November Sales Not As Strong As Predicted
So remember a few weeks ago when every was boasting about how amazing November sales were thanks to awesome Black Friday deals and customers spending all their hard earned cash? Well, it turns out all the hype was just one big “JK!” According to the latest reports, November sales figures were far less robust than economists predicted. Not only were sales for Thanksgiving weekend down, but department stores also posted a 3 percent decline in sales compared to last November sales last year. Here’s crossing our fingers for next year?
Façonnable Taps New Artistic Director
Although we sometimes forget they exist, even smaller labels go through restructuring, as is the case will Nice-based brand Façonnable who has just named Julian Neale as its new artistic director. Neale will be the first designer in charge of the label in nearly a year, replacing Eric Wright who resigned back in January 2010. Being of half-Turkish ethnicity himself, Neale admits that his designs for both the men’s and women’s collections will be Mediterranean-inspired while placing greater emphasis on taste level, not gender.
France Facing Local Production Troubles
While locally-made production has been a godsend for American garment manufacturers, the trend is just now catching on across the pond in France — but not everyone is happy about it. Although brands like French Trotters, agnès b. and Bleu de Paname all produce in France, adding an additional cache to their products that makes it more desirable for French consumers, unnamed luxury labels (venture to guess which?) have argued that the price is still too high as the labor cost in France is estimated to be about 10 times that of China and 12 times that of Bangladesh.
Women Actually LIKE Wearing Black To Work?
We’ve all seen them strolling down 7th Avenue in their all-black-everything attire (they’re absolutely impossible to miss during Fashion Week), but before you judge it as another NYC “fashion girl”-look wait to you hear the results of this latest poll: women actually LIKE wearing black attire to work. A CareerBuilder survey shows that 51% of female senior executives typically wear black clothes to work. And there you have it.
Top 5 Retail Successes of 2011
While there are plenty of retailers struggling to keep their heads above water, there are several others for whom 2011 was a great year. The key component: stylish threads at affordable prices. Topping out the list of companies whose business benefited from fashionable, savvy or sustainable clothing are Burberry, J. Crew, Amazon.com (who enlisted former Barney’s fashion director Julie Gilhart), Topshop and Inditex, parent company of the Spanish fast fashion chain Zara.
