fashion journal fall 2018
contents the new (disappointing) celine the cool kid of skincare lipstick is a powerful thing the demise of deciem the spirit of acceptance pure sephoria the beginning of end. the shrinking giant
the new (disappointing) celine september 28, 2018
What would the fashion industry be without a few shakeups? In recent years, there have been many exits from creative directors such as Burberry’s Christopher Bailey and YSL’s Hedi Slimane, and then there was the separation of Valentino’s powerhouse duo Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli. However, the one that really hit the industry hard was the exit of Phoebe Philo from Celine. Phoebe had been at Celine so long that she had really made the brand her own and the industry as a whole was very nervous to see who would attempt to fill such large shoes. When the announcement was made that YSL’s Hedi Slimane would be taking her place, some people were skeptical, but the overall outlook was hopeful.
After Slimane’s first show this past Friday, all hope that the brand’s simplistic chic aesthetic would stay intact was lost. Slimane utterly disappointed the tried and true Celine customer by creating a collection that was simply a replica of the heroin chic looks that walked the runway while he was at YSL. These pieces were uninspired and unoriginal, and to be frank, outright disrespectful to the history of this incredible house. What was once a brand for women, by women with thoughtful, beautiful, and architectural design is now a cheap knock-off of another brand. The removal of the accent on the “e” of Celine might as well have been the removal of everything that Celine once stood for, and it is a shame that LVMH allowed this to happen.
the cool kid of skincare october 2, 2018
Over the last couple of months there has been a tremendous amount of buzz surrounding the clean skincare brand Drunk Elephant. Since launching in 2012, the brand has continued to grow rapidly through their own ecommerce site, Sephora, and other international partners like Cult Beauty despite being called “too niche” early on. They were able to focus in on 11 products that are free of the “suspicious six” (silicones, essential oils, chemical screens, SLS, Drying Alcohols, and Fragrance/Dyes) and grow that into a global business. Drunk Elephant is said to be a top seller in each of its current channels with no plans to slow down any time soon. According to Business of Fashion, Drunk Elephant made $25 million in net sales in 2016 and they are set to make over $100 million in net sales this year. The brand has previously launched in Australia through Mecca, they just launched in the UK through SpaceNK and Cult Beauty, and they are planning to launch in Singapore in November, with South Korea and China to follow by 2020.
This amount of success is grabbing the attention of beauty industry leaders like Estée Lauder and L’Oréal and it would be shocking if either one of them has not made an offer to buy the company. However, the chief executive has no plans of selling the brand any time soon. For now, the company wants to stay true to its roots and focus on, “how we do per door rather than how many doors we have” (Strugatz). This mindset is what is going to continue to make this brand feel authentic and be successful.
lipstick is a powerful thing october 10, 2018
Everyone has that one piece of clothing, jewelry, shoes, or makeup that makes them feel like a superhero. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, you most likely have something that makes you feel like a super star every time you put it on. For many women, lipstick is their secret weapon. There is that one shade that makes them feel like a real boss each time they swipe it on their lips.
This is such a phenomenon that The Cut has a tag on their site called “Sealed With A Kiss” that consists solely of articles about lipstick. These articles range from styling tips to women sharing their stories about what lipstick means to them. One article titled “Lipstick Saved Me From the Apocalypse,” was written by a woman who grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness and believed in the apocalypse. When she escaped from this religion, she regained hope that the world was not going to end and found herself through a tube of red lipstick. She said that it allowed her to become the wild spirit that she truly was and find her confidence. Personally, lipstick is one of my favorite beauty products. If I have a big presentation or an interview, I will always put on lipstick because it makes me feel more confident. I am a naturally shy person and it takes me a while to become comfortable with people, but something about wearing a bold red or a deep pink lip makes me feel like I can command a room. Even if I know everything that I need to say, a layer of lipstick just has a way of making me feel more put together and like I can take on anything.
the demise of deciem october 10, 2018 It is no secret that the founder and CEO of Deciem, Brandon Truaxe, tends to make questionable decisions when it comes to his business. The Deciem Instagram is full of videos of him making company announcements as if it is a platform that only he and his employees use. For example in August, he posted a video of a phone conversation that he had with the head of the skincare labs asking if he could hire five chemists from the labs that would only answer customer’s questions about the products. Listening to this conversation, it is obvious that this is the first time that he mentioned this idea to the head of the labs, and that is normally is a conversation that someone would have privately and then post a job listing afterwards. It is also rumored that he fired his entire marketing team earlier this year and forced out his co-CEO. The latest scandal is surrounding a video that Truaxe posted on October 8 announcing the immediate shutdown of all Deciem operations. The video is very confusing and the caption attached to it provides no clarification. In the video, Truaxe mentions that every Deciem employee is involved in “major criminal activity, which includes financial crimes and much others” (Kilikita). He then calls out Estée Lauder Companies, IT Cosmetics which is owned by L’Oréal Group, LVMH and “Bernard Ass” (a.k.a. Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH), Donald Trump, George Clooney, and many others in his caption with no real explanation of why he mentions them. He also says that he has been a soldier for the last 13 years because he has been called a porn actor and as a drug dealer.
Following this video, all of his stores and his website have indeed been shut down which is causing fans of his brands to freak out a bit. You can still buy products through Deciem’s stockists, but many of them have limited supplies due to the fact that Brandon has discontinued many of those partnerships. It is unclear what will happen to this company in the future, but after this big of a scandal, it will be exceptionally difficult for them to recover.
the spirit of acceptance october 18, 2018 One of the biggest zeitgeists of this moment in time is the topic of self-acceptance and self-love. This has been a huge movement within the fashion and beauty industries with marketing campaigns and fashion shows highlighting diversity and inclusion. We tend to think of this trend as being focused around shape, size, and skin-color, but it is also extremely relevant for age. Many companies are only focusing their efforts on Millennials and Gen Z because they seem to think that reaching Baby Boomers is just not worth it and that because they are older, they could not possibly understand how to use social media. This could not be less true, and while marketers may need to be a bit more creative when trying to reach an older customer, it certainly is worth it.
An article from The New York Times was written by a woman over 60 who was constantly being told that she needed to dye her hair in order to cover up her greys so that she would still be considered beautiful and still be taken seriously at work. Her friends told her that her husband would leave her for a younger woman if she let her grey grow out. Social media told her that because grey hair is coarse and can be brassy, she would need to get expensive Keratin treatments to maintain it. This mentality is a real disappointment in what is supposed to be an era of acceptance and love. However, this woman had the courage to go against what everyone else was telling her and let her greys grow, and to her shock, she felt beautiful when she did. This just goes to show that it does not matter how old you are, as long as you love yourself, the world will to.
pure sephoria october 22, 2018
Over the weekend, beauty retailer Sephora opened their first ever house of beauty called “Sephoria”. This event took over three floors of a hotel in Downtown LA and it housed Instagramable spaces from almost every beauty brand that the retailer carries. Fenty Beauty had a larger-than-life highlighter compact full of confetti, Jo Malone had a flowerfilled telephone booth, and Tatcha created a Japanese garden. Some of these spaces were giving out free full-sized products, but others were trading products for Instagram posts with their brand’s hashtag in order to drive consumer engagement. People in attendance included a mix of press, influencers, professionals from the beauty industry, brand founders, celebrities, and even your everyday beauty junkies that had between $99-$449 to spare for a ticket. As you can imagine, Sephora was really trying to gather as much data about their customers as possible at this event. They were doing this by analyzing social media activity, but they took their analytics a step further by tracking each customer’s movement through the space with RFID chips. Because there were roughly 1,200 people in the space at a time, it makes sense that they would need a more precise way of tracking people’s movements than heatmapping, but they never stated how
aware their customers were of the RFID chips. These chips were a great way for Sephora to figure out which brands people were gravitating towards the most and where they spent the most time. The data gathered from this event could potentially help Sephora identify the brands they should be focusing on for future events in smaller locations in order to create even more intimate “Sephoria� experiences for their customers.
the beginning of end. october 29, 2018
Everyone in fashion knows that streetwear is taking over the industry one sneaker at a time. Luxury fashion houses like Louis Vuitton have tried to embrace the trend by hiring people like Virgil Abloh to try to inject a certain level of “cool” into their brands, but luxury department stores just can’t seem to keep up the pace. Cue the entrance of End Clothing. The founders of End were able to find a sweet spot in the market that no one else seems to be able to perfect the way they have. They started in Newcastle as a space for men where wellknown streetwear brands and emerging brands collided, and have since added luxury brands like Comme des Gracons and Valentino into the mix. They recognized that their customers wanted unique streetwear along with the more well-known brands like Nike, so they really nurtured their relationships with emerging brands like Umbro by Kim Jones in order to provide a truly unique product assortment. Eventually, they started to expand into the luxury market by introducing modern labels like Acne Studio into its portfolio, but it took years to convince the traditional luxury players that this was a worthwhile shopping destination that they should invest in. Fast-forward a few years to today and you see that these houses finally see End as a way to prove to younger customers that they are young and hip.
The real key to End’s success has been the fact that they were truly able to identify what their customers want, and at what price points. Because their target audience is a younger customer, they realize that not everyone can afford to wear Saint Laurent head-to-toe, but they sure as hell will save up to buy the latest pair of Off-White sneakers accompanied by a Champion hoodie and Adidas track pants. This is where the real issue lies with luxury department stores. They want a younger customer base, but they will not introduce niche, entry-level priced brands into their stores. The type of product assortment that End offers is what could help luxury department stores develop a loyal customer base that will grow with the store as time goes on.
the shrinking giant november 2, 2018
Fast fashion giant, Topshop, is feeling the heat after the announcement that the chairman of parent company, Arcadia, was accused of sexual harassment, bullying, and racist abuse to five former staff members. This is also not the first time that Sir Philip Green has been accused of sexual or behavioral misconduct. He was previously the subject of bullying and intimidation rumors surrounding some of his younger female employees.
So what makes these accusations different from the first go-round? Social media has made it infinitely easier for people to share their opinions on this topic and spread the word that otherwise would have gone unnoticed if people did not realize that he was the chairman of Arcadia. Following the announcement of his recent allegations, Topshop’s social media specifically has been in a downward spiral when it comes to negative engagement. Negative engagement has increased 37 percent and positive engagement has dropped 12 percent in past month alone. People have even created hashtags like #BoycottTopshop and #PinkNotGreen in order to protest the brand online and spread awareness of this issue. This just goes to show how educated the modern customer is, and it proves that the individuals in power must be more careful than ever before when it comes to their personal reputations and the reputations of their companies if they want to stay in business.
references https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/professional/ drunk-elephants-plan-to-become-the-next-billion-dollarbeauty-brand https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/lipstick-saved-me-from-theapocalypse.html https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/all-the-lipsticks-ive-boughtfor-women-ill-never-be.html https://www.thecut.com/tags/sealed-with-a-kiss/ https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/deciem-the-ordinary-closing-down https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/18/style/going-gray-how-iquit-the-hairdye-bottle.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fstyle-self-care https://fashionista.com/2018/10/sephoria-house-of-beauty-losangeles-event https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/professional/ end-clothing-menswears-silent-e-commerce-giant-streetwear-luxury https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/professional/astopshops-brand-heat-drops-amidst-scandal-should-philipgreen-sell
caroline wild fasm 430