Category: luxury
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Conran Shop–Modern Britain’s Original Tastemaker
The lessons for us all: “Don’t diversify and dilute unique origins & heritage. Focus on them, build on them, and make them relevant for today.” Terence Conran was a young designer in the early 1970s who was inspired on a visit to Amsterdam. He loved the way that Dutch houses left open their curtains at…
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Is a global fashion business without global creativity the biggest waste of human resources?
I’ve always found it very strange that many of the factories that are required to churn out mindless, repetitive fashions for global brands, are in countries which naturally have the most beautiful fabrics, designs, colours, fashion sense, and artisan skills to create extraordinary and original clothing. It is even stranger when you consider that the…
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Uniqlo: ‘Now a luxury that none of us can afford to ignore!’
Technical materials development has always been at the heart of Uniqlo’s evolution as a producer and retailer. But for many customers, fibres & fabrics alone, no matter how innovative are not enough. They want more fashion and styling in what they choose to buy and wear. Enter Uniqlo’s latest appointment in the shape of its…
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House of Hackney: Home for inspiration.
in accessories, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, ethical retailing, home, in-store services, internationalisation, location strategy, luxury, new retail, omni-channel retailing, Pinterest Gallery, product suppliers, retail, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, store layout, store theatre, sustainability, telling product stories, visual merchandisingThe lessons for us all: “To build a beautiful retail proposition that engages and attracts remarkable loyalty and trust, a business must move beyond product and price, no matter how attractive. Beauty and loyalty now come through the incarnation of a mission, of values and qualities that are expressed through product, people, environments and actions.”…
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House of Hackney: Inspirational Pinterest gallery
in accessories, branding & visual communication, customer experience, customer service, customer-engagement, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, home, in-store services, internationalisation, location strategy, luxury, Pinterest Gallery, product suppliers, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, store experience, store layout, store theatre, sustainability, telling product stories, visual merchandisingIn a Victorian townhouse in London Fields, Frieda Gormley and Javvy M Royle first dreamed up home furnishings & furniture brand House of Hackney. Today, the team has grown to a family of artists, designers, producers and collaborators. The brand now sells across the globe, with a showroom in New York and partner retailers worldwide.…
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Why we should all be talking ‘Best-seller materials’ and not ‘Best-seller products?’
in assortment structure planning, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, fashion accessories, fast fashion, footwear, ladies fashion, luxury, meaning in the retail madness, menswear, new retail, pre-loved, preorder, product suppliers, re-sell, recycling, retail, retail businesses, retail strategy, secondhand, supply-chains, sustainabilityI was asked yesterday what circular fashion production and RFID tagging had to do with better ‘best-seller’ product selection, less worst sellers, and therefore less waste and all the sustainable benefits of that. The answer is nothing. RFID is an identification and data tool. The skill of designers & buyers, supported by predictive analytics, is…
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The ‘Phantom Thread.’ The most valuable technology of our modern lives?
in analytics, assortment structure planning, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, internationalisation, ladies fashion, luxury, menswear, new retail, personalisation, pre-loved, product suppliers, re-sell, recycling, renting, retail, retail businesses, retail strategy, secondhand, supply-chains, sustainability, technology & electricalLet’s be clear. Sooner or later, either through choice, customer sentiment, or legislation, we will all be selling less things. Certainly as ‘retailers as a whole’ and, as individual businesses. This will be the ‘Journey of a lifetime’ for a retail industry built on volume growth, and a distinct change of direction for the journeys…
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Harri: With creativity comes responsibility.
Harri is already a household name to many, yet he is only 3 years out from graduating from the London College of Fashion, and 2 years on from founding his fashion brand. Clearly Harri was always a mavaric, seeing the world and his work through a particularly individual lens. His graduate collection, ‘Let’s put him…
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ADIAMELIAS: Allowing the supply chain to make, not break, your brand proposition
in accessories, assortment structure planning, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, fashion accessories, ladies fashion, luxury, meaning in the retail madness, new retail, personalisation, preorder, product suppliers, retail, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, supply-chains, sustainability, telling product storiesI’ve been talking to a lot of people recently about the supply chain, how to reshape it, and how to make it an intrinsic part of your brand, if not actually the USP of the proposition. For too many years the general mind-set has been to simply source and ship from wherever we can get…
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London College of Fashion’s inspirational designers light the way for new students.
in accessories, branding & visual communication, brave-words, disruptive retail, ethical retailing, fashion accessories, footwear, jewellery, ladies fashion, luxury, meaning in the retail madness, new retail, pop-up stores, retail, retail brand heritage, retail businesses, retail management, retail organisations, retail strategy, shop of the future, sustainability, telling product storiesOne of the biggest thrills of being involved in the London College of Fashion Collaborative Challenge is meeting the amazing young designers from the LCF alumni. It re-enforces to me the fact that fashion is not about the process of buying & merchandising, it is about the inspirational people who put their heart and souls…
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