the zeitgeist

Call it the Downton Abbey effect. Or maybe it's because of the recent London Olympics. Whatever the reason, Americans are reportedly co-opting traditional British terms at an ever-increasing rate. And the biggest participants in linguistic Anglomania of all? Fashion people.

"Fashion people live to sound British, the same way they over-pronounce French and Italian words because of those country’s fashion week's," Scene magazine editor Peter Davis explained in a recent New York Times article. "I have heard people who grew up far from London uttering that a runway collection was 'brilliant' or just 'bril.' Fashion editors worry they will get 'sacked' if their next issue or story is 'rubbish' and not 'clever' enough."

Not that this is really new, but crikey. Don't tell Glenn Beck.

>> Designers are clocking an increased demand for the high-end side of ready-to-wear — demi-couture, as it's called. Mary Katrantzou's Jewel Tree dress, left, which required four studios putting in more than 150 hours to make, caused one seamstress to cry, and retails at $14,200, sold 18 units this Fall. Matthew Williamson president Joseph Velosa reports: "Pieces over $5,000 now account for six percent of our business. To put that into context, two years ago we sold nothing at that price." And Azzedine Alaia joined the couture schedule in July, showing what he called "semi-couture" — pieces which could be purchased as-is — to much acclaim.

Although these clothes have price tags that run mid-four to five figures, they are sold off the rack through the typical retail channels, rather than involving the time commitment of multiple atelier fittings like a couture piece does. Katrantzou's Jewel Tree dress, for instance, is currently available on Net-a-Porter and can be delivered next day.

Jason Wu, who has a houndstooth tweed overcoat with gold bullion embroidery for $15,000 and started using Paris ateliers like Lesage and Lemarie a few seasons ago, says: "Between all the designer collaborations and everything that's going on, we need to give people a reason to buy. There are some things that just can't be done for cheaper."

And Prabal Gurung, who is selling a hand-painted organza and braided chiffon gown for $15,000, adds: "There's a customer who wants this stuff, but it's like one in each city. You hope to sell a lot, but five total is great."

>> Is the proliferation of sample sale websites ultimately hurting designers? The Wall Street Journal's Alexis Swerdloff thinks so. She writes: "Due to a surge in sample-sale websites like Gilt Groupe, the cachet once associated with owning a name-brand designer has been significantly diluted; getting your hands on a Marc Jacobs bag is easier than it's ever been. This, combined with a post-recession wariness of conspicuous logo-flaunting and an eco-fueled desire for small-batch, low-impact authenticity, may be shifting the nature of luxury. It's no longer about who made your dress, but at what out-of-the-way dusty market you found it. Call it the Eat, Pray, Love-ization of fashion." [WSJ]

>> The Fall 2011 Fashion Week season was engulfed by the rumors run rampant concerning the standing of John Galliano at Christian Dior, Stefano Pilati at Yves Saint Laurent, Hannah MacGibbon at Chloe, and Christophe Decarnin at Balmain, but Business of Fashion's Imran Amed pointed out a couple of other trends that emerged during the season.

First, the transition of streetstyle photography into streetstyle paparazzi. "The ‘bloggers walk’ in the Jardin des Tuileries, site of many major Paris shows, is now completely out of control," Amed writes. "Indeed, it’s become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the aggressive paparazzi who stalk Hollywood celebrities outside bars and clubs and a few of the bad apples amongst the hordes of photographers that accost editors as they come in and out of shows."

Why the sudden aggressiveness? Amed notes: "Several street style bloggers told me confidentially that the competition is extremely fierce for getting the best photographs, which can then be sold on to global editions of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar each for as little as $200, but up to $1000 or more."

And second, while many designers cut back on how many they hosted at their shows and presentations, there has become an unprecedented demand for seating. "At Céline, any senior editors from the UK were forced to stand," Amed reports. "And more than one front-row blogger complained to me about not having access to Givenchy or YSL." A good part of that newfound demand is coming from consumers, Amed writes: "At the Jason Wu show, I was seated next to a section allocated to Nordstrom, which had chosen to give away most of its seats to top clients who had flown in specially for the event from across the country. Indeed, department store buyers told me the pressure to find seats for top consumers is 'enormous.' If a woman spends more than $1 million in a store, she has come to expect VIP treatment."

>> Between Alexander McQueen committing suicide last year, John Galliano's drunken, anti-Semitic outburst, and Christophe Decarnin being sidelined for depression treatments, many are starting to wonder if the fashion industry and its current pressures — particularly the demand for more and more collections, released faster and faster — are to blame for designers spinning out of control. Karl Lagerfeld, Michael Kors, and more address the issue:

Karl Lagerfeld: “I see designing, running a company, like a high-level athletic activity. I don’t want to hear anything about the fragility or any of those things. If an athlete is too fragile to run, he cannot run. And this is exactly the same. You don’t accept this kind of business if you’re too much of an artist. I believe in discipline, so I’m not the right person to cry about weakness and things like this, but maybe I’m not human.”

Marc Jacobs: “You don’t think bank tellers have problems? You don’t think people in the middle of the suburbs have problems? Blaming is such a complete waste. I mean, it’s so pointless. To say, you know, my mother was absent and therefore I ran amok, it’s ridiculous. It’s a self-destructive nature, it’s a mental, physical and a kind of spiritual malady . . . people who are happy and healthy and spiritually well don’t do things to hurt themselves.”

Yves Saint Laurent's longtime business partner Pierre Berge: “I have a lot more sympathy for people who have to take the train to work every day. What a load of nonsense! No, no, no. Designers are artisans who are extremely privileged to have a poetic profession. They are not artists. We have to stop saying that they are.”

Marc Jacobs's longtime business partner Robert Duffy: “You cannot blame the industry. The majority of actors are not drug addicts, the majority of designers are not drug addicts.”

Theory founder Andrew Rosen: “I don’t see fashion as an industry being ahead of the world in terms of this issue. It’s a devastating and unfortunate condition that happens in every walk of life. It doesn’t make it better or OK, it’s a devastating illness to all those around it. Drug addiction, and addiction in general, is unfortunately part of society today. Maybe because we’re so close to our industry, we feel it more. Whenever it happens, it’s horrible.”

Michael Kors: "No question . . . I mean, I forget what season I’m in sometimes. I think every designer in today’s world, I don’t care whether you’re a designer who makes clothes that are phantasmagorical or very pragmatic, you have to figure out something that can ground you and bring you back. Whatever it is, if you go to the gym too much or you travel too much, you’ve got to have time to escape. I always tell everyone the crazy conversation I’ve had forever with actors, if they do two films in a row, and they’ve lived these characters and they’re on the set away from their friends and family, but then they take a year off. What are designers supposed to say? 'I’m tired. I’m not doing fall. Wear last year’s clothes, and maybe get some new nail polish.' It’s endless."

Photographer Mert Alas: “I’m the kind of person that I live under pressure, but I enjoy the pressure, so it very much relates to your own personality. Of course we’re all under pressure. The bus driver is under pressure. But, you know, it’s how you come out of it. If you can make good fun with it, pressure can be enjoyable.”

New York Times's Cathy Horyn: "For designers already at big houses, the pressures must reach absurd levels . . . Many people in professional and creative fields are under intense pressure, but for designers that pressure is manifested on the runway. The problem goes beyond having to produce multiple collections a year; it’s the nearly brutalizing feeling that something new and relevant must be communicated each season."

Co-President of PR firm KCD Ed Filipowski: “As a publicist, I have also taken on many times the role of ‘fashion therapist’ to my clients. Globalization, digitalization — the speed and scope of our work — has added a tremendous amount of pressure not only to the creative field but everyone in this industry. I would venture to say we are all doing at least twice as much work twice as fast as we were five years ago.”

>> Since her collection's inception, Victoria Beckham has hosted her fashion show presentations in intimate settings, narrating each look. Same goes for L'Wren Scott, who has for many seasons kept her presentations intimate enough to simultaneously serve a lunch. And over a year ago, Marc Jacobs downsized his fashion show invites from 1,400 to 500. But after Tom Ford trumpeted the merits of an intimate show last fashion week, some think a change toward smaller shows is in the air.

“He [Ford] shook up the industry,” said Paul Wilmot, a fashion publicist whose firm handles the Oscar de la Renta and Bill Blass shows. “And if somebody says they weren’t influenced, that would be a lie.” James Laforce, who handles shows like Vena Cava, notes: “I’ve heard plenty of people saying, ‘Let’s do a Tom Ford kind of thing.’ They are asking themselves, ‘Is more really more, or is more watering down our influence?’” And KCD's Ed Filipowski, who produces shows for Alexander Wang, Phillip Lim, and Jacobs, agrees: “Intimate is a word that’s definitely in the air."

It's true: a spokesman for IMG, which produces the Lincoln Center shows, says that there has been an increased demand for the smaller Lincoln Center venues like the Box, at 250 seats, and the Studio, which seats 500.

Altuzarra has invited a third fewer guests than last season — less than 300. “In this day and age when there are so many shows, everything gets so much coverage through live streaming, Twitter and the blogs,” Coline Choay, the label's director of publicity and marketing, notes. “You want to make the live show experience special . . . Intimacy, exclusivity and a chance to see the clothes: those are our priorities. We like exposure, but we want a more controlled exposure.”

However, in some cases, the move to intimacy could be a more amenable front for financial constraints. Publicist Vanessa von Bismarck, who handles shows for the likes of Edun, Erin Fetherston, and Suno, says that financial pressures caused some of her clients to go for a smaller production: "They just don’t have the money to put on a big show.” And as Filipowski pointed out: “In reality, we’re not seeing big changes in the size of the shows.”

>> Tory Burch has a full-on editorial section to her website, complete with Tory-approved travel guides; eBay Fashion just hired former Lucky creative director Andrea Linett; and Net-a-Porter's Mr. Porter website is being headed up by Jeremy Langmead, the former editor of British Esquire.

It's safe to say — fashion and luxury brands that used to have to impress editors at the likes of Vogue to garner editorial coverage don't have to anymore. They're bringing the editors in-house, cutting out the magazine middlemen and going straight to consumers with their own editorial content. “Brands, especially those centered around lifestyle interests or luxury, are increasingly becoming media companies,” Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital, a digital communications and consulting firm, noted.

Part of the transition can be chalked up to the fact that brands can now afford to pay for their own editorial credibility — with digital publishing, creating and distributing content is much cheaper. Susan Lyne, former CEO at Martha Stewart Living and currently head of Gilt Groupe, has encouraged more editorial elements on the Gilt website, allowing consumers to read and investigate — something that used to be the province of magazines — as they shop. “We are not in the publishing business; we are in the editing business,” she said. “But if I were in the media business, I would be concerned because it used to be that in order to reach a certain kind of consumer, brands used to have to buy ads in relevant magazines or with a certain kind of television programming. That’s clearly not the case anymore.”

>> There's been a lot of talk recently about how boring red carpet fashion has gotten, but in the mind of Cathy Horyn, fashion in general is experiencing a lull in creativity. "For now, fashion has nothing significant to say," she writes. And Pascal Dangin, who retouches images for Patrick Demarchelier, Steven Meisel, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, as well as the pages of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, agrees: “We live in a rather dull moment in fashion.”

It seems that in the time of "timid magazine editors" and "mediocre" content, as Horyn puts it, many — designers, stylists, photographers, editors — are turning to sex to make up the difference. Dangin points out: “We still have some big taboos about sex.” And Horyn writes: "It is easy to see why sexuality is such a hot button. Things are a bit frozen. Many of the designers who could truly communicate ideas — Martin Margiela, Helmut Lang, Alexander McQueen — are gone from the scene."

Thus, Horyn writes, we have the likes of Riccardo Tisci casting transgender model Lea T in his Givenchy campaigns. But even "the focus on sexuality reflects the fairly narrow thinking of designers and photographers (or, possibly, of editors and advertising agency art directors)" currently going on, she notes. Case in point: photographer Daniel Sannwald was told by a British magazine editor that his futuristic-like images were too extreme. "He quickly countered by producing some very old issues of Vogue," Horyn reports, "But those pictures were deemed too risky to use today." "It was unbelievable," Sannwald said. "Everybody is concerned about pleasing the advertisers, and it’s not just the big magazines.”