Just-style 1/09/2011

With 3D technology selling movies and electronics, it only makes sense that fashion is also focusing on this cutting edge trend. Certain brands are exploring ways in which 3D technology can enhance everything from couture shows to advertisements to e-business; but while the drive for innovation is there, some industry experts say the technology still has a way to go before online fitting rooms are mainstream.

In February 2010, UK fashion house Burberry created a buzz when it streamed its autumn/winter women’s wear show in 3D, creating a fashion event that was the first of its kind.

That same autumn, young consumer oriented Armani Exchange followed suit, creating a 3D autumn advertising campaign with specially designed 3D glasses for viewing its creative spreads in GQ, V Magazine and Interview.

Since then Mexican Vogue has run a 3D Louis Vuitton fashion spread, the September 2010 issue of Vogue Italia came with a pair of 3D glasses to view its sharp digital photos, and Los Angeles-based luxury men’s wear label, Native Son introduced America’s first 3D fashion film, showcasing the brand’s autumn 2010 collection through an artsy, eye-popping narrative.

These 3D marketing campaigns still seem to be the exception, not the rule, however, in the current fashion landscape.

“[3D technology] is still something relatively new in the marketing side of the fashion world,” says Kyle Fitzgibbons, the US-based designer behind Native Son.

He explains that while the screening of his 3D film garnered a lot of positive feedback, he is not looking to incorporate 3D into any more of his marketing strategies in the near future. “Right now it’s just not feasible.”

“There are only a limited amount of viewers that can watch 3D – the technology just isn’t mainstream yet. Shooting in 3D is very expensive, and considering that the technology can only reach a very small slice of the marketing pie right now, it’s not necessarily worth it.”

3D technology in business
Over in Japan, where cutting-edge technology is ever present, Loic Bizel, founder of Japanese fashion market consulting firm Lebiz Tokyo, says he sees an increasing demand for Japanese brands to use 3D technology on their websites. Although he does not see 3D in point-of-sale really taking off anytime soon.

“I am not sure that for clothing brands it is worth doing 3D imaging because the production is so heavy and long – for accessories like bags, shoes or sunglasses, it might be more useful to push the sales, maybe.”

Bizel says more and more shops in Japan are using iPads in stores to display catalogues or fashion shows at the moment – so the hunger for technology exists.

He also believes the sales impact of 3D imaging could be big for e-business though, in Japan specifically: “The Japanese love information and details, so the 3D will allow them to really study products from all angles in the same way they would be able to in shops. It will be a big asset in terms of really seeing the material and textures of a product.”

Dr Nicola D’Apuzzo is the founder of Hometrica Consulting, a Swiss firm that works in the fields of 3D body scanning and 3D human body measurements. He says that while he, too, agrees there is not yet a real benefit to marketing in 3D, there is great potential in the world of e-business for the technology.

D’Apuzzo says that while some retailers have already tried to incorporate 3D imaging technology into online shops and e-business, many have, however, had to quickly pull the plug on it.

“The online [3D] system isn’t ready yet – there aren’t any products out there yet that can create precise simulation for online shoppers. There are avatars, but the size and fit can’t be personalised yet.”

He says this technology is likely to develop in the near future, however, due to customer demand. “Incorporating 3D into online shopping would be great from an economic point of view in terms of saving time and money by not having to send the garment back.”

Online fit technology
But the technology for this might be closer than D’Apuzzo thinks. Raj Sareen, director at Tukatech, a US-based international provider of fashion design and pattern making computer-aided design (CAD) software, says his company has launched a new venture called Styku, which will help companies move 3D technology onto the web “to create an online fitting room technology aimed at helping online retailers reduce returns and increase sales.”

American company [TC]² also provides 3D body scanning solutions in apparel, and virtual fashion: its NX-16 3D scanner scans the whole body in seconds and rapidly produces a true-to-scale 3D body model, with its body measurement software able to extract over 400 unique measurements.

A version of [TC]²’s software lets people do a body scan and then create realistic avatars for themselves.

“By replacing the fit model avatar with a consumer avatar – made in the shape of the consumer – consumers can try on a garment on their own body before they buy clothing online, allowing them to choose the right size and reduce the chance of returns,” says Sareen.

And while many 3D solutions companies are currently working towards incorporating these technologies in their e-business models, some designers are leading the pack, and putting 3D body scanners right in their stores.

American swimsuit designer Lori Coulter, for example, has clients step into the TrueTailor digital body scanner in her shop, which creates a 3D model of the customer’s body in less than a minute, with tailor-made bathing suits ready within two weeks’ time.

British custom-tailored men’s wear brand Aston Blake also recently opened a concept store in Singapore that has an in-store body scanner, with the branch keeping each customer’s measurement records in a personal folder to use for all future orders.

http://www.just-style.com/management-briefing/3d-technology-in-the-fashion-business_id112058.aspx

(Feb. 11, 2011)

Print is so passe: In a world once ruled by magazine mavens, bloggers now reigning rulers of fashion

Lisa Gomi / Yomiuri Shimbun Washington Bureau

Ten years ago, if you were sitting in the front row at New York Fashion Week show, chances are you were an editor who had spent decades earning your cushy seat and unobstructed view. At New York Fashion Week this February, however, editors found themselves sharing the row with bloggers whose claims to fame were their photos, URL and wit. Fashion bloggers even had a whole conference devoted to their craft, with a keynote speech by Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of the luxury label Proenza Schouler.

The grand entrance of bloggers into the fashion world suggests the decline of their print counterparts. Sasha Wilkins, who was Executive Style Editor for The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ before turning full time to her blog LibertyLondonGirl, recounted that magazines “were the gatekeepers” to the industry and that everything “was controlled by print publication.” Now, bloggers are threatening to usurp print’s throne.

But a closer look suggests that fashion blogs and traditional media enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Wilkins credits the success of her luxury brand consulting firm, Liberty Media, to her understanding of both new and old media. She acknowledges that her blog is popular partly because she offers “an insider view,” like her recent coverage of Chanel’s haute couture show in Paris.

Readers flock to her blog because it opens up the infamously exclusive fashion industry, and in some ways the appeal of her approach depends on the industry’s continuing inaccessibility.

The success of Scott Schuman’s wildly popular photo blog The Sartorialist is also dependent on cooperation with the industry. Editors and other industry heavyweights felt confident hiring Schuman after they saw him at shows using his low-tech approach–no assistants, no lights, no hair and makeup–and the resulting photos on his blog. They liked what they saw, and Schuman has since done a weekly page for GQ and major ad campaigns such as Burberry’s Art of the Trench project. Offline, he has published a book, and just exhibited his work at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

But, Schuman says these high profile opportunities are a means to an end.

“I worked with those people to get enough money to be able to go back to my blog,” he explained. Though the blog remains top priority, he still depends on the industry and traditional media for both finances and content.

Japanese fashion bloggers remain noticeably absent from the international scene. According to Signature9 and Stylite, two Web sites that rank popular fashion blogs based on unique visitors, Google searches, and other criteria, top blogs remain concentrated in the West. Wilkins and Schuman both have Japanese readers, but they acknowledge obstacles to further expansion in Japan.

“I’m afraid my kanji is no good, I have no Japanese,” Wilkins confessed. Schuman admitted to fashion culture shock during his first trip to Japan with ganguro girls and their uniform of fake tans, bleached hair, and revealing clothing.

“It’s just so weird. I actually don’t even know how to relate to it,” he said, adding “I’ve got to go back and start peeling away the layers…to understand it better.”

Loic Bizel understands the sentiment. In 2001, Bizel started LeBiz Consulting to educate foreign brands on Japan’s market after working in the Japanese fashion industry for five years.

“Japanese fashion is more diverse as Japanese people are not scared of mixing styles, brands, and trends,” he explained. With such enthusiasm for fashion, it may only be a matter of time before a Japanese name joins the ranks of bloggers such as Wilkins and Schuman.

Everyone is a stylist in Japan !

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-11-19/world/japan.cool.money_1_japan-s-gdp-fashion-japanese-government?_s=PM:WORLD

November 19, 2010|By Mairi Mackay, CNN

Japan’s finances may not be in great shape, but when it comes to fashion, there still aren’t many places more cool.

Consumers from Asia, Europe and the United States might not be buying as many Japanese cars and TVs, but they continue to be influenced by Japan’s culture. That means that when global brands are looking for the hottest new fashions, eyes almost inevitably turn eastward.

“Most of the time, most global trends start in Tokyo,” trendspotter Loic Bizel told CNN. A Tokyo-based fashion expert who consults for labels like Timberland, Lacoste and Sonia Rykiel, Bizel also takes foreign fashionistas on tours of Tokyo to scout for street style trends to replicate in their home markets.

“People really started to look at Japan as a lab about seven or eight years ago,” he added. “Trends are picked up really quickly in the streets.”

That’s why, according to Bizel, brands like Topshop from the UK and Sweden’s H&M come: “They know they have time to produce what they have spotted in Tokyo for next season and it will be a hit.”

“It’s easy for big brands to come to Japan, and compete, and send [designs] to their home market,” according to Bizel, because, crucially, hardly any Japanese fashion labels sell abroad.

But, says the Japanese government, things are set to change. It is proposing to pump just over ¥19 billion ($237 million) into the creative sector in 2011 to see if it can make more money from Japan’s national cool.

Mika Takagi is the Deputy Director of the Creative Industries Promotion Office — aka the “Cool Japan” Office — the government body charged with making Japan’s cultural industries (anime, graphic design, film, fashion and more) start paying.

“Japan has a lot of unique culture … [but] if you compare it with other money-making industries, the creative industries don’t make much money,” Takagi told CNN.

“We want to try to invest more in these cultural issues and try to brand Japanese products with the uniqueness of Japanese culture,” she added.

The aim, by 2020, is to increase profits by $85 billion (¥6.9 trillion) — to $698 billion (¥56.6 trillion). Revenues in 2007 amounted to $613 billion (¥49.7 trillion), according to Cool Japan. Japan’s GDP in 2007 was $4.4 trillion.

April 2010 – Metropolis : Tokyo Fashion Hype

If you have missed this program on Tokyo Fashion, you can still watch it here :

http://www.arte.tv/fr/Echappees-culturelles/metropolis/cette-semaine/NAV-Metropolis-04-07-2009/3161284,CmC=3161278.html

Enjoy !

Loic

read the original article :

Paris, Milan, Tokyo. Tokyo?

By HIROKO TABUCHI

Published: January 1, 2010

TOKYO — Japan’s trailblazers of street fashion are the envy of Western designers, spawning Web sites filled with snapshots of Tokyo youngsters in the latest distressed jeans or psychedelic stockings.

With city sidewalks as their catwalks, young Japanese flaunt carefully layered tops and thigh-high boots sporting labels like Galaxxxy, Phenomenon and Function Junction.

But most of Tokyo’s clothing designers have not figured out how to cash in on the city’s fashion sense. Only a handful of Japanese brands, like A Bathing Ape or Evisu Jeans, have gained traction beyond the nation’s shores. Chic local labels like Fur Fur and Garcia Marquez Gauche remain mostly unknown outside Japan.

Experts say that the nation’s fashion industry is too fragmented and too focused on the domestic market to make it overseas.

“For much of this decade, fashion trends have started in Japan and gone global. But Japanese brands don’t even realize that,” said Loic Bizel, a French-born fashion consultant based in Tokyo. Japan “generates trends and ideas, but it stops there,” he said. “Many brands are not even interested in going overseas.”

So each season, Mr. Bizel takes fashion industry buyers from America and Europe — mass clothiers like Hennes & Mauritz of Sweden and Topshop of Britain — to buy up bagfuls of the latest hits. The designs are then whisked overseas to be reworked, resized, stitched together and sold under Western labels.

In that business model, there is little financial gain for Japan. In 2008, Japan’s clothing and apparel-related exports came to a mere $416 million, dwarfed by the $3.68 billion exported by American apparel companies, and a tiny fraction of China’s $113 billion.

Meanwhile, Japan’s domestic apparel industry is on the decline. It shrank 1.3 percent, to 4.37 trillion yen ($48 billion), in 2008, and is expected to post a steeper decline for 2009 as recession-weary consumers and an aging population cut back sharply on spending.

“Japanese fashion might be considered cutting-edge, but overseas markets have been largely elusive,” said Atsushi Izu, an analyst at the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo. “Japan’s fashion industry is very fragmented, and most companies lack the resources and know-how to bring their brands to foreign markets.”

The government is trying to help. Earlier this year, the Foreign Ministry dispatched a group of suit-clad officials to Tokyo’s hip Harajuku neighborhood to survey the latest trends, part of an effort to promote Japanese fashion overseas. After interviews with shoppers and sales clerks, the ministry came up with a battle plan: to appoint three young trendsetters as “ambassadors” of Japanese chic, charged with extending the industry’s reach overseas and piquing interest in Japanese brands.

One ambassador, Misako Aoki — a model known in Tokyo for her Lolita look of frilly Rococo-inspired dresses paired with platform shoes — has been dispatched to France, Spain, Russia and Brazil, where she has attended expos and hosted fashion talk shows in her trademark floppy bow tie and frilly smock.

“I hope that Lolita fashion and Japanese fashion in general will raise your interest in Japan,” Ms. Aoki said in São Paulo, Brazil, in November after starring in a Lolita fashion show organized by the Japanese embassy. (Although Lolita style is a reference to theVladimir Nabokov novel “Lolita,” its look is more covered-up Victorian schoolgirl than skin-baring teenage vixen.)

The trade ministry has also helped revamp the twice-yearly Tokyo Collection and started inviting foreign journalists to come on the government’s dime. For the first time this year, the collection, renamed Japan Fashion Week, sponsored a splinter fashion event in New York to showcase Japanese designers, and it has planned another runway show in New York in mid-February.

“Japanese fashion has so much global potential,” says Kenjiro Monji, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s Public Diplomacy Department, who oversees Japan’s cultural push overseas.

But the government’s efforts have won it few fans in the fashion industry. Besides Ms. Aoki, the two other fashion ambassadors chosen by the government are a woman who likes to dress up in cute high school uniforms and another who mixes and matches secondhand clothes. Promoting such niche tastes does little to help the wider fashion industry, many say.

And Japan Fashion Week remains a relative nonevent filled with relatively obscure designers like Motonari Ono and Kazuhiro Takakura. Ambitious young designers hoping to follow in the footsteps of Japanese greats like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo may have to do what they did: pass over Tokyo’s shows for those in Paris.

Meanwhile, local favorites like Fur Fur — a new brand that mixes airy cotton frocks with distressed trench coats — have neither the expertise nor the resources to market overseas. Despite rave reviews from industry insiders, it has only one small store in Tokyo.

“Of course, taking my brand overseas is a dream,” said Fur Fur’s designer, Aya Furuhashi. “But to be honest, that’s really beyond us right now.”

What Japan’s fashion industry needs is more concrete help in marketing and setting up shop overseas, experts say. The government could also play a larger role helping Japanese labels protect their intellectual property rights, they say.

There are some promising signs. With government support, the start-up Xavel, which runs fashion shows that let women order outfits in real time using their cellphones, has opened shows in Paris and Beijing.

Fast Retailing, which sells the Uniqlo brand, has also been flexing its muscles overseas. Uniqlo, Japan’s answer to Gap, has roots in suburban outlets and does not have the level of respect among young fashion fans that many of Japan’s hipper brands do. But with ample funds and aggressive pricing on its fleece jackets and shirts, Uniqlo has expanded, with 92 stores worldwide.

Tadashi Yanai, chief executive of Fast Retailing, has said he hopes to build it into the world’s biggest apparel company, with sales of 5 trillion yen in 2020.

“We are part of a global economy,” Mr. Yanai said at a recent forum. “We cannot look inward.”

Moshe Komata contributed to this report.