For almost a week there has been all the buzz about the new Instagram feature currently being tested. The platform is coming up with shoppable tags for the businesses’ profiles and it is hard not to be excited as the process of buying for us as consumers gets increasingly easier. But what exactly are the opportunity and the challenge for the brands? According to Instagram research, 60% of the application users admit they learn about products and services on the platform; 75% say they take actions like visiting sites, searching, or telling a friend after being influenced by a post on Instagram. Try recollecting how many times you wanted something…
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American Apparel’s Farewell ?
American Apparel, the Los Angeles-based clothing manufacturer, figment of Dov Charney’s imagination and entrepreneurial nature, running since 1989, is now indisputably one of the largest apparel manufacturer in North America. At least virtually… A growing rumor, supported among others by Bloomberg, has it that the double A brand would be preparing its second bankruptcy filling within the next few weeks, making it the second one in less than two years. But one shall fully comprehend what American Apparel has been through also by considering the founder’s attitude, Mr.Charney, whose role in the brand’s downturn is not to be ignored. Let’s have a quick remainder of what happened up to now.…
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From London, With Love!
I was lucky enough to pass the week in London! As it’s my first time in the city, I have to say I’m really enjoying myself. As an American girl living in a fashion capital, Milan, my eyes of course went immediately to the fashion of the locals. From afar I’ve always said that the London fashion was a bit daring for me personally. The animal prints, the oversized jewels, the colors and oh so many textures… I could never pull it off. Now that I am up-close, I’m able to reanalyze and recognize that there is a really elegant spirit underneath the loud exterior. I noted that Britain seems…
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The G(h)o(s)ths Week.
Outside is dark. Winter is knocking at the doors. Fog is winding through the streets on the notes of “The Dark Side of the Moon”. This is the week in which everyone wants to be a Goth. But how to? How can one actually pretend to be so, even for one night? And what does it mean? Is it still a contemporary style? Everything started at the end of the Seventies, in the train of the Punk Era. Many of the so called Post-Punk music bands found the headquarter in the just opened Batcave nightclub in London, developing a social music movement and a new dress code characterising it. So,…
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Il Nuovo Gucci: in the Backstage of the Italian Empire’s Rebirth.
We’re in December 2014, and the mutli-brand luxury group Kering announces the departure of Patrizio di Marco and Frida Giannini, respectively Gucci’s CEO and artistic director. This wave of departures from Gucci comes as no surprise, and marks the beginning of a fresh start for the Florentine brand. Set up in 1921 by Guccio Gucci and acquired in 1999 by the ancestor of Kering, PPR, the double G brand was, at the time, going through a rough patch. 2013 has proved to be a downturn in the brand’s sales, a situation that worsened in 2014, with lower sales volume of 1.8% at 3,49 billion euros. Considering that Gucci is the…
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Decades of Fashion: the 60s
“Hey mama hey mama – Look around -Everybody’s groovin’ to a brand new sound” Welcome to the 60s, Hairspray At the beginning of the Sixties, the world felt that something was changing. A rush of optimism was spreading around cities and, with the election of the new president of US, John F. Kennedy, in 1961, people believed that a new golden age had to start. The key actors of those years where those who were born after the World War II, also called the baby boomers. Having reached the teen age, the joyful, lighthearted youth embraced the pleasures of life without the knowledge of the dreads of past wars. They…
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Fashion Eliminates the Y Chromosome
As we learned in biology lessons, chromosome Y defines human gender. However, as we are learning from fashion today, at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. The boundaries between masculinity and femininity are increasingly blurring and this seems to be more than a fast trend. In the past, when fashion was way more conservative, one could tell for sure what is appropriate for a man and what suits a woman. Today we see the stereotypes melting: while ladies wear boyfriend jeans, oversize shirts, T-shirts and hoodies, the aesthetics leaving their looks find place in menswear with brands like J.W.Anderson and Gucci introducing the man of unconventional, androgynous…
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Brunello Cucinelli – “Beauty Will Save the World”
“Balance sheets are not saved through lives.” It is with this quote by Adriano Olivetti that the conference held on October 18th, organised by Gianfranco De Nigris, Roberto Montaruli, Bocconi Students for Fashion and B.lab Bocconi, and hosting Brunello Cucinelli, led off. The main focus of the event was sustainability and, as Francesco Perrini – full Professor of Management at Bocconi University and Senior Professor of Corporate Finance & Real Estate at SDA Bocconi – said, on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), or better in this case, to a return to the concept of Community. Introducing Brunello Cucinelli, Professor Perrini described him as a revolutionist, promoter of an alternative entrepreneurial path.…
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The power of East: how Asian designers do MFW
Finally we are back at Bocconi, back at BS4F, and back at Milan Fashion Week. The new year calls for new experiences, so we decided to try something out: while the members usually attend events organized by Italian brands, this time there were also emerging asian designers added to the busy schedule. Today we will discuss the fashion show of Atsushi Nakashima, Japan, along with the presentation made by Samuel Yang from China, and see what they do to make the fashion-saturated Milan find place for newcomers from the east. Atsushi Nakashima The Japanese designer Atsushi Nakashima studied Fashion Design in Nagoya Fashion College, Japan, and claims to have been…
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Chiaja: a New Luxury Brand Rising
With a few weeks of delay, Milan is finally blossoming, trees are green again and summer seems to be finally coming. The time to make a choice about the look to wear on the beach this year is approaching, and with it the birth (and fast death) of many aspiring and unstructured swimwear fashion brands. But one seems to be different from the others, and has its roots in places very close to where we all study every day.The startup I want to tell you about today is Chiaja, born from three Bocconi students, Alessando, Umberto and Gabriele, with the dream to re-invent the way men’s swim shorts are worn…
