In addition to underpinning the brand positioning of a number of billion-dollar Italian brands, Italian manufacturing is a pillar of the luxury industry’s supply chain. According to McKinsey & Co., Italy contributes more than 40 percent of luxury goods production. In the context of the re-emergent popularity of Europe with international tourists, the “Made in Italy” industry is primed to respond to shifting customer sentiment and purchasing priorities.However, to truly future-proof competitive advantage, Italian brands and manufacturers should consider streamlining manufacturing processes to be more responsive, and move to meet customers in the spaces and channels in which they are spending time.

“We are seeing the growth rates of traditional brick-and-mortar retail and direct-to-consumer converging again,” says Shopify’s Mehta.

“We believe this next wave of retail is what we call ‘connect to consumer’. Truly and deeply understanding your customers — using data to build long-term relationships — is going to be paramount,” she shared.

È anche la ripresa della Cina a trainare il terzo trimestre di Hermès, che ha annunciato un aumento dei prezzi nel 2023, in risposta all’incremento dei costi e alle fluttuazioni valutarie. Nei nove mesi alla fine di settembre, la maison di Parigi ha registrato ricavi per 8,61 miliardi di euro, con un balzo del 30 per cento. Nel solo Q3 la progressione è stata di oltre 32 punti percentuali per 3,14 miliardi, meglio di quanto atteso dalla Borsa di Parigi, con analisti fermi a un +15,3 per cento. In avvio di seduta, le azioni di Hermès segnavano un +3 per cento. “La buona performance del terzo trimestre – ha commentato Axel Dumas, executive chairman di Hermès – riflette la desiderabilità delle nostre collezioni in tutto il mondo e l’importanza dei nostri valori. Andiamo avanti con fiducia e cautela, pur continuando a rafforzare il nostro modello integrato, radicato in Francia e impegnato nella creazione di posti di lavoro”. Guardando ai mercati, l’Asia evidenzia il risveglio dell’Ex Celeste Impero: il turnover nel continente (escluso il Giappone) è aumentato del 21% (+34% nel solo Q3), con la Cina in rimbalzo dopo il recente round di chiusure imposte dalle recrudescenze del Covid-19. In positivo, nei nove mesi, anche Giappone (+21%), Americhe (+28%), Europa (+25%, escluso il mercato domestico della griffe) e Francia (+28 per cento). Quanto invece alle categorie merceologiche, le vendite della divisione pelletteria e selleria, la divisione di maggior impatto per Hermès, sono cresciute del 13% nei tre mesi, confermando l’appetibilità delle sue it bags. I dati del colosso di rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré suggeriscono che “la domanda globale di beni di lusso non si è ancora normalizzata”, ha spiegato a Reuters Luca Solca, analista di Bernstein. A fine settembre, ha spiegato la società in una nota, i tassi di cambio hanno avuto un impatto positivo sui ricavi per 451 milioni di euro. “Probabilmente attueremo aumenti dei prezzi tra il 5 e il 10 per cento”, ha dichiarato Eric du Halgouet, executive vice president of finance di Hermès. Rispetto all’aggiornamento dei listini, la maison si mostrata tendenzialmente più moderata rispetto ai competitor, che hanno alzato i prezzi in modo aggressivo durante la pandemia. Hermès, che ha delle liste d’attesa per le sue borse e che limita i quantitativi di produzione per mantenere l’esclusività, ha aumentato i prezzi di circa il 4% quest’anno e dell’1,5-2% (in media) negli anni passati. Questo – ricorda Reuters – si confronta, ad esempio, con i rincari a due cifre operati di Chanel. Dando conferma della sua espansione, la griffe ha infine affermato che accelererà la campagna di assunzioni nel secondo semestre, dopo aver aggiunto 800 persone al proprio organico nei primi sei mesi e aumentato gli stipendi di tutti i dipendenti europei.

In the last week alone, two of fashion’s biggest players joined the fray. Shein launched an in-app marketplace in the US, allowing shoppers to re-sell the spoils of hauls broadcast on TikTok when they’re done with them. Meanwhile, Zara will launch its own resale marketplace in the UK next month, while also offering repair and donation services.

But for resale to really deliver on buzzy promises to offset fashion’s impact, the current crop of pilot programs must give rise to strategies that disrupt, not just complement existing business models. Until then, high-profile new launches risk coming across as little more than performative marketing.

Some 100 brands and retailers have launched their own resale channels over the last couple of years, vying to tap into a fast-growing market and championing their commitment to keep clothes in circulation for as long as possible. But data to understand how this is really affecting consumer behaviour is sparse. Many brands offer store credit for consumers using their resale platforms, incentivising more consumption as much as extending the life of existing garments.

When garments began to disappear a year ago, there was a lot of theorizing about post-pandemic freedom and how the spate of public nakedness was simply an expression of pent-up desire for social contact and the breeze on our skin. It seems increasingly clear, however, that this kind of physical reveal — the let-it-all-hang-out, uncontained, sheer corporeality of it all — is the rawest expression of a new conversation taking place around dress and the body.There were 333 percent more low-waist skirts and 78 percent more low-waist pants on the spring 2023 runways than there were during the same season a year ago (which was itself heralded as the barest in recent memory), with more than 15 percent more visible lingerie and more than 10 percent more transparent clothing, according to Alexandra Van Houtte, the founder of Tagwalk, a search engine for fashion.

“There is a long history of women reclaiming their own sexuality through sexy clothes,” said Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, the author of “Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism” and a history professor at Case Western Reserve University. “Going back to the 1920s when flappers exposed their legs. This is somewhat different though.”

It’s not an invitation. Old adjectives like “sensual” and “seductive” and “romantic” do not apply. It is not, as Sarah Burton said before her Alexander McQueen show in London this month, about “a male gaze.”Nor, said Ms. Rabinovitch-Fox, is it “about the feminine body necessarily. It’s just about the body. It’s about, I have the right to expose myself the way I want to.”

Still, the structural problems that enabled many of the delays, price hikes, and shortages over the past few years haven’t gone away. Shipping prices have not quite returned to their pre-pandemic levels, truck drivers are still in short supply, and some in the logistics industry are already predicting that there will be problems during the upcoming holiday season. More broadly, the capitalist system responsible for manufacturing and delivering goods throughout the world has not been “fixed.” In fact, it remains as vulnerable to disruption as ever. Consumers are still seeing widespread inflation, not only for energy and food but also for products that often depend on Pacific shipping routes, including apparel and new vehicles, according to the consumer price index summary published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week.

Entering plus size, which ranges from a US size 14 to 40, with typical assortments only extending to size 24, seems an obvious win for brands. The plus-size apparel market in the US was estimated to be worth more than $34 billion in 2021 according to Coresight Research, with 21 percent growth year-over-year outpacing overall women’s apparel growth.Despite the opportunity, plus offerings in fashion are still limited. Many luxury brands cap their size range at average or just below, usually around a US 12. Plus sizes are also historically excluded from the trend cycle — only 34 percent of cut-out products available on the market are offered in extended sizes, for example, according to retail intelligence platform Edited.

Though plus size has long been on Miaou’s radar, Elkaim said the brand, which squarely serves a trend-spotting consumer with an eye toward Y2K, had to wait until it could afford to invest in researching, developing and producing extended sizes properly.

“I wish that there were more sizes that we made, but it’s expensive and we couldn’t. That was the language that we were constantly using: We’re working on it, we’re working on it,” Elkaim said. “Finally, last year we were at a place financially where we could really prioritise it.”

Gen-Z is the largest generation, accounting for around 25 percent of the world’s population, and has an outsized impact on culture and economy.In the US, this generation aged between 12 and 25, is coming into its own, with purchasing power of around $360 billion.Fashion is the favourite entertainment category for US Gen-Zers to spend money on, outranking other categories like dining, video games and consoles, and music.

“What are the kids wearing these days?” is the perennial question fashion forecasters ask. The fashion industry, often out of necessity, is obsessed with chasing youth, especially as young consumers enter the workforce, inform new styles and shift buying behaviours.Gen-Z — aged between 12 and 25 and accounting for approximately 25 percent of the world’s population — is now coming into its own. But Gen-Z is truly unique. As the first digital natives, their formative years have been unlike that of previous generations, creating a greater cultural chasm between Gen-Z and older generations. Social platforms have given Gen-Z tastemakers an unparalleled ability to convene and speak to audiences.In the US, Gen-Z is particularly shaping the culture and moving the economy with a purchasing power of about $360 billion. Each generation experiences distinct events that shape its life outlook. Baby Boomers benefitted from an economic boom after World War II, living in an age of optimism. Gen-X matured as social mores changed and female labour participation jumped, living in an age of independence. Millennials, typically the children of more affluent Baby Boomers, benefitted from the advent of the internet, living in an age of idealism. Yet, Millennials are old enough to remember a less digital world.

Gen-Z is much more pragmatic, growing up under the lens of technology from the outset. The worsening climate crisis, pressing global movements such as “Me Too” and “Black Lives Matter” and the Covid-19 pandemic all serve as a backdrop for the current age — an age of realism.

Elsesser arrived on the scene at a time of political turmoil. In the United States, a long-simmering culture war began to boil over after Donald Trump became president and George Floyd was killed by police, fuelling Black Lives Matter as well as wider calls for “body positivity,” a movement for greater acceptance of all bodies, regardless of size, shape, skin colour, gender and ability.As society shifted, so did fashion. In 2017, British Vogue hired Edward Enninful. In 2018, Louis Vuitton hired Virgil Abloh. Fashion runways and magazines began featuring a wider cast of characters. “The industry in 2017, 2018, 2019 began offering a counter-proposal to the American political system at the time,” says Scheinman. “I think we started to understand that it has to be a radical message in the casting.” That this was good marketing didn’t hurt.

Il grande, assoluto capolavoro di Alessandro Michele, il motivo per cui la sua moda continua a essere rilevante pur restando sostanzialmente inalterata da sette anni, perché quando la scomponi continua ad essere fatta di bei completi giacca-pantalone, di gonne a matita donanti, da giorno o da sera, di camicie bon ton, pantaloncini e di abiti da sera luccicanti e molto sexy, si è capito solo in queste ore, quando alla conferenza stampa della collezione “Twinsburg”, interessante riflessione attorno ai risvolti psicologici, e anche un po’ esoterici, del doppio, dei gemelli, sessantaquattro coppie uscite in passerella a sorpresa in un’ondata di batticuore e commozione che ha travolto la platea, è riuscito a non parlare nemmeno una volta della collezione.   Sì, la borsetta ripresa da uno storico modello Gucci ispirato alle selle, sì i gadget sviluppati attorno al personaggio tenero e mostruoso del Gremlin, anche lui simbolo di alterità e di doppiezza, sì il recupero sulle felpe zippate della testata “Fuori!!”, il simbolo editoriale del movimento di liberazione omosessuale italiano fondato dal libraio Angelo Pezzana di cui meno di un anno fa è uscita la copia anastatica completa dei numeri, con il supporto di Levi’s (non lo sa, però indossa la bomba-simbolo della rivista stampata sulla t shirt).   Sì tutto, però senza che valga la pena di approfondire, perché chi è lì a guardare moda sarà ben in grado di valutare da solo i pantaloncini costruiti come giarrettiere, giusto? Rendere la moda rilevante come oggetto di riflessione sociale significa andare all’essenza etimologica e simbolica della moda stessa, al “modus”, ed è certamente per questo che anche chi si disinteressa totalmente di vestiti è interessato invece al lavoro del direttore creativo di Gucci.    Alessandro Michele è noto ben oltre il mondo della moda perché non parla di moda, ma parla di noi. Perché nel suo approccio teatrante, abilissimo, allo spettacolo della moda (per questo show ha preso una vecchia canzoncina di John Foster che le gemelle Olsen cantavano in tv da bambine, travestite come ballerine di charleston, l’ha fatta recitare come un testo shakespeariano da Marianne Faithfull, vi ha aggiunto una composizione musicale sviluppata per l’occasione da Gustave Rudman, abbiamo visto colleghi singhiozzare come per la Fedra di Racine), intercetta e interpreta le pulsioni del contemporaneo. E lo fa partendo sempre da sé, dalla propria esperienza personale: questa volta, il tema dello specchio, dell’altro da sé, proveniva dalla sua infanzia di bambino accudito da due mamme, la sua e la zia, gemelle monozigote, incapaci di separarsi al punto di vivere a pochi metri di distanza l’una dall’altra, sullo stesso pianerottolo, e di dividere ogni pensiero, ogni idea, ogni desiderio.

La moda come leva di personalità altre, come mezzo di affermazione dello specchio di sé, del proprio io nascosto, è un tema di cui sentiamo parlare da sempre, anche ampiamente teorizzato da secoli, ma che difficilmente facciamo nostro a livello cosciente, palese, o discutiamo apertamente. La forza di Alessandro Michele, la ragione per la quale continua a vendere borse e scarpe e non è ancora stato divorato dal sistema, crudele come Crono con i suoi figli e come la sfilata veramente malriuscita di Missoni dimostra (ne scriveremo a breve) sta proprio in questo: nella capacità di rendere la moda una parte, non superficiale, della vita quotidiana.

In a significant industry decision, Kering, parent of luxury brands including Gucci, Balenciaga, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta, has announced that none of its fashion houses will use animal fur by this time next year.“Stopping the use of fur is another step forward in our commitment to animal welfare, and is in line with our commitment to sustainability,” says Marie-Claire Daveu, Kering’s chief sustainability and institutional affairs officer, who added the decision is an ethical one that reflects a larger shift in fashion, and trends in luxury in particular. “Modern luxury is also ethical luxury. You have savoir faire, heritage, design, quality of products, [efforts to] protect the planet, protect people — you can put an umbrella with ethical production, too.”

Kering’s company-wide ban on fur is the latest in a string of announcements by fashion companies banning fur, an increasingly controversial material because of concerns, chiefly, about cruelty to the animals involved in its production. Mytheresa announced a fur ban last month; last week, Oscar de la Renta made a fur-free pledge when Billie Eilish made it a condition of her wearing the designer label at the Met Gala. Brands and retailers that pledged to avoid fur over a decade ago include Selfridges, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren, while the list of more recent commitments has been growing steadily, including from Neiman Marcus, Net-a-Porter, Burberry, Coach, Michael Kors, Miu Miu and Canada Goose.Some Kering brands have already phased out fur, Gucci being the first to do so publicly in 2017 — and Daveu says others have avoided fur for years, but chose not to issue an announcement about the decision — but the decision to eliminate the use of the material, once the ultimate status symbol in fashion, at the group level is surely a move the industry will pay attention to.“Gucci really jump-started the latest wave of brands going fur-free. I think an announcement like this further signifies that modern fashion wants nothing to do with fur and the risks associated with that trade,” says PJ Smith, fashion policy director at the Humane Society of the United States. “I think it’s a message to other companies, mainly LVMH, to choose compassion and innovation over really an outdated view of what luxury is.” (LVMH did not respond to a request for comment before time of publication.)

The announcement is a rare move for Kering, which tends not to issue directives or specific policies across brands. Instead, the luxury conglomerate, which is widely regarded as an industry leader on sustainability, sets high-level environmental and social standards and leaves it up to individual brands to determine how to meet them. "Making a corporate-wide decision is a very good and smart move,” says luxury retail consultant Robert Burke. "It’s in keeping with what’s happening in the industry in general. It is certainly something that the consumer's responding to. We're not seeing any opposition to it.”It’s unclear whether the fur-free decision will set a new precedent for other company-wide mandates around sustainability; Daveu insinuated it won’t, explaining that today’s decision is more straightforward than most efforts relating to environmental and social issues.“Fur is quite a binary topic. You use it or you don’t use it,” she says. Other areas of sustainability, such as reducing carbon emissions or biodiversity impacts, require more tailored solutions from individual brands — one may adjust how it sources cotton or wool, or what it uses for dyeing and finishing, for example, while a jewellery brand needs to focus on metals and gemstones. “You have to pick where it’s more complex depending on which kind of production. But we have the Kering standards for raw materials [and] all the brands have to follow and implement them,” says Daveu.