Tag: Comment

ChicGeek Comment Farfetch is becoming the ‘Russia’ of online luxury etailers

Written on February 15, 2024.

There’s nothing like kicking a man when he’s down. Multibrand etailer Farfetch was a star that burned big and bright, and looks like it is running out of gas quickly. Following its rescue by the South Korean giant Coupang, luxury group Kering has announced it will end its contract with Farfetch. This means it will no longer supply brands like Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent directly. BOF reported that Farfetch is trying to access brands such as Loewe, Givenchy and The Row by working with a wider range of third-party boutiques to upload their inventory to Farfetch in exchange for “complete anonymity” to avoid repercussions from luxury brands. This makes Farfetch look like Russia, who, no longer directly supplied by brands, is still able to get what it wants. Reports suggest...

ChicGeek Comment – Do popularised weight-loss drugs like Ozempic signal the end of plus-sized fashion?

Written on February 15, 2024.

There’s an elephant in the room and I’m not being insensitive. Much like sustainability, many fashion brands have gone quiet on inclusive sizing. A few of years ago, catwalks and fashion weeks were full of designers heralding the latest plus-sized model squeezed into their newest creation. Many designers seemed to have just put the ‘body inclusive’ models into the same samples and hoped for the best. The industry was too polite to criticise. More than 750 million people are living with obesity, which causes 5% of deaths globally, according to World Health Organization estimates. For the SS24 show season, a Vogue Business size inclusivity report found 95.2 per cent of looks presented were in a straight-size (US 0-4). This is a slight improvement on AW23, where 95.6 per cent...

Comment Bad (Branded) Christmas Trees

Written on December 19, 2023.

Louis Vuitton’s Claridge’s ‘Tree’ We’ve all heard of Bad Santa, but what about bad Christmas trees? Whether Pagan, Christian or anything else, we all except the commercialisation of Christmas. It is the retailers and brands biggest time of the year, most of the world over, and the reason it is called the ‘Golden Quarter’. The designer Christmas tree isn’t new. From shopping centres to hotels to train stations, brands have grasped the opportunity to look altruistic and generous while getting their names out there and many metres tall. The host gets a free tree, usually to a high spec, and the subsequent publicity interest and social media potential of having a ‘big name’ attached to the tree. Gucci’s tree for Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II There...

Comment Happy Snapper: The Anti-AI Future Is Unpredictable

Written on November 22, 2023.

The biggest annual date in the Christmas marketing calendar, the new John Lewis advert was unveiled to great fanfare earlier this month. The story is about a young boy excitingly planting a seed to grow a Christmas tree and instead finds himself confronted with a giant Venus flytrap. The unruly carnivorous plant doesn’t fit the traditional tree stereotype held by the family and is relegated to the garden. It soon becomes cherished thanks to it spitting out a collection of tailored gifts all to the sound track of original song ‘Festa’ sung by Italian Andrea Bocelli. More big shop of horrors than Little Shop of Horrors, recently, John Lewis needed something to capture the public’s imagination and get the tills ringing. The advert seems to be a hit and garnered 240 pieces of...

Comment – Good Buy Creed?

Written on June 27, 2023.

News in that Kering, the luxury giant that owns Gucci, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta, has bought the fragrance company favoured by Essex boys, Creed. Reports say that the first major acquisition for ‘Kering Beauté’ has cost the group $2 billion for the niche fragrance house. Kering could be a company on the luxury fragrance rebound after narrowly losing out on the Tom Ford label to Estée Lauder for $2.8 billion last year. When you compare the two brands and prices it feels hard to believe that $2 billion is the correct price for Creed. Tom Ford has a much bigger store network, categories and potential for growth. Creed’s annual revenues of over €250 million ($273 million) for the year ending March 2023 compares meekly with Tom Ford’s revenues estimated to be in the region of $800...