Random fashion thoughts - Part II (A New Hope)

[iamacyborg]



Why do shops even think that an email that says "972 new items in our store" will even entice me to go wade through them?

Because those emails are often their highest revenue generating campaigns, particularly when they're properly personalised.

 

[Pangolin]



what do you mean?

The sense of humor, deconstruction, play on proportions and shapes, reproduction/reconstruction of vintage garments. Bless has been quietly doing that for 20 (?) years now.

 

[pickpackpockpuck]



i also like the branding and how 'overtly commercial' it is. there's no pretense, it's just doing it's thing. the idea that fashion brands are somehow like subversive little islands divorced from the need to make money and establish brand cache is pretty silly and naive.
...i dunno, the undercover one seems more wearable, it seems more like a semi-believable item of clothing a person would realistically pay money for

that's basically what I was getting at when I said vetements was less overtly commercial than SL. there's definitely a wider audience for SL. actually, on this point, their more commercial stuff is the stuff I really like. there's more restraint in it. some of the other stuff feels like half-considered gimmicks. I think the jeans are a perfect example of what they get right though, and even at more than $1k they sell out. clearly they're doing something right. they're also like the cool brand to be photographed in, so that helps those sales. actually saw this today http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/trends/2016-spring-summer/vetements-street-style

i dunno. i bet if they did do a full menswear line i'd find a bunch of stuff I really like. i do have a hard time getting past the brand image in the shows though. just makes me think of rich art school kids who mope and complain a lot. haha.

and you really think the design of the vetements bomber is better than the undercover one? man, you crazy! (also, curry soon...)

 

[toothsomesound]

^heh the undercover one is almost certainly a nicer garment, as an idea i think the vetements thing is more fun. would rather wear the vetements, though maybe that's because it strikes me as more masculine.

re pangolin, sure that's totally true and bless is amazing, but despite those sort of conceptual or formal things they have in common, it's a very different feeling and aesthetic. I don't think they end up really achieving the same things either actually. bless seems more to me about these weird art objects that tell stories and convey surprise and wonder. vetements is more interested in notions of street fashion and i think, by proxy, ends up speaking to (and perhaps in a weird way in dialogue with) blog/internet fashion culture. that's a direction that i'm not aware of bless looking toward.

another dichotomy that relates to this conversation: finding information about bless requires quite a bit of digging and it's hard to turn up much, it's kind of almost a secretive thing; vetements takes the opposite approach and is enmeshed in a firestorm of publicity and social media despite an initial veil of mystery.

 

[Pangolin]

I don't disagree at all, and except maybe for the Margiela connection, I don't think the brands have much in common either. I just thought it was interesting how the content of your post could also define Bless.

If Vetements is a product of blog/internet fashion culture, Bless is that photocopied zine that doesn't always make much sense but is still really fun to read.

 

[snowmanxl]

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

I think just talking generally. You know, I think I finally put finger on what irks me about Vetements. Probably have to work it out in my head some more, but I think it's basically conceptual Saint Laurent. It's the same deliberate trashiness, the same angst-ridden, disaffected "youth" cliche—clothes for "rebellious" art school kids. Everyone rips on Hedi with the criticism that it looks like he raided a thrift store. It's exactly the same with Vetements, only SL gets shredded for it and Vetements gets praised, presumably because it's less overtly commercial and "anti-fashion." Really, though, I think the underlying principle is very similar to Saint Laurent. Their customers are hanging out at the same ****** bar, but eyeing each other judgmentally from across the room.

Back when they were still anonymous, a rep for the brand, which probably means Gvasalia, said they set out to make singular pieces rather than a cohesive collection. Those individual pieces are mostly riffs on thrift-store finds. Sounds familiar, no? It's basically how Hedi works.

Some of the results are really good. I do think the reworked jeans and sweats are great. And those shearlings from fall were weird and awesome. For some of the other looks that I find myself liking, it's more about the styling than the clothes themselves. Again, sounds like the complaint with SL.

Where the clothes really fall flat to me is in how they try to play with proportions by just making everything big. To my eye, there's not a lot of creative reimagining going on, which should be the point, no? Take the oversized bomber jackets from fall, and then compare them with the oversized bomber Undercover did. Vetements looks like what you'd expect from Yeezy season whatever. It's just oversized, with one extra long sleeve (lazy); that's all. Takahashi looked at the way bombers sit and then emphasized the ends of the sleeves, the slouch in the hem, changed the whole shape. It's like if Balenciaga made a bomber jacket. The irony!

here's where i think we disagree; i think vetements has a great sense of humor and can be really clever.

i think the 'collar' turtleneck is amazing. it's not only great marketing/merchandising, it's also a little semiotic game.

i also like the branding and how 'overtly commercial' it is. there's no pretense, it's just doing it's thing. the idea that fashion brands are somehow like subversive little islands divorced from the need to make money and establish brand cache is pretty silly and naive.

also marc i prefer the vetements remade bomber to the undercover one sorry. the undercover one is is basically a cocoon coat with bomber details. the vetements one is super weird. it's not just a big bomber, it wouldn't look like that. the proportions are completely skewed and not just because one sleeve is longer than the other. i dunno, the undercover one seems more wearable, it seems more like a semi-believable item of clothing a person would realistically pay money for but it's so warped it's kind of not a bomber jacket anymore. the vetements one is like a fun-house version of a vintage bomber yet it feels more like a bomber than the undercover one does.

also i have no problem with designers basically reproducing vintage. that's what most designers actually end up doing anyway but they change small details and obviously they use different materials unless they're in the 'remake' business which is mostly pretty prohibitive in terms of cost and quantity, it's kind of a different realm. i don't know what the vetements sampling and production process is but some of it looks like actual remade vintage (also something raf did) and some of it seems like repro stuff. saint laurent is obviously fabricated from scratch with luxury materials.

much needed read. always enjoy your input

 

[VitaTimH]



another dichotomy that relates to this conversation: finding information about bless requires quite a bit of digging and it's hard to turn up much, it's kind of almost a secretive thing; vetements takes the opposite approach and is enmeshed in a firestorm of publicity and social media despite an initial veil of mystery.

I've gotten this feel from Vetements for a while now. Secrecy for the purpose of exclusivity vs. Bless' "secrecy" due to them just quietly doing their own thing.

 

[LA Guy]

Because those emails are often their highest revenue generating campaigns, particularly when they're properly personalised.

Those are pretty much the ONLY store newsletters, apart from those with an enticement of a exclusive coupon code, that I open. There is otherwise no reward for me. I don't really care about the editorials from stores, and wonder at the ROI on those. Maybe they are good branding opportunities? In any case, I have, for example, not opened a single "editorial" piece from Mr Porter, but I open their Tuesday and Friday "new product" sends, every time, and if there are less than say, 150 new products, I am automatically disappointed, because it means that the chances of my finding something in the intersecction of I like/I can afford/its a category in which I'm currentely interested drops to nearly zero.

If I want to look at interesting content, I open emails from Quora, my daily WWD pdf version, or from other torums that I have memberships to but don't participate in much, just she see what's up, etc. A store though? I want to see what they ave in stock;. There is no story that they can tell me that a cursory glance through their brand list and new items does not already.

 

[gdl203]

Those are pretty much the ONLY store newsletters, apart from those with an enticement of a exclusive coupon code, that I open. There is otherwise no reward for me. I don't really care about the editorials from stores, and wonder at the ROI on those. Maybe they are good branding opportunities?

I can give you one data point: us. We send two emails a week : 1 editorial (digest of blog articles), 1 about products (new arrivals, promotions). The editorial emails have an open rate less than 10% (not 10 points) below the more commercial emails. So people do open them. ROI cannot be quantified though because there's no product to click on and generally nothing to buy straight from the email. We think it builds rapport (with those who open them) and maybe strengthen the relationship with our users beyond just talking about the products - not arguing that there's plenty who don't care about all that; there sure is.

 

[LA Guy]

I can give you one data point: us. We send two emails a week : 1 editorial (digest of blog articles), 1 about products (new arrivals, promotions). The editorial emails have an open rate less than 10% (not 10 points) below the more commercial emails. So people do open them. ROI cannot be quantified though because there's no product to click on and generally nothing to buy straight from the email. We think it builds rapport (with those who open them) and maybe strengthen the relationship with our users beyond just talking about the products - not arguing that there's plenty who don't care about all that; there sure is.

My post was arguing mostly about the value of commercial emails, and I may have overstated the lack of importance of editorial emails, except to say that they have no value for me, generally. I do open your editorial emails, but mostly because I know you already, and also because I interact with your other customers in your thread, here. I do wonder what is the rate at which non-Styleforum members open those editorial emails.

 

[nicelynice]

@LA Guy the only flipping ads on i see on mobile anymore on this site are from my employer, can you turn that off or should I talk to our marketing dept.???

 

[LA Guy]

@LA Guy the only flipping ads on i see on mobile anymore on this site are from my employer, can you turn that off or should I talk to our marketing dept.???

That would be your marketihng department. Apparently, you are a really, really, desirably customer.

 

[sipang]



Yeah, that's true. And to be honest, the little I've seen of Vetements in stores I've liked well enough. At least it's different from a lot of the rest. And I am curious to see what he does at Balenciaga. It's not a boring appointment, that's for sure. Don't expect it to be like Vetements really. He was apparently a senior designer at LV for a few years so it proves he can work from a luxury POV. But I'm sure he'll be thinking of ways to have some fun with people's expectations. Who knows, could make for something great.

In keeping with the theme, an obvious precedent would be Margiela's appointment at Hermès which was quite a gamble and had people scratching their heads but managed to deliver famously. I'm sure the Kering dudes had that bit of history somewhere in the back of their mind when they made the choice, or maybe they just blindly went for the most hyped up name. Different times and very different beasts all around though, still it's an amusing if imperfect parallel. And Balenciaga has no shortage of archive material to work with so the potential is there and this might be an opportunity for Gvasalia to show something else/grow out of the Margiela shtick.

i also like the branding and how 'overtly commercial' it is. there's no pretense, it's just doing it's thing.

the idea that fashion brands are somehow like subversive little islands divorced from the need to make money and establish brand cache is pretty silly and naive.

Ok, nobody's saying that.

Still not convinced there's humor in any of it and I don't think it's pretense free but it's certainly clever.

 

[LA Guy]

Still not convinced there's humor in any of it and I don't think it's pretense free but it's certainly clever.

This is what I think as well. It doesn't seem to have a lot of whimsy to it. I don't see very much playfulness in any of the pieces. Maybe that's just because the designer is trying to hard to be clever, like the unfunny kid who tries to tell jokes? I'd be happy to be wrong and see amazing stuff coming out of both Vetements and Balenciaga though.

 

[pickpackpockpuck]



In keeping with the theme, an obvious precedent would be Margiela's appointment at Hermès which was quite a gamble and had people scratching their heads but managed to deliver famously.

I love that one of the bands Apple and Hermes are offering on their collaboration is the double tour, which was one of Margiela's big hits for Hermes. How awesome is that? A band designed by Martin Margiela on the Apple Watch!