fashion
I used to get all huffy about Ralph Lauren shows because they don’t budge one bit forward. Maybe I’ve softened, but I not only don’t care about that any more, I don’t think they should. Lauren is really like Lagerfeld of America, and his ideas hold up. The revolution will come when it’s time.
September Issues
In the case of Gordon, he did employ Barbie pink, but don’t hold that against him. He is a company man who makes beautiful clothes for a client who still cares to wear beautiful clothes. I liked that it wasn’t camp or costumey: just pretty twin suits, slim skirts, twirly tulle minis.
My Fashion Week Postmortem
Tapestry and Capri companies don’t have the infrastructure to pull off that vaunted upmarket leap. They are, after all, basically holding companies that deal in fashion products
Coach & Kors’ Marriage of Convenience
what does this infrastructure look like?
— institutionalized creativity
— budgets willing to be wielded for brand building purposes
— time to see through the transformation
Proenza Schouler’s first big business win was the launch of its PS1 bag. Introduced in 2008 on the back of an investment, the schoolboy satchel — often rendered in a matte, worn-in leather — became a foundational piece in the wardrobes of thousands of women. For several years following the launch, the bag accounted for 80 percent of handbag sales,... See more
The Nine Lives of Proenza Schouler
Years ago, I was a modeling agent, and I thought, my gosh, brands would actually get a lot further if they used a celebrity versus a model because of the amount of impressions that a celebrity would garner . I left the agency, opened up my own company, and here I am 30 years later.
The Tao of Shemarya
this is a very brilliant, situation-specific “business transformation” / idea that lead to a very successful move for him
there are a million of these waiting to be discovered or already have been discovered by people with ideas but lacking the capital, time, or empowerment to go pursue them within organizations
i.e., the modeling agency he worked for itself
Ultimately, Proenza’s fortunes unravelled for many of the same reasons so many of its peers are no longer in business: misallocation of funds, disagreements with investors, seismic shifts in the industry at large, and a fashion ecosystem that did a poor job of preparing young designers for the realities of entrepreneurship.
The Nine Lives of Proenza Schouler
Sure, a television show or movie can still make you a star. But advertising campaigns make stars generationally rich—and developing one’s own brand can make them fuck-you money