THE CONVERSATION

On March 6, 2021, Hermès staged an online show that was designed to showcase the brand’s Fall/Winter 2021 collections in three iconic cities, New York, Paris, and Shanghai.

An expressive abstraction, the show successfully took the luxury brand’s new collections on a whirlwind of body movements around the globe while also adapting the brand’s messaging ever so slightly to address each location’s respective culture.

For those who follow the financial performance of luxury brands, it is notable that luxury goods and accessories always do better than luxury fashion, especially when global consumption in these sectors is down overall. 

During a time when GenZ and Millenials, the main customer segment of Gucci fashion, are stuck at home in lockdowns, are perhaps experiencing loss of income, and have swapped showing off their Gucci fashions in real life with making funny videos on TikTok, it is not surprising that the parent company's Kering stock fell 6% on Friday.

At CHANEL, Karl Lagerfeld worked for four decades refining and perfecting the brand's codes to ensure that cultural intelligence gets filtered through, absorbed, and transformed through a very specific framework, unique to CHANEL. These principles still ensure today, and after the passing of the torch to Viard, that the brand remains coherent while it still evolves.

Fashion is an industry with a tangible product that requires specialized systems to bring that product to market. Moreover, these products, while tangible, have inherent intangible value that relates to creativity, innovation, and design. This is exactly what reinforces a company's bottom line, even when market conditions are tough.

Virgil Abloh's new Nike book explores in depth the making of Ten Nike icons (a.k.a. "The Ten") for which the two powerhouses (Virgil Abloh and Nike) collaborated.

In addition to sharp illustrations of the Icons, the book includes details on Virgil Abloh's creative process as well as his views on contemporary cultural aspects that are tied to his interpretation and remaking of the famed shoes.

Can beauty brands benefit from cultural intelligence? Ask Pharrell Williams. He will certainly answer with a resounding yes. The American singer and popular culture icon launched a beauty line under his global brand Humanrace. Pharrell believes that the only way to market well is to create culture. 

Brand collaborations are strategic in amplifying brand equity as well as reaching into new customer segments--usually younger. 

Innovation in sustainable fashion develops organically in companies where design and manufacturing happen under the same roof.

One of the key differentiators of luxury fashion collections is the use of live mannequins in perfecting the cut, drape, and silhouette. 

  Two statements relate to Dior's presentation of its Haute Couture line for Autumn-Winter 2020-2021:It is either superbly lyrical or completely...

Only a few luxury fashion brands managed to bring their vision to life online. In some cases, it was hard to keep watching after a couple of minut...

Marie Beatrice Boyer, a seamstress at Chanel, enlisted the help of others in the French fashion industry to quickly produce face masks as Jessica Testa of The New York Times reported on July 7, 2020.