case of Louis Vuitton vs. Nadia Plesner, a student trying to draw attention to the situation in Darfur…
Louis Vuitton has filed charges against a 26 year old student artist for selling posters and t-shirts of a Darfur victim, holding a designer bag inspired by a Louis Vuitton design. All of the profits had been going to charity but Louis Vuitton is still demanding massive damages. — (Via TorrentFreak)
It’s particularly ironic after the recent Louis Vuitton Brooklyn exhibition where the brand paid a knowing tribute to the brand’s famous street hawkers (See Louis Vuitton’s street hawkers)
But Louis Vuitton is not alone…
Gucci has recetly moved aggressively on Chinese counterfeits — (Via Reuters)
Juicy Couture has just challenged Victoria’s Secret on derriere-based logo activity — (Via Yahoo!)
And it can’t be long before Nokia’s Vertu brand takes on Veptu
Strategy
The relationship between brands, art, and business is getting ever closer. There is a growing sense that a good balance between the three elements can represent a win-win-win situation where creativity and business can co-exist and mutually support each other.
The movement is growing, and global.
In Japan, fashion collaborations have inspired the rest of the world…
Collaborations have become such a widespread fashion marketing tactic in the last 20 years that some in style circles have dubbed the practice “the C word.” — (Via The Japan Times)
While in London, a new exhibition shows how the worlds of architecture and fashion have been growing ever closer for the last 25 years.
The show starts with the 1980s and the early graphic work of the architect Zaha Hadid, although Hodge admits that she would have liked to have included fashion’s avant garde of the 1960s from Pierre Cardin to Paco Rabanne. — (Via International Herald Tribune)
And in the US, artists and collectors are whipping up a new economy cycle of creativity and investment…
Both artists and collectors have at this point embraced the idea that there’s nothing wrong with artists being motivated by money, and indeed they’ve created something of a virtuous cycle: an artist creates the kind of art that rich collectors want, which fuels demand for that artist, which drives up his prices, which makes him even more desirable, and so on. — (Via Portfolio)
Airlines
Eos Airlines, the all-business airline once considered the brightest contender in its category has announced that it has files for bankruptcy protection
The airline will halt operations immediately.
Analysts concluded last year that the viability of the all-business category was in doubt, after MaxJet disappeared earlier this year, and now Eos is grounded, the only major contender is now SilverJet.
The airline reconfigured Boeing 757s meant for 220 passengers with 48 seats that could extend into a fully flat bed. Flights served wine, champagne, cocktails and gourmet foods. There were individual DVD players, and helicopter rides to the airport were offered to some travelers. The price for the New York to London flights, which it offered twice a day, ranged from $3,500 to $9,000 roundtrip. — (Via Associated Press)
Meanwhile the one remaining contender, SilverJet has just landed a $25M lifeline which will support it to the end of the year, but factors beyond its control continue to cause worry.
Silverjet’s survival will owe much to the praise that passengers have heaped on the airline for its service. However, like other airlines it will still struggle to become profitable this year with oil prices at $120 a barrel. — (Via The Times, UK)
Marketing
Amnesty International have just released a devastating film showing the horrors of waterboarding. The fact that it is shot as a spoof of a luxury water commercial only adds to the power of the message.
Not the latest advert for a luxury brand of bottled water, but a disturbing new film depicting the process of waterboarding, the controversial interrogation method used by US security services. — (Via The Telegraph, UK)
Watch the Amnesty International spot.
Ironically the TV spot comes weeks after the controversial new Tom Ford campaign which shows a similar image, but using champagne. The Tom Ford campaign has run into problems in some of the countries in which it has been shown, and this image has been banned in Italy.
Tom Ford has always been inspired by cultural zeitgeists, but whether or not his champagne waterboarding was intentional, is more difficult to say.
Automotive
Lexus have just launched their Luxury Awaits initiative. The website is a guide to the finer things in life.
However, although Lexus is known as a luxury brand, it is not easily associated with being an arbiter of the perfect luxury lifestyle. The breadth of luxurious things on which Lexus is an expert is ambitious, to say the least.
The take-away from the initiative is something that doesn’t really do Lexus or the ‘luxury lifestyle’ any favors…
Advice and facts cleaned from Luxury Awaits include…
Why not paint your apartment!
Singapore is Asia’s newest destination!
How to buy art - you no longer have to go to Dubai (?!)
Buying old records is easy!
Popcorn is delicious!
Look at a menu before you reserve!
White wine with chicken, red wine for beef.
All this - and, of course - Alicia Keys. It not wrong, but it feels very far from right.
VISIT LUXURY AWAITS
Accessories
This morning, LVMH followed through on its recent statement that it was on the acquisition trail and announced that it had bought Hublot, an upmarket Swiss watchmaker with 2007 sales of nearly $150M, and a particularly strong presence in China and India.
The acquisition of Hublot brings it into LVMH’s existing watch portfolio of TAG Heuer, Dior Montres, and Louis Vuitton watches.
Hublot was founded by Carlo Crocco in 1980. The Geneva-headquartered company has a selective distribution network limited to 300 stores worldwide and LVMH said Hublot was expected to have “very significant increase in revenue” in 2008. — (Via Reuters)
The deal also suggests that watches are replacing bags as the most competitive area in the global luxury marketplace. We can expect more watchmaker acquisitions in the months to come.
Fashion
Over the last few years, fashion designers and show producers - such as highly influential Alex Betak - have moved increasingly away from traditional fashion week venues in search of places that are more peculiar, show-stopping, creative and press-worthy…
W magazine says a “Plain Jane” runway show — one with a white backdrop and no stunts or special sets — is like a tree falling in the forest that no one hears. — (Via NY Magazine)
But although finding new locations is the latest version of runway innovation, designers have always been trying to upstage each other… The original culprit, it seems, was Karl Lagerfeld in 1974 who accessorized a Chloe model out with a live green parrot…
Read about Karl’s parrot, the “high fashion Pocahanteses” on the Diorient Express and more at NY magazine…
Pop culture
Luxury fashion brands appear to be in the grip of a toy onslaught…
First came news that Karl Lagerfeld had collaborate with Bearbrick to create Chanel versions.
Then Karl Lagerfeld himself was immortalized Next, the German toy company Steiff announced that a Karl Lagerfeld bear would be released in 2008 in Colette to coincide with fashion week.
And now, the infantilization continues as Dior fights back with Hello Kitty. The June edition of Vogue will feature Hello Kitty wearing Dior…
The fashion spread will show Kitty modeling the latest autumn and winter designs by John Galliano for the Dior brand, posing with the designer and enjoying a shopping spree in Paris.
“Of course this is the first time the historic fashion house of Dior has had a cartoon character model their entire collection,” said an official at Conde Nast Japan. — (Via Reuters)
It looks as though size zero models are not the problem, it’s the sub zero models that are the growing threat…
