From New York Magazine
Kelly Cutrone: ‘Fashion Luxury, Forget It. It’s Over.’
Here is her quote...do you agree?
Here is what I think is the future: Street life and
life style. Style is in; fashion luxury, forget it. It's over. Gucci, Vuitton,
Hermes ... all those places are really great, go for it. That business exists in
a city called Paris, France. That's where that is. Those businesses will
continue. Retail business, pretty much over. I think people who sell to retail
companies are people who can't afford their own stores. The poor boys — Old
Navy, J.Crew, Gap ... they already knew that and aren't wholesaling. Editorial,
magazine, we are going to say buh-bye to them as we know them. They will still
exist but everything is on the internet.
Meanwhile over at 24/7 wall street we've got an article on 10 brands that will disappear. The demise of Zales has been predicted for years but Moodys?
Will luxe brands be next?
(and why do I have problems with the block quote function)
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8 comments:
We've got a lot of empty retail units in our high street here in the UK. Survival of the fittest I guess. But the biggest hole we've felt is Woolworths - miss it dearly. Where do I go for my bits and bobs?
in the future,like-minded brands will be consolidated through a single corporate distribution entity.
individual brands will continue with their products and services, but their branding, design, marketing and advertising will be assumed by the dist. entity.
I want to buy a pair or two of Berlutis, but can only do so in person in store. WTF?!
Gosh - I don't quite understand her answer. It seemed a bit incomplete. I don't know what she means about Gap etc.
I think she doesn't know the global market and is purely thinking retail in respect of US economy. I do thin we have too many retailers and some will go in both luxury and high st.
That Cutrone quote is so poorly expressed it's difficult to focus on her point, which is...? Is she saying Old Navy, Gap, and JCrew will no longer have a Main Street presence, i.e. stores?
As for the Wall Street list, it's the nature of the system that some brands go away and new ones appear. I don't know why this should shock people. Whether it makes good business sense in all cases, is another issue. Decision-makers should think clearly before dismantling established, well-known brands.
TWOSP: I do think that there is something lost when we lose the old brands like Woolworths.
ANON: Hasn't this consolidation already happened for the most part.
LBT: Stores liker Berluti, which I love btw, will continue to exist in Paris, but in few other places.
MDS: I think that her quote was unclear but I do believe that she meant that margins are getting squeezed and firms will either own their own stores, like J.Crew, or sell their goods over the internet. It isn't efficient to wholesale out to large stores or boutiques anymore.
LBT: Agreed, Cutrone's opinion was poorly stated. But she is correct about business moving to the internet with high end fashion being sold at Net-a-Porter while the high end boutiques of Rodeo Drive and elsewhere remain empty.
Right now there is a lot of talk in my office about the David Webb brand. There is value in the brand, goodwill if you will, but we don't think that the brand will survive. I was a little blown away by Moody's though...although the venerable firm couldn't properly rate a decades worth of CDOs.
She's confusing and a bit of a mess -- not a terribly inspiring ambassador for her own services, in my opinion.
Anyhoodle.
I recall a great deal of resistance from luxury brands to hopping onboard the Internet when it just began to be democratized -- said that part of their brands' cache was exclusivity, expense, and being hard to obtain. I get all that, but at the same time, it does seem that online shopping is the direction that things are going in, so I wonder if certain brands aren't cutting off their nose to spite their face.
Couldn't tell what the hell she was saying. The message I got is "I'm a TV celebrity, I can say random things for attention now!"
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