1.)
To celebrate more than a decade of success with the Chinese consumer, Giorgio Armani produced an exclusive to Beijing thirty-minute runway extravaganza featuring his company’s three main lines — Emporio Armani, Giorgio Armani and Armani Prive — with 15 haute couture pieces from the Armani Prive label created specifically for the event:
Armani — designed in Italy but adored in China
China Daily writes that over 1,000 guests were invited to the exclusive event, and that the presence of foreign and Chinese celebrities gave the press plenty to write about.
Armani was also present in China to meet with the winners of an internship contest sponsored in collaboration with Tsinghua University under the auspices of a research program entitled “Research on Fashion and Textile design under a Condition of Globalization” — the interns will study with the company in Milan, merging an awakening Chinese enthusiasm for global design with traditions of Italian style and craftsmanship.
In his book, ‘What Chinese Want‘, North Asia marketing expert Tom Doctoroff states that the Armani fashion brand is doing particularly well in China due to its aesthetic of “classy understatement” that reflects the tastes of the upwardly mobile citizens of the country, dubbed “Shanghai Chic” — “Sparkle don’t glare,” explains Doctoroff. “If you want to capture attention (in China), whisper. China chic is monochromatic with a flash of colour, a gaze punctuated by a wink.”
Which, if you watch the video embedded above, you can see just why Armani has been such a hit with the Chinese, as “sparkle don’t glare” pretty much defines the Armani look from its inception.
*RELEVANT ASIDE: While Armani may be doing spectacularly well in China, it seems as though the wealthy Chinese consumer is beginning to grow weary of the likes of Louis Vuitton — For China’s super chic, Louis Vuitton no longer the most luxurious: “‘The truly wealthy, the real millionaires, they will not want to buy LV Louis Vuitton or Gucci because they are too commonplace,’ said Shaun Rein, managing director, China Market Research Group. ‘Rich people are getting richer and they want exclusiveness and more self-indulgence.’”
And about those special Armani haute couture pieces featured in his Beijing show, WWD reported that “at the centre was a magnificent black lacquered gown with a gold dragon draping across the body and black feather accents at the shoulder. The centrepiece style in black and gold was surrounded by others in an array of gowns in pale greens, creating stunning contrast and effect for the show’s final moments.”
*NOTE 1: 2012 is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Horoscope, with the emblem of the dragon symbolising wealth, royalty and power. Numerous high-end luxury players have been pushing limited-edition dragon-centred items during 2012 to cash in on these themes.
*IN OTHER FASHION NEWS: H&M announced that its next designer collaboration would be with the house of Martin Margiela (which was acquired by denim giant Diesel back in 2002 — Diesel also owns stakes in DSquared2 and Victor & Rolf).
The announced partnership came as a bit of a surprise to some Margiela fans (see the Margiela Facebook page) as #1) the Margiela brand doesn’t have the widespread brand name recognition of H&M hookups like Karl Lagerfeld, Roberto Cavalli and Versace (which led Vanessa Friedman at the Financial Times to wonder if H&M is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel with these designer collaborations), and #2) Martin Margiela was especially noted for exceptional tailoring and an adamantly conceptual, anti-mainstream approach to fashion, two qualities in direct contradiction to everything H&M.
Admittedly, once Margiela sold the brand to a vastly commercial entity like Diesel then his conceptual game was over. Diesel is about sales and profits, not the selfless support of avant-garde experimentalism, and the Margiela brand has moved ever closer to the mainstream with each fashion collection produced since then.
You can watch the last Maison Martin Margiela womenswear collection for Fall of 2012, and while there are still conceptual touches (towering collars on coats and bulky sleeves attached to slim dresses and blouses), you’ll see a design style that appears to owe a greater debt to contemporary Calvin Klein than classic Margiela:
Welcome to the new Margiela, a whole lot different from the old Margiela
Not that producing a Calvin Klein-ish collection is a bad thing, especially if you’re Diesel owner Renzo Russo, looking to jumpstart sales for a lesser known label famous for its eccentric split toe shoes (and not a whole lot else).
*NOTE 2: Unfortunately, ebullient Margiela-fan articles like “Maison Martin Margiela: Introducing the Maison with Morals” will now likely need a rewrite.
2.)
*SPEAKING OF ART VS. COMMERCE: YouTube perfume-vid queen Katie Puckrik and Dan Rolleri, former editor and publisher of the lamentably defunct Speak Magazine, banged out a brief but pointed tag-team commentary on author and scent critic (and now curator with New York’s Museum of Arts and Design) Chandler Burr’s latest project with merchant site Open Sky, a series that strives to examine commercial perfumery as an art form.
*Link to Katie and Dan’s article: Perfume Pen Pals: Chandler Burr’s Untitled Series
Burr’s Untitled series itself is an intriguing proposition — strip away the expensive packaging and multi-million dollar marketing campaigns from a commercial perfume release and what do you have left?
“Imagine being dressed in background radiation of the most gorgeous kind”
Katie questions if the project takes perfume in a direction that’s meta to the extreme, much like Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain”, while Rolleri asks if stripping away the packaging and marketing from a commercial perfume release might be removing layers that are essential to the consumer experience, but he was on-board with it anyway: “Anyway, I’ve signed up! Which means I’ll probably be paying $50 a month to get a decant of something I already own. Or worse, have tried and don’t like. But I have a feeling this experiment isn’t going to last long and I want to be on the ship’s deck when it sinks!”
*NOTE 3: Which is all very Martin Margiela, when you stop to think about it. See: Maison Martin Margiela – Deconstruction and Hidden Identity
The comment section to the blog post erupted in a diverse slew of opinions, with Chandler Burr himself even jumping in to reply to specific comments. “I approach the owners of the various works that I like and want to put in the Series,” he explains when Katie asks if he slips on a pair of rubber gloves and pours smelly liquids into glass bottles at his kitchen sink. “When they give me permission they also call the scent makers — Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, etc. — who then prepare the formula in appropriate alcohol solution, bottle it in 100 lab bottles, and send the bottles to Open Sky’s fulfilment warehouse in Connecticut, where the labels, “The Untitled Series S01E02″ and so on, are put on. The hundred bottles ship from there.”
And while Burr admits that he’s removing the commercial branding signifiers from the bottles only to replace them with his own “Chandler Burr Approved” stamp of personal branding, he also reminds us that all after-tax proceeds are donated to the Museum of Arts and Design, so it’s not some personal money-making venture or an exercise in ego-gratification (okay, at least, not solely an exercise in ego gratification).
But it’s certainly worth checking out if you’re interested in the concept of just how artistic or innately creative a commercial perfume can actually be.
*RELATED PERFUME AS ART TOPIC: I mentioned German book publisher Steidl’s ‘Paper Passion‘ perfume project a few weeks ago — or “this drug of ink smell and paper,” as Gerhard Steidl calls the smell of book publishing.
The scent was inspired when Karl Lagerfeld mentioned to Steidl that the smell of books is the best smell in the world, and Wallpaper Magazine then went on to commission a perfume from pro perfumer Geza Schoen, with packaging from Steidl, that might capture exactly that “best smell in the world”.
I ordered my bottle soon after the project was released in late May and received this email yesterday: “Thank you for your order for Paper Passion. The demand has been overwhelming and this has caused a delay in our deliveries. We apologise for this and will keep you informed about when the delivery will be made . . . Thank you for your understanding.”
Obviously, everyone at Steidl vastly underestimated the consumer hunger for a fragrance product that’s creative, unusual and special.
Take that, Justin Bieber!
*SPEAKING OF WANTING SOMETHING SPECIAL: Details of the Lady Gaga perfume were leaked by an unscrupulous (or just dimwitted?) fashion magazine editor, forcing the singer (and Coty) to come forward with official announcements before they intended to. The perfume doesn’t sound at all unusual or provocative, as Gaga had initially suggested it would be. It is, however, a black liquid that allegedly turns transparent the instant it’s vaporised into the air.
So, kind of like Boudicca Wode, then — a scent that turns blue when it hits your skin, and then goes clear a few minutes later. Only, of course, Boudicca hit that “let’s be daring” target four years before Lady Gaga did. Which seems to be a recurring refrain in Gaga land (see: Did Lady Gaga Rip Off French Artist Colette?)
3.):
IT’S A MAN’S WORLD: LVMH acquires small French bespoke mens tailor Arnys and folds it into its larger Berluti brand, resulting in a full menswear label that will be one of the few mens labels in Paris that offers both ready to wear and custom tailoring:
“LVMH, the world’s leading luxury goods group, has announced the acquisition of French made-to-measure menswear brand Arnys. The acquisition reflects Berluti’s strategy under Chief Executive Antoine Arnault to expand the activities of the shoe maker with the brand’s first men’s high-end ready-to-wear collection . . . Jean Grimbert will personally oversee the continuation of Arnys’ expertise, and the boutique at 14 rue de Sevres in Paris will become the flagship store for Berluti’s new activities, LVMH said. ‘This boutique will be one of the only places in France where it will be possible to order an entirely made-to-measure suit,’ it added.”
The purchase of Arnys is also thought to be a defensive move on the part of LVMH, strengthening their newly expanded Berluti brand to compete against rival luxury group PPR’s acquisition of high-end Italian mens label Brioni last year.
Berluti, a former shoes-only brand, showed its first ready to wear clothing collection just this past January.
Berluti Fall 2012 – the menswear house that shoes built
Menswear is becoming a heated battleground, with brands like Hugo Boss, Zegna and Burberry expanding into sprawling global enterprises thanks to high spending male consumers in China: “The male-dominated Chinese market is lifting menswear sales by about 14% a year, nearly double that of luxury womenswear, consultancy Bain & Co. said.”
NOTE 3: The white-hot mens market in China is said to be responsible for the resurrection of the high-end Swiss watch industry. See: Chinese buy 30% percent of Swiss watches
China is so crucial to the menswear market that heritage Brit brand Dunhill staged a splashy CGI-heavy event in Shanghai earlier this year, attempting to bring alive a sense of English weather and mood to over 1,000 assembled guests — an audio and visual display that included an olfactory element created by fragrance house Firmenich, inspired by the natural smells created after English rain.
Trafalgar Square in Shanghai — Dunhill woos the Chinese menswear market
By the way, what is it about this “1,000 guest” thing in China? Both the Armani and Dunhill events boasted of 1,000 guests. Is that some magical number that I don’t know about?
*RELATED: Givenchy’s newly hip-hop friendly menswear collections — embraced by high-profile celebrities like Jay Z and Kanye West — are said to be responsible for propelling Givenchy’s recent financial fortunes.
*NOT RELATED, BUT FUN: You know what’s just as cool as menswear? Upcycled animal byproducts made into home items . . . by Fendi: “Since 2009, the high-end luxury brand has been commissioning designers to reuse its leather scraps to upcycle them into fashionable items . . . Trimarchi and Farresin from the Dutch design studio Formafantasma, have turned a cow bladder into a water bottle; a stool covered in salmon skin with a large sponge for a cushion; and kitchen knives made from cow bone. The items are minimalistic in design and have an almost tribal feel about them.”
Yes and more, please!