The First Ever New Way To Shop Fashion Retail In Changing Times

With the outbreak of COVID-19, every fashion industry professional is searching for ways to circumvent income and continue to carry out regular business while remaining safely socially distant. As the current retail slogan says ‘ Stay smart, six feet apart.

Over the last few years, event curators have been slowly integrating virtual reality to their productions and seems now the retailers and brands are starting to take a note of the trend by leaning on variations of augmented reality more than ever. The demand from governments such as Panama and San Francisco are on the forefront of implementing such technologies which is in turn allowing their businesses to increase financially.

It's allowing the fashion industry to continue to strive. Dolce and Gabbana, one of the most notable luxury Italian brands, is also considering the switch as they too know it will be necessary in order for their shopping experiences and growth margins both current and future.

I recently had a virtual chat with CEO and founder of Youcan Antonio Trincao about how global fashion leader Dolce and Gabbana developed a new retail shopping experience and why Panama believes that consumers will shop differently from here on into the future.

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FIT's Eleanor Lambert Exhibition Is A Fitting Tribute To A Fashion Legend

Eleanor Lambert was instrumental in making American fashion the successful and admired industry it is today. Known as the original fashion publicist, Lambert's creativity and marketing savvy was responsible for everything from keeping the industry alive during World War II to staging a fashion show at Versailles in 1973 featuring both French and American designers - where the Americans outshined the French. The Museum at FIT's exhibition, Eleanor Lambert: Empress of Seventh Avenue is a comprehensive retrospective of Lambert's life and contributions to the industry.

Lambert's brainchild, the International Best Dressed List, saved the struggling American fashion industry during World War II. The various fashion unions came to Lambert for help because people had stopped buying clothes out of fear of a faltering economy, and scarcity of materials.

"I started the International Best Dressed List as a publicity stunt in 1940, when the fashion world was in wartime chaos, and people had to think about clothes without buying more," wrote Lambert in the foreword to Ultimate Style: The Best of the Best Dressed List, published by Assouline in 2004.

                                                           

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Global Fashion Collective Shines At Paris Fashion Week

International fashion producer, Global Fashion Collective, presented three runway shows at Paris Fashion Week, for the first time last month. The grand Palais de la Decouverte near the Champs-Élysées provided a stunning setting to showcase nine international brands including Kirsten Ley (Canada), Annika Klaas and Madeleine Mesam (Germany) Ozlana (Australia), Faun Studio (Canada), Pariha (India), EmulEos (USA), Erxi x MrHuaMrsHua (China), Sarah Kosinski (France), Devotion Designs (Canada).

A bold collection of designs from Canadian haute couture designer Kirsten Ley provided a dramatic opening to the runway shows in Paris. A recent move to Paris by this innovative designer appears to have inspired her creative processes further, with an exciting new range of highly structured pieces in a striking palette of blues and yellows.

Each of Kirsten Ley's hand-sewn, sculptural garments take hours to create and is a unique work of art. Silk, chiffon and leather garments combine soft, flowing fabrics and designs with strong lines and tailoring.

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It was good to see German knitwear designer Annika Klaas back on the Global Fashion Collective runway, this time in Paris. After taking the top prize at the European Fashion Award (FASH) in 2018 and showing at Tokyo and Vancouver fashion weeks in 2019, the young designer also created a prototype of sneakers during a residency with Adidas. She's also been busy creating a strong Spring/Summer 2020 on-demand knitwear collection, included more of the knitted sneakers she made with Adidas.

As with Annika Klass's previous designs, this new collection was produced using a production process on Stoll ADF, German-made, computer-based knitting machines. Using these machines allows on demand production with orders produced the same day (the most complicated piece takes around three hours to knit) ensuring no overproduction and very little waste. And this year the designer has teamed up with artist Madeleine Mesam who creates beautiful prints for Annika's designs for their joint collection “An Archive of the Sunflower.”

Prolific Chinese designer and artist Niu Niu Chou of MrHuaMrsHua showed his versatility and creativity with a completely different collection than the showcase we'd seen in New York a few weeks earlier. This unisex brand highlights China's diverse cultural heritage and ethnic origins. The designer uses a combination of techniques including digital printing, embroidery and other traditional Chinese crafts, to showcase the beauty of the East, with a nod to Western pop art. His Paris collection of formal wear included elaborate tiered dresses with puffed sleeves in crepe, lace and beading.

How Slow Fashion Is Fast-Tracking Sustainability

Today's consumers, especially us millennials, are increasingly concerned and influenced by companies' records and initiatives around sustainability. Whether it is because they follow #sinnfluencers on social media or because of the growing understanding that climate change is a real threat to human in the near future, this has manifested itself in the fashion industry with a new trend towards 'slow fashion'.

Now more than ever, consumers are curious about where their clothes were made and under what conditions. The slow fashion movement promises to be the opposite of the fast fashion trend (inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends) by delivering sustainably procured and produced clothing to mindful consumers. Instead of never-ending sale offerings due to rapidly changing trends, slow fashion items are designed to be sustainable, functional, durable and stylish.

A sustainable fashion product is made in an environmental and social friendly manner along the supply chain. From the initial design of sustainable products using ethically sourced raw material, production through sustainable manufacturing processes, and delivered through green distribution, and retailing channels.

First, as already explained in another blog of mine “Sustainable Design: The Key To Unlocking A Sustainable Future", design determines the ecological footprint of the whole product lifecycle. Fashion designers can therefore help to significantly reduce the environmental impact of products by making sure that they change the way they design their clothes, by taking into account the environmental impact early in the product design.

Eco-material production is the fundamental part in a sustainable fashion supply chain. Cotton, as a renewable resource, is the main material for apparel production. However, chemicals and pesticides are largely used in the traditional ways to grow cotton. Sustainable fashion products are often made by organic fabrics, which are produced using less water and harmful chemicals. Organic cotton therefore is grown without using pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, which could reduce the negative impact on the environment.

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Apparel manufacturing often takes place in countries with low labor costs. However, in those countries, the awareness of environment and human rights are often less developed. Therefore, it is important to promote the importance of fair working conditions and environmental performance, especially when working with various suppliers all around the world.

Producing carbon emission is inevitable in distribution. However, by designing a more efficient transportation system, the amount of carbon emission in distribution can be minimized. For example, to engage with sustainable product design which can make container shipping less harmful to the environment.

Some retail brands have already launched clothing collection initiatives to promote sustainable concept in ethical consumers in retailing. Consumers can return old apparel products and in return, they can get a coupon for their next purchase. All collected used apparel and textiles are then optimally recycled according to their condition. Moreover, within an up-cycling process, some textiles and fabrics are reprocessed and used to create commercial products for example.

According to a Greenpeace survey conducted in 2015, every fifth garment is never worn. This makes a total of one billion unworn garments – if you include rarely worn items, you even get a total of two billion "wardrobe corpses". Many people then sort out clothes again within a year – after all they have to keep up with the trend, don't they?!

In my opinion, this is mostly the result of fast fashion. If more clothing businesses follow the idea of slow fashion, and more people start reflecting their buying habits, we can make a big step toward a world run better.

Download the IDC report “Leveraging Your Intelligent Digital Supply Chain" to find out how an end-to-end digital supply chain – from design and planning to manufacturing, logistics, and operations – helps businesses to increase sustainability.

Fashion And Compassion

I met with Sandeep Dalal at The Spur to talk about his new business venture called Choltry, a company helping women of all income levels to uplevel their wardrobe. Sandeep is creating a compassionate lane in the $117B fashion sector.

If you're a woman looking to dress to impress at work without spending beyond your means, Sandeep has you covered.  His platform, Choltry is an online retail service that rents premium office wear at $9.95 per week, including free shipping and dry cleaning. (Yes, you read that correctly!) For less than $10 a week women now have the opportunity to revamp their professional wardrobe in a way that's sustainable and fashionable.

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Sandeep grew up in New Delhi where he received his MBA and began working in IT.  He then moved to Seattle where his idea for Choltry was sparked after watching his wife organize her closet where he observed many designer dresses and finding out that she purchased them early in her career as an intern when she was receiving a paycheck that did not support her wardrobe needs. Sandeep got to work solving the problem of how to provide great clothes for professional women who have a limited budget and often, little time for shopping.

Choltry which means a place to rest is empowering women to look and feel their best without having to leave the comfort of their own home. Offering over 25 styles, the site eases the stress of the working woman at a price point that would cost less than the weekly dry cleaning bill.

So how on earth is Sandeep able to offer premium and such well-made dresses at such a low price? At Compassionate Leaders Circle, Sandeep is what we would call a "launcher," meaning that his purpose and vision is launching or growing an enterprise. Building the right partnerships has been crucial to his success and the "secret sauce" for how he keeps his shockingly low price point. "It all comes down to team".

Here Are The Most Affordable Cities To Get Married And Buy A Home In The Same Year

From the day many couples say “yes” to the moment they say “I do,” the clock is ticking on paying for a wedding and buying their first home. In the past year alone, the average cost of a wedding, including an engagement ring, ceremony, reception and honeymoon was $38,700, according to WeddingWire, an online marketplace for the wedding industry. Add to that the financial pressure to save enough money for an affordable home.

A new study by Chase Home Lending on the attitudes and preferences that Millennials have toward the home-buying journey found the top three motivators to buy a home were the desire to own their own space, lifestyle changes such as marriage or having a child, and investments or wealth building. 

Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh are the most affordable metros where couples can throw a wedding and also cover a down payment on their first home, according to a new report from Redfin, a technology-powered real estate brokerage. The research includes the full ranking of the most affordable cities to have both a wedding and purchase a home, leading up to the most expensive cities.

In all three of the metro areas mentioned above, the average combined cost of a wedding and a down payment is less than $65,000, compared with the national average of more than $109,000.

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Justice Department Investigates Chicken Industry For Price Collusion

Topline: The Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into the largest chicken processors for colluding to keep prices artificially high, a charge that has for years followed the industry but has never resulted in criminal charges before.

In a filing last week, the DOJ said it needed to halt the exchange of evidence leading up to a civil trial in Illinois because the agency doesn't want it interfering with its own grand jury investigation. The court filing was first reported by the Food Environment Reporting Network.

Perdue Farms, Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, Sanderson Farms, Peco Foods, Wayne Farms, Koch Foods, Mountaire Farms and House of Raeford Farms are the poultry producers being sued in that separate civil suit. But based on the filing alone, it is unclear which companies are being investigated.

Over the last three years, the industry has weathered several civil lawsuits from restaurants, food distributors, grocery stores and retailers that purchase chicken. 

BJ's Wholesale Club, fast food chain Checkers, Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Sysco, Publix, Kroger and Walmart are among the parties that claim in civil suits that chicken companies coordinate with each other to limit production in order to increase prices.