American Fashion Podcast

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Episode 111: 111 – Fashion Pop-Up Store Strategy For Fun and Profit Sep 27, 2016

Show notes

Fashion Pop-Up Store Strategy

Lion’esque Group founder Melissa Gonzalez helps brands set up camp to sell and be known. The company provides fashion pop-up store strategy, deployment, and management for a wide range of clients both inside and outside the fashion sphere.

The temporary pop-up shop trend seems to have been catching on as steadily as the decline of traditional brick and mortar retail establishment, and can be a smart response to a number of different needs, from simple brand awareness building to flash sales that clear out merchandise.

How do you gauge the value of working with specific influencers, when most are not at all proven to drive conversions? How do you run analytics on a pop-up store? How do you do a pop-up in another city? How do you make informed decisions while running a pop-up store, rather than one-off conclusions? Is running a pop-up store a good way to prepare for opening a traditional brick and mortar store? What’s the difference between a pop-up and a trunk show? Is this a good strategy for small brands?

References:

author Paco Underhill’s books on buying behavior (Amazon)
The Pop-Up Paradigm (Amazon)

Episode 110: 110 – Damn The Fashion Week, Full Speed Ahead Sep 22, 2016

Show notes

Damn The Fashion Week, Full Speed Ahead

Charles Beckwith an Richard Spiegel (The Fashion Tribune) are ranting about fashion week (damn the fashion week, full speed ahead). We sat down at the end of New York Fashion Week to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is rather raw and almost a behind the scenes conversation, of the kind that promoted the creation of this series.

Also in this episode is a backstage interview with designer Tadashi Shoji at his Spring 2017 collection show (at the 20:50 mark), and a chat with designer Austin Scarlet about his new experiment with non-bridal ready to wear (at the 23:15 mark).

Should emerging designers be doing fashion shows? Should Fashion Week even exist anymore? Where else should fashion shows be happening that they are not now going on? What happened to the party and the love and the spirit of fashion week? Is there a simple way to get it back? What would happen if fast fashion ceased to exist tomorrow? Why does the US Government tolerate cheap imports and trade deals that flood our market with fast fashion?

References:

Monse
Tadashi Shoji
Reem Acra
threeASFOUR
Made Fashion Week
Kate Miles
Wanabees Have Ruined Fashion Week (NY Post)
Esteban Cortazar
Mathieu Mirano

Episode 109: Designer Yeohlee Teng Sep 15, 2016

Show notes

Yeohlee Teng Interview

Yeohlee Teng (bio) has been a fixture of the New York City fashion design, culture, and industry for decades. Her store at 12 West 29th Street is a destination for women seeking clothing of a rare quality, the product of an intelligence and thoughtfulness that is both the mark and mind of its creator.

AFP hosts Charles, Seth, and Lisa attempt to interview Yeohlee about fashion then and now, disposable culture, her approach to design and technique, and a range of other topics, but she interviews them back, in this fascinating exchange about what is important in fashion and the life of highly conscious creative people.

Highlights:

You have to be careful who is telling you what the definitions are in this industry, because there’s this [message], “well, this is what the consumer wants, and so we’re just giving them what they want,” without acknowledging that the consumer has been trained to want that. And therefore, they can probably be untrained. – Seth Friedermann (15:22)

You would be surprised at how smart the women are who come into my store. I don’t have to tell them anything, they know. They know what looks good on them. They know the value of what they’re buying. They know how long it will last. They know how many places they can wear them to. They knwo it travels well. They know they can hand wash it. There are people that I could inform, but there are a lot more that could inform me. – Yeohlee Teng (25:04)

I think compassion plays a role. A lot of women are forgotten in the fashion world. I dress everybody. I have no prejudice. – Yeohlee Teng (31:36)

References:

Episode 108: 108 – Fashion Week Pre-Game Show Sep 02, 2016

Show notes

Fashion Week Pre-Game Show

New York Fashion Week is next week, so we’ve gathered some great minds to help you get your head in the game. It’s the New York Fashion Week Pre-Game Extravaganza!

Guests in this episode include Fashion Unfiltered founder and editor Katharine Zarrella, Decoded Fashion founder Liz Bacelar, ace runway photographer Udor (Instagram), and guest host Cathy Schepis.

Fashion Week show formats continue to evolve. A few seasons ago, many in the industry were shocked at the introduction of so many presentations replacing runway shows, and there have been experiments with social media-based shows, 3D effects, and fashion films. What’s now, and what is next?

Have bloggers disappeared from the front row? What is the role of individual social media influencers now? Where are we with See Now Buy Now? Is it getting big, or just buzz? Why aren’t there more top customers at the shows?

All this and more, in our New York Fashion Week Pre-Game Extravaganza!

references:

Episode 107: 107 – Bow & Drape Founder Aubrie Pagano Sep 01, 2016

Show notes

Aubrie Pagano, Founder and CEO of Bow & Drape

Mass customization has been a big buzz term in the fashiontech sphere for a couple of years, and a company spearheading the implementation of the idea is Bow and Drape. Aubrie Pagano (bio) founded the company in 2012 and has been making pathfinder decisions in the fashion future space ever since. Granted, it’s a lot of kitsch, like sweatshirts bearing slogans such as “Namaste In Bed” and “Humble Like Kanye,” but the course toward customers being able to make requests for changes to garments when shopping online is unmistakably part of fashion’s new frontier.

Guest host, photographer Stephen Eastwood

references:

AFP Episode #79. with Cindy Gallop and Frank Spadafora

Episode 106: 106 – Madison Avenue Hatter, Albertus Swanepoel Aug 08, 2016

Show notes

Albertus Swanepoel

Albertus Swanepoel is a hat designer from South Africa who has been working in New York for several years, and has collaborated with some of the biggest designers in the world on many of the most memorable runway shows.

Questions raised: Why don’t more people wear hats, and is it a growing or a shrinking business? Does e-commerce work for hats? What is the state of fashion in South Africa right now? What does traveling do for the perspective of a fashion designer? Do accessories designers fit well into the CFDA’s matrix of members? Is it possible for the CFDA to help or even understand brands that are worth less than a million dollars? Why is there a warthog on Albertus’ website?

references:

Marianne Fassler
Clive Rundle
Black Coffee
Reem Acra
What Happened at Oscar de la Renta? (NY Times)

“Having engagements be the end goal of a social media strategy is like having looking be the end goal of cooking. The goal of social media strategy is to drive sales.” – Seth Friedermann

Episode 105: 105 – In Pursuit of Luxury Aug 05, 2016

Show notes

In Pursuit of Luxury

Behind the scenes with the panelists and organizers as LIM College hosts a conference on luxury in partnership with Brooklyn College and The University of Hertfordshire. In Pursuit of Luxury is an academic and industry crossover conference, focused on the luxury products market.

Part One includes Christopher Ferree, the Lanvin brand manager at Bergdorf Goodman; Veronica Manlow of Brooklyn College; and Travis Haglin, former Ralph Lauren executive and General Manager for Burberry.

Part Two includes Shaun Borstrock, Associate Dean of The School of Creative Arts at The University of Hertfordshire in England; Veronica Manlow of Brooklyn College; and Jacqui Jenkins, Dean of Graduate Studies at LIM College.

Highlights:

“From a market standpoint, we’re going to shift to the brick and mortar being where the entertainment happens, where the emotion and excitement can continue to happen. E-commerce will be able to be kind of for that utility, that quick easy pickup. Something that, ‘I know I want this, but I’ve experienced it in the store. I’m going to make my purchase now.’ It’s allowing for that ability for an aspirational person to go in, have fun, connect with the brand. They might not be ready to purchase then, but they’ll go, whatever time they need to save up for that item, and then they’ll order online because it’s convenient. And then they’ll go back.” – Travis Haglin (7:42)
“They actually want, whether it’s a young latin guy, young black guy, young Asian kid who’s studying in the States, he wants to come to the store. He looks online. He shops online. They’ve told me that they want to come into the store. They want to buy it in the store. Buying into that dream, buying into that idea of ‘I can go to the boutique, and find it, and have that experience.’ Rather than just the transaction of being online.” -Christopher Ferree (9:13)
“What I’m hearing is the commodification of luxury has happened, and we’re starting to see the rejection of that in going back to the individual, almost a bespoke process, speaking to the artisanal, the craftsman who put the essence into what made luxury really what it was. Due to our business demands, we’ve, in essence, commodified it.” Travis Haglin (22:15)
“LIM will be launching a luxury program next year, and for us this was an opportunity to develop really the conversation: luxury from an academic and industry perspective. But more importantly, to identify partners to work with as we go forward in building out our program.” – Jacqui Jenkins (37:16)

References:

Episode 104: 104 – Sexy Sordid Focus With Author Michael Gross Jul 21, 2016

Show notes

Author Michael Gross

Michael Gross (website) is the author of a number of books on the subject of elitist worlds, from billionaire condo buildings to model management. His new book is Focus: The Secret, Sexy, Sometimes Sordid World of Fashion Photographers, and he is in the studio with American Fashion Podcast to talk about it.

Also in the studio, a guest host: fashion and beauty photographer Stephen Eastwood.

A Great Conversation

Discussion begins with Mr. Gorss expanding on how he came to write this book in the beginning, then turns to Mr. Eastwood’s comments on the transition from film to digital for fashion photography and into the social media space, which is where the book ends. An interesting conversation comes up about whether the golden age of fashion magazines will come back, with Gross and Eastwood on opposite sides of the argument. Are there any magazines that stand as an oasis in the corporate brand management approach to editing fashion? Where is the line between editorial and advertorial? Has it moved?

Gross talks about some of his favorite stories from the book, particularly regarding Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, Alexy Brodovitch, and more. He also talks more about the AIDS crisis and the absolute darkness it brought down on the fashion industry’s leading creatives, when “every week there was a funeral.”

The recording includes some commentary on the passing of Bill Cunningham, who is not featured in the book.

Fashion Photography Tips

Stephen Eastwood give some advice on taking photos yourself, for designers who can’t afford a professional photographer yet. The group talks about interference from clients and editors on set, and the difference between people who get in the way with ignorant micromanagement and the people who come in with ideas. Michael Gross talks about his experience watching a massive advertising campaign being executed by a team of 30 technicians.

References

Public Speaking (film)

Celebrating 100 Episodes With Domenico Vacca Jul 14, 2016

Show notes

Celebrating 100 Episodes

Designer Domenico Vacca welcomes guests from the Open Source Fashion and Fashion Media Center communities at his private DV Club above the new Domenico Vacca flagship store on 55th Street in Manhattan, celebrating 100 episodes of both American Fashion Podcast and Fashion Is Your Business.

As part of the party, Charles Beckwith interviews Mr. Vacca about his new flagship store, which has been designed as a brand experience space. This is not a new concept, but one that is growing in popularity. As e-commerce becomes more prevalent, selling products in a brick and mortar retail store becomes less important than conveying brand identity, so special brands need special spaces and special experiences.

The suitmaker talks about sticking to Italian cuts for his menswear in the US market, and how and why he resisted wholesale pressures to change his approach, holding on to fine stitching and high grade materials. He embraced consumer education instead of bowing to US domestic market pressures.

Milestones

This 100 episodes celebration comes just days after we reached the milestone of 9 terabytes of audio files delivered to our audiences, which would translate to about 670 weeks of continuous listening if someone cared to listen to all the .mp3 files we have served. To date, episodes of our shows have been downloaded nearly 900,000 times.

Both the American Fashion Podcast and Fashion Is Your Business teams want to thank everyone who has spent either one hour or two hundred hours listening to the shows over the last two years, and all of the wonderful guests who have given their time and energy to telling great stories as part of our programs. We keep talking because you keep listening.

Episode 103: 103 – Fashion Ignores Many Women Jul 12, 2016

Show notes

Fashion Ignores So Many Womem

Our interview with Cindy Weber-Cleary, the former fashion editor of InStyle Magazine and now co-founder of the shopping site Apprécier, which serves the vast number of women over 45 years of age who seem to be widely ignored as customers by the fashion industry.

Has online shopping changed how women over 45 dress themselves? Do affluent women seek bargains? What has happened to brand loyalty? Why are so many magazines still failing?

references:

Suite 1521
Shoppable
Gary Graham
People Style, Fashion e-Comm Site Busted for “Confusing” Native Ads (The Fashion Law)

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“Having engagements be the end goal of a social media strategy is like having looking be the end goal of cooking. The goal of social media strategy is to drive sales.” – Seth Friedermann

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