Popular Fashion News - News

The Russian clothes designer Igor Chapurin knows what it’s like to live through a crisis. He opened his first Moscow boutique in 1998, in the wake of the country’s financial collapse, when Russia defaulted on its sovereign debt and sent the rouble into a tailspin, wiping out the savings of millions. “In 1998 [it felt as if] the world opened up and everything fell in,” says Chapurin. “Today it’s not like that – things are slowing down but no one yet knows what is really happening.”

Lingerie sales are proving relatively resilient during the downturn, with the more risque products holding up better.

While overall retail sales, excluding online and grocery shopping, are expected to drop by more than 4 per cent in 2009, the lingerie market will decline by 0.8 per cent, according to data by Verdict Research.

Garry Hogarth, chief executive of Agent Provocateur, the exotic lingerie brand, predicts further growth in 2009. He said that as couples stay at home to save money, more women are tending to invest in adventurous apparel to add spice to their relationships. He said: “It makes women feel good about themselves and we all need a bit of cheering up at the moment.”

We feared Lauren Conrad would never disappear. That after The Hills ended she'd embark on a Paris Hilton–esque career path of making clothes and fragrances, posing for FHM bikini spreads, and launching the latest alcoholic energy drinks in nightclubs overseas. And that we'd read about it in the gossip pages until the end of time. But today we have hope that she will one day go away — at least temporarily — when the last season of The Hills ends. Her fashion-design career has been put on hiatus, the New York Post reports. She won't produce any more seasons of her Lauren Conrad Collection line, and spring and summer deliveries have been canceled. See, good things can happen in a bad economy!

BONITA SPRINGS, Fla.—Credit makes the apparel and retail world go round, and a lack of credit is playing havoc with the industry.

“You have a banking system that is frozen,” complained Carol J. Hochman, chief executive and president of Danskin, the New York maker of dance, yoga and activewear whose parent company is Triumph Apparel Corp. “A lot of banks are no longer interested in the apparel industry. And factors are getting tougher.”

When one of Danskin’s major accounts hadn’t paid its bills recently, Hochman and her colleagues had to really think twice about whether to ship to the large retailer, which she didn’t want to name.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) announced yesterday that Marc Jacobs, Kate & Laura Mulleavy for Rodarte, and Narciso Rodriguez have been nominated for the Womenswear Designer of the Year Award. The 2009 CFDA Fashion Awards winners will be announced at the annual gala, generously underwritten by Swarovski, on June 15 at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center.

This is an interesting blog piece about the reality of plus size fashion. Recently the LA Times wrote a piece on the lack of fashionable clothing for plus size women. However, the blogger makes a case that fashionable plus size may not be a profitable venture for designers because the market is not there... yet. What do you think?

Greensboro, N.C.–based apparel giant VF Corp. has announced the complete acquisition of Mo Industries Inc., owner of the Ella Moss and Splendid contemporary knits brands. In June, VF acquired one-third of Mo Industries and has agreed to pay $161 million for the remaining two-thirds of the company, plus the repayment of $47 million in existing net debt. The brands will become part of VF’s Contemporary Brands coalition, which also includes the Seven For All Mankind and Lucy brands.

According to a release by VF, both brands are distributed primarily through better department and specialty stores and had combined revenues of $95 million in 2008. VF said it expects the brands to reach $70 million in revenues in 2009, with long-term revenue growth of 10 percent to 15 percent annually.

H&M fanfared its first store in Moscow, the fashion-conscious capital of Russia. From now on the fashionable Moscow audience can find a varied and extensive range of clothes and accessories. H&M will feature international style inspiration with a full concept store on 3,000 sq metres.

The grand opening of the first store began with a ribbon cut by CEO Rolf Eriksen and Fredrik Famm, H&M’s country manager in Russia, which led more than one thousand people who queued to flow into the new store.

In recent boom years, the price of luxury goods skyrocketed – in part because designers found there were few limits to the public consumption of luxury goods. Stores sold $1,200 shoes, $5,000 jackets, and diamond-studded watches to people who had never before spent so much on fashion.

That sort of shopping dropped came to a crashing halt in the fall, when retailers could hardly sell those same goods priced at 70% off. Many designers are now furious at retailers such as Saks and Neiman Marcus for holding such deep sales. They fear — correctly if history is a guide — that it could take years for consumers to be willing to pay full price for designer goods.

At the Milan showroom of an Italian fashion designer, Neiman Marcus Group merchant Rachel Goldberger last week watched as a model twirled in a blue silk cocktail dress with origami pleats.

"How much is she?" asked Ms. Goldberger, who like many retail executives uses the feminine pronoun to refer to clothes. The response, $4,300, shocked Ms. Goldberger, who did a double take.