Shanghai Fashion Week attracts American brands seeking growth in China Twenty-two years ago, Nicole Miller held her first fashion show in China. At the time, she characterized the market as conservative and “not very established.” But now the market looks very different.
‘It’s going to burst at some point’: Sneaker drops have hit their saturation point Every year on March 26, Nike celebrates Air Max Day, the anniversary of the launch of the first Air Max 1 in 1987. With that comes a slew of promotions, events and, most importantly, a new Air Max style. Yet this year, there’s a surprising difference: Nike announced it will...
As the novelty of pop-ups wanes, brands are taking a more creative approach For many digitally-native DTC brands, the path toward a physical brick-and-mortar presence is clear: Open a pop-up shop, gauge interest and then open a permanent store. But Dolls Kill, a fashion brand founded in 2011 with ties to the electronic dance music subculture, is taking a somewhat alternative approach.
‘The hardest thing is trust’: Inside luxury fashion’s new demand for skilled authenticators There are two kinds of fake watches, according to Charlie Emslie, a watchmaker and authenticator at watch resale platform Crown & Caliber. There are watches that incorporate cutting-edge 3D printing and laser technology that are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, and there are watches that “look like they wrote...
How Shopify and Showfields are lowering the barrier to entry to physical retail The second floor of Showfields, the newly opened multi-brand storefront in New York City’s NoHo neighborhood, is filled with seven miniature storefronts from small DTC brands that run the gamut of fashion to beauty to homeware and range from brands that just launched a few months ago to brands that...
‘You can’t make everyone happy’: Brands are choosing close-knit communities over followers As Instagram has become a dominant force in the fashion world today, it is easy to look at a brand’s number of followers as a shorthand for the success it has had in building a community. But those numbers are not always the barometer of a brand’s audience.
How Lane Bryant is strategizing to stay ahead of the growing plus-size market Lane Bryant, once one of the few brands to cater to plus-size women in any significant way, is now one of many in a growing category of plus-size fashion.
Inside American Eagle’s streetwear ambitions While many of the mall brands that were popular among high schoolers a decade ago have struggled or failed, American Eagle is one of the few brands from that era that has managed to remain successful and relatively stable throughout the years. Now, American Eagle is looking for new avenues to rethink...
How Bloomingdale’s is using shop-in-shops to test wider retail strategy Late last year, Bloomingdale’s unveiled a major new concept: a rotating shop-in-shop section called The Carousel that would see curated collections of pieces from a variety of big and small brands centered around a theme. Now on its fourth iteration, Bloomingdale’s says The Carousel has been an important lesson, not...