Today’s headline: ‘Specifications for the way we live now‘ by Financial Times writer Rachel Sanderson announces the merging of fast fashion via the Italian retail company Pinko with the Slow Fashion notions of Alessandra Facchinetti, who was abruptly dismissed from Valentino via a press release after two well-received seasons. This collaboration – a collection called Uniqueness – delivers the concept of Slow Fashion to the masses via a fast fashion retail outlet, and compliments the business model by building out a lifestyle showcase via social media: in essence, the perfect storm!

Alessandra Facchinetti

Ms. Facchinetti has joined several of her peers (Jil Sander for Uniqlo, Olivier Theyskens for Theory) who have departed from the major luxury brands after finding distaste with the politics, and subsequently found refuge with retailers. However, this collaboration is unique in that the “fast fashion” garments will be quick-to-market but designed and presented as seasonless, a concept which flies in the face of all things “fast”. In the case of Ms. Facchinetti, she has partnered with Pinko, an upper-mass market retailer of fast fashion, in order to sell fashions that are seasonless, well-crafted and altogether “slower” than the trend-oriented stock normally carried by Pinko stores.

‘“I really had the desire to break the system; to make what I like, present it and sell it.”

Hence the fact that Uniqueness will have a catwalk presentation this week and afterwards the 60-piece collection will go on sale on www.uniqueness.it and multibrand site www.thecorner.com. It will also be sold in some department stores and on their websites. The collection is aimed at “no season” and “the fabrics give a feeling of not needing to be changed every six months”. Think cotton, polyester and chiffon.’

The notion of no-season garments being carried by a fast fashion retailer is incredibly interesting! Surely the threat of consumers being satisfied by garments that can be worn all year will be overridden by the belief that Ms. Facchinetti will continue to produce designs that consumers simply cannot resist. Another interesting point is that Pinko and Ms. Facchinetti are combating the belief that fast fashion involves low quality by pairing a strict Made in Italy policy with a reasonable price point:

‘As with Theyskens’ collection for Theory, the pricing for Facchinetti’s venture is aimed at the high-middle market: T-shirts start at €90 ($121), and most of the collection is about €200 to €500. The most expensive item is €1,200 for a fake fur jacket. All the clothes are made in Italy, at Ms Facchinetti’s specification, in a factory in Fidenza. “We’ve managed to get a good balance between quality and price point. It is really well done,” she says.’

Further elevating the image of the collection, Ms. Facchinetti will bring with her a lifestyle aspect to the collaboration via social media. She will develop content with various interesting characters in order to provide an aspirational-yet-accessible dream world around the collection. This practice has become a critical component to many brands, both at the luxury and mass level. However, it has become clear that although luxury brands often have the most interesting stories, characters and histories to work with, it is often the mass brands who are making a greater effort to explore the potential of the digital world. Ms. Facchinetti will be bridging the gap by articulating her glamorous lifestyle with accessible content.

‘The Uniqueness website is also going to work as hub for a lifestyle alla Facchinetti. She will be writing on Twitter and Facebook, and have readers help her create a mood board. Ms Facchinetti, a music buff and the daughter of an Italian rock star, will be making her own playlists and inviting her DJ friends to add their own music choices as added inspiration for her designs.’

This collaborative effort brings seasonless, “slow” fashion into the mass market while utilizing a fashion-forward digital strategy and retailer. It will be interesting to see how the collection is received.

Read the full article at FT.com.

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Fashion magazines are suddenly getting into the retailing business.

While the glossies have long had a reputation for accommodating the designers they cover, sometimes guaranteeing coverage to those who advertise in their pages, a wave of new ventures and partnerships suggests they are willing to go even further by selling the designers’ clothes.

It is a move that is raising some eyebrows in the industry, as magazines like Vogue, GQ and Esquire, struggling to survive in an online world, could potentially become competitors to stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Barneys New York.

To be clear, it is not the magazines who are selling the fashion – they are merely referring the reader to a point of purchase in a more direct way than could happen in the past through print alone (without a direct web-link or barcode). This is essentially affiliate marketing. The logic of this content+affiliate marketing business model has been amplified in recent years with the proliferation of technologies that enable e-commerce websites to understand where their traffic is coming from, as well as technologies that enable consumers to scan samples from the pages of a magazine with smartphone apps such as RedLaser – all parts have fallen into place to capitalize on the built-in audience of trusting magazine readers, and to follow their actions from the pages of a magazine to an e-commerce site where the transactions occur.

Further, I believe that NYTimes writer Eric Wilson makes an excellent point in highlighting the fact that retailers – AND brands, I might add – have been in the content-producing game for years. Whether through the Barneys catalogs or LVMH’s www.nowness.com, there is media competition coming from all sides for the simple fact that brands and retailers need to control their brand message.

In the end, I believe that a unique form of affiliate marketing for fashion publications will be more a complimentor than a competitor to brick-and-mortar stores. They can help the department stores and boutiques understand what is selling before going to market, and can take on the riskier items and still maintain a reputation as being a beacon for fashion trends.

The only real risk I see here is one that has not yet been addressed, and that has nothing to do with competition, although it may eventually affect advertisers within the magazines. Fashion magazines and their online counterparts, like Vogue and Style.com, exist to thrill readers with the hottest looks in fashion, and also to deliver styled looks mixed from a range of samples provided by their advertisers. This serves to educate the audience on trends, and drives them to buy from advertisers, including retailers. I believe the focus on monetizing fashion recommendations may lead magazines like Vogue to dilute the high-fashion message and push items with a lower price tag or greater mass-appeal in order to drive up revenue. And THAT is where the message of high-fashion pioneering would be lost and the beacon extinguished, thus destroying a powerful tool of high-fashion marketing for brands and retailers alike.

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Not many weeks ago, I was introduced to Paul Ward’s blog on his website covering a subject I love: Customer Experience Management. As a frequent reader of many a business blog, I was struck by this guy’s humor and was impressed with the quality of his writing. He presents a much more engaging picture of customer experience than what you’re likely to find in your typical business school, which – now that I think about it – is pretty ironic (ie, if you’re going to TEACH customer experience, and your students are more or less your customers, you probably should not bore them to tears). Plus, this guy clearly knows his stuff!

Never being satisfied with my own blog – the design is never quite right, I can’t tweak the theme enough, I write too much, etc – it wasn’t long into my look around Mr. Ward’s blog before I thought, “Damn, this is a nice site.” I checked the source code, which led me to a website publishing company in New York called Squarespace.

Wow.

I checked out the blog examples they have posted on the Squarespace site from other customers who have used their software and hosting service. Not only did I find some really sweet new blogs for my morning read, but each one was designed completely unique from the rest …and all were beautiful! Then I watched their little tour on how you can use their service to design your website, and this (to me) was the most impressive part. You can virtually do anything to design your site just as you like it, and with absolutely no knowledge of coding. Now, I know there are other companies out there who are developing this kind of “do it yourself” software with cloud computing, but I have never seen something so well-designed and user-friendly. Of course, at this point I was kicking myself from going with another hosting company and buying a theme mere weeks before this discovery.

However, I really felt like I should do something to let them know how seriously impressed I was. I submitted a message through their contact form, thanking them for putting an awesome product out there, and no kidding- within 10 minutes I had a response from an actual human. Maybe this is not as impressive until you consider that they are a small team in New York, and it was 5 a.m. there when I sent my note. Here’s what they wrote:

Hi Ashley,

Thanks for taking the time to write in to us about this.  It’s rare that even our clients take the time to write in to compliment our service, but even more so that folks that aren’t yet clients do so.  We really appreciate the compliments on our system and I’ll be sure to pass them along to our staff.  We look forward to having you switch to Squarespace just as soon as you’re ready.  If you have any questions when you do, we’ll be here.

Cheers!

To break that down into simple steps, here’s what happened in a very small amount of time:

1. They pre-sold their services just by having a good product- the results speak for themselves, and people (like me) seek them out after seeing their product put to use
2. They sealed the deal with their ease-of-use and INCREDIBLE customer service (although I am not even a customer yet)
3. The experience has made me a fan, and I’ve already told a bunch of people about the company, several of whom have already signed up. (Because honestly, a fan makes a better salesman than… a salesman.)

Leave it to a Customer Experience expert to go with the web publishers who offer the best!

I am now counting down the days until my current hosting subscription expires (only 305 to go!), at which point I will jump ship for the beautiful world of Squarespace. (And I wish that was an actual picture of my desk with the matching peonies and day-planner, but it is someone else’s that I saw on Apartment Therapy.)

Here are several of the awesome blogs I found on the Squarespace site:

• The Candid Commentary: a girl after my own heart, Dee writes about technology, fashion and beauty
• Cake Spy: an adorable blog about deserts (or as they say in the Italian version of English, “sweeties”)… good recipes too!
• Gwen Bell – Big Love in a Small World: there are many things to love about this blog, including the yoga/geek combo and the incredible writer/designer (check out her blog on Coco Chanel… I’m smitten)
• 30 Second Life: it is what it says… man buys Flip, man records daily life, man presents it for us in 30 second mashups. It’s beautiful.
• Octopus vs. Squirrel: a blog of unique and beautiful illustrations
• Squaregirl: full of optimism and written by one of the designers at Squarespace

I love finding good stuff!

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The last time I went to the circus, I was about 4 years old. I remember riding on an elephant, juggling clowns, a lion, and the feeling of delight.

I did not think it possible to feel that same delight more than 20 years later, but I stand corrected! I just got back from a quick weekend outing to Monte Carlo, where the International Cirque (the Olympics for circus artists worldwide) is taking place. This time around, it was a little different from what I’d remembered- these were the best of the best circus performers in the world… not to mention there was a certain royal family in the audience as honored guests.

Among my favorite acts were a couple balancing and contorting their bodies in seemingly impossible and agonizing poses (note: must do more yoga); a lion-tamer who stood in the ring with 15 lions at once, and had them all snarling in a perfect line-up; a guy who balanced a spinning figure-8 cage on his head inside of which 2 girls were doing suspension acts; a man who did acrobatics on a narrow pipe while swinging across the entire ring from about 50′ in the air without a safety net; a team of more than 20 acrobats who did crazy jumps on stilts and giant pogo-sticks; a group of 12 girls who did these impossible backbends while balancing their entire body-weight on their chins and stacking up on top of each other; and an incredible clown who immediately engaged the audience and showed that a fairly simple act can become the most popular one just by making a personal connection (unfortunately, I was too mesmerized to capture him on film).

After sitting captivated in the audience for more than 4 hours, watching +150 performers do their thing with ropes, knives, stilts, wild animals, humor, incredible concentration and – most of all – sheer determination, I must say that I walked away with a sense of inspiration and clarity! I can completely understand why it is not just exciting but also important for kids to go to the circus. You learn that, through determination and hard work, any dream can be made a reality. This is not a lesson only for the kids, though- perhaps it’s even more important for us as adults, especially today.

I also thought about these performers in a new light, as organizational geniuses. There is barely a moment between acts, and lives are on the line if a mistake is made. Each person knows their role, knows where to be and when, and performs their tasks impeccably, as though setting up and dismantling the sets was practiced as much as each act. (Even the extensive lion cage was dismantled in under a minute.) Everyone seemed to share a sense that they were a part of something greater, and so they were really supportive of one another, even in competition. After their acts, individual groups of performers came out and sat in the seats next to ours, and I noticed they were among the first to give standing ovations. You won’t see THAT in most industries! I would love to be with them as a fly on the wall (or blogger in the stands) for the mere 2 days they had all-together before the opening circus, just to understand how they can organize like that! I mean, most of them had never met before the events, and they were speaking about 15 different languages.

Finally, a note on that clown… he spoke in little sound-effects, no language. His act began by directing the audience to raise and lower our applause, which he pretended to put in a box and had trained us to “sound the applause” based on how wide he opened the box – within about 2 seconds. He threw his hat into the audience and got people to throw it back onto his head, and would not let them give up, thus inspiring a sense of tenacity. Afterward, he juggled unsuccessfully and had us all rooting for him to get it right until, at last, he did. …And the crowd went wild. It went on like this, so simply, and everyone from the little kids to the Princess were in hysterics, captivated and hopeful. At that point, I thought, he had really shown us something wonderful.

Like a true nerd, of course I thought about the symbolic lesson for brands and social media, marketing and customer experience… in regards to the clown (yeah, I know). When you involve your audience, you can still run the show (contrary to what many companies, especially in luxury , believe). When you focus on making them successful within your scope of interest, you automatically gain a sense of reciprocity. But only through involving the audience and being a little honest about the challenges you face can you build the kind of adoration and support that makes people want to see you succeed, instead of mere indifference. They feel a personal stake in the success. Of course, that strategy doesn’t work with some jerks out there, but hopefully those guys are few and far between.

Well, Monte Carlo is certainly a place of dreams. I am now a reformed circus-cynic, and will be a staunch supporter from here on. Anything is possible!

PS- I need this hat!!!!

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‘che fare’ (what to do) – a question without a question mark.

‘does this emptiness refer to my person only?
what are the other million ‘designers’ – most of them young designers- doing?
I guess that all of them want a non-alienated job and I know the majority doesn’t find one.
some designers dream of a possible transformation, …
generally, a product comes to life in the dialogue between a designer and an entrepreneur.
the designer is responsible for the ‘shape’, entrepreneurs are responsible for the
economic aspects of the product’s realization, and also of how to impose it
on a fiercely competitive market.
from my own experience I realized that a good product can be created when a practical
and efficient entrepreneur embraces at least 20% of the designer’s utopia!
this happens very rarely.’
enzo mari

Read the full article at  enzo mari and gabriele pezzini : che fare.

This perfectly captures the sentiment I recall from my one-time professor, Enzo Mari.

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The whole experience kind of reminded me of a movie… a foreign movie, largely without subtitles. It’s interesting to be the foreign observer in these kind of ritualistic times because you get to see a lot of things that you normally would not. I guess the only problem is that, by not speaking the language, I certainly missed a lot. I like to play this game where I’m actually imagining what they are talking about; ad-libbing inside my own head.

So, back to the story! We packed the car full of presents, tons of food and wine, with the dog situated nicely on top, and headed out of Milan in the middle of the night for a 9-hour drive to the town of Gummersbach, near Cologne.

In Germany, it’s customary to celebrate Christmas on the 24th, so we were trying to get there by late morning. Of course, when we came out of the first Alpine tunnel heading north, there were suddenly fat snowflakes falling, which slowed us down a bit. It was a complete shift in the weather from the south-end of the tunnel, where we had been not 3 minutes earlier.

In spite of the weather, we made our destination by about 10 a.m. and then quickly headed out to the local fish farm. This place is located in a nearby valley, down a snowy one-lane street lined with kids on sleds.

Apparently, a native family has owned this place for generations, but now that extensive supermarket chains are moving into the area and the people who know how to clean and prepare local fish are fading in numbers, their customer base is dwindling. I hope the Slow Food movement makes it up there soon enough to save this place. Nevertheless, it was packed on Christmas Eve. I guess fish is pretty popular!

The afternoon was spent tracking down a Christmas tree (we got the last one in town), having kaffee und kuchen (that’s coffee and cake… with creme, butter, sugar, and more butter). Then we put the tree up, which consisted of hacking the trunk apart, stuffing it into a big blue vase, and arranging firewood around the base so the tree wouldn’t lean…

This is a much more labor-intensive approach that your typical American “shove it in the Christmas tree stand and go” approach, but also much prettier.

The finishing touch on the tree was a little surprising… it was not a star on top, it was not tinsel around the branches. It was actual candles. When I saw these being put up, I thought, “Huh. Kind of weird to put up candle sticks when you can’t light them.” Wrong. They were lit. With matches. With each one, I actually grew more nervous – probably a lingering side-effect from growing up with a very worried grandmother. The visual effect was lovely, but the psychological effect was not. Now I was thinking, “Where is the fire extinguisher?”

After dinner, we went to see a Christmas mass in a little chapel from the 1600s. Christmas carols in German- that is a new experience for the ears!

On Christmas, we went to another house for what amounted to an amazing 5 hour dinner (mostly in German, but I’m sure the conversation was interesting!) complete with rounds of sekt, white wine, then red wine, and then liquor followed by a cocktail. Whew! Of course, there was another candlelit tree right next to the table, which kept me slightly sober. The most surprising part of the night (for me) was when the flute came out. Seriously, they played the flute and sang together around the dinner table in between courses! (I’m telling you- Rockwell!)

In the next days, we were lucky to get some sunshine, and so we headed out to take part in a local tradition that apparently occurs whenever the sun shines in the winter, which is not often. We went for a walk in the forest. It was incredible, with the late afternoon light and the crisp air. 3 miles later, we headed back indoors to atone for the mild workout and had another round of kaffee und kuchen.

Our last night there, we had another big dinner which was probably the most unusual of all. It consisted of smoked salmon covered with mounds of broccoli and cauliflower, another layer of salmon, a layer of fish pate, and then rows of sliced potatoes on top. Whatever it was, it tasted good!

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I had been working on said career for about 4 lackluster years when I realized that I had slipped into some pre-ordained schedule of life, and while I envied most of my friends for being content with that, it wasn’t something I could see for myself.

• Step 1: College
• Step 2: Get started on Job –> Career
• Step 3: Acquire car & apartment*
• Step 4: Take a couple of fun weekend trips*
• Step 5: Marriage
• Step 6: Acquire house
• Step 7: Baby/Babies
• Step 8: Acquire bigger house & more cars, possibly mini-van/SUV
• Step 9: Send offspring to college
• Step 10: Retire
• Step 11: Take fun trips abroad, if possible*
• Step 12: Sell house, acquire apartment*
• Step 13: Grandchildren*
• Step 14: Play bridge & grow geraniums

* indicates flexibility in order

I got through to about Step 4, and then decided that I would do something different, and tried to figure out what I would spend my life doing for free, if that were possible, and where. I sold 90% of my worldly possessions and packed the rest into storage, resigned from my job, and headed to Italy for grad school and a pace of life that is never fast (unless driving is involved), where nothing is done early. It has been a much-needed jolt to my system! I have spent the past two years and two months living, working and studying in Milan.

My goal was to get a masters degree in interior design and historic restoration, and a double in business innovation, with the idea that I could start my own business reviving old houses, bringing out the historic qualities that make them special, while modernizing the interiors, and in the processes helping to make them more environmentally friendly. That plan was not to be. Two weeks after moving overseas, I was shocked when my university canceled the program. Welcome to Italy!

Being that fast-paced, assertive American girl, I wrote a formal letter to the Department Head, proclaiming the injustice of the cancellation after 50 of us had moved internationally to participate weeks earlier. I even had a meeting with him in which I presented three potential plans through which we could find a way to continue the program. He and his assistant stared at me with a look that seemed equally surprised and irritated. Oops. These things just aren’t done.

I still had housing covered for one year, and wasn’t ready to move back home defeated, so I did some soul-searching, and realized that EVERYTHING I had in my little room in Milan (books, magazines, blog subscriptions, etc) was about fashion, luxury, photography, designers, writers, sustainability, and politics… and all things digital. This was a big wake up call. I have a background in design and public policy (that’s sustainability, economics & politics), I am completely obsessed with the internet (though I would say that my attachment to my camera was only eclipsed by my attachment to my laptop about 4 years ago), and I love fashion- from the dream, down to the creative and business processes. I love the idea of selling a dream! I’ve always been a bit advocate of “do professionally what you would do for free” and never realized that I was missing the cues.

I went back to my original purpose for being in Italy, and substituted “fashion brands” for “houses.” That felt right.

I had to get a foot in the door in the fashion industry, to really understand if my interests were valid and my talents could be something of value to the industry. While my best friend from childhood arrived to the Milan fashion shows in the back of a Mercedes to do her buying work, I arrived on a 1969 red Bianci Milano Classico bicycle (now stolen, naturally) and my Canon Rebel (now also stolen- remember to reinforce your window locks when renting an apartment in Italy!).

I took pictures; I asked questions; I befriended PR girls, bouncers, young financial managers, merchandisers, trendforecasters, journalists, photographers and bloggers- you name it. The real point of confirmation came during Berlin Fashion Week in 2007 when I attended the Premium Symposium on Ethical Fashion.

Led by Melissa Drier of WWD, a panel of fashion professionals talked about the impacts of the fashion and textiles industry on the environment, emerging economies, working conditions- basically all the issues I have cared about in the past as an urban designer in sustainable development.  I’m sure this woman doesn’t have any idea the impact she had on my life. I should send her a note.

Anyway, this symposium sealed the deal for me- the fashion industry was not so fickle and silly as I had feared (well, not all of it!), and one actually could make a BIG difference in the lives of countless people by making smart decisions, both ethically and economically.

What most impressed me was the fact that good marketing can create a movement. A movement can change the world. And, most importantly, in the worlds of fashion and luxury, where marketing has always been so powerful, a fear of technology has left some significant room for improvement… and that is precisely what I want to do. Naive? Maybe, but let’s see what the future brings.

After searching for months for a program that would help me to understand the entire luxury and fashion business (not just marketing, but supply-chain and strategy), a program at SDA Bocconi in Milan came to my attention. This was MAFED; a MBA-style business degree in Fashion, Experience & Design Management. I decided that the business + marketing degree focusing in “symbol-intensive” industries was just right, so I applied and ended up staying for 14 months at SDA Bocconi while continuing to work on all things digital.

So, what I’m going to try to do here is to re-create the last two years by weaving together some travel and class notes I took, and comment on the things I’ve noticed since then, based on my studies and interests. (This is my blog-version of Evernote, in other words!) Besides, there is no way I can move all of those binders of notes back over the Atlantic anyway, and it seems appropriate to share the knowledge I’ve acquired here with anyone who might be interested in fashion, luxury, technology, marketing, or Italy.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it!

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