The Business Of Fashion S/S 2017 : Anna Wintour by Aadam Sheikh

[AlbertNoir]

"America" special print issue



businessoffashion.com

 

[lewak]

The "America" theme seems a bit late / lame now.....

Pop sort of owned that back in January

 

[AlbertNoir]

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Anna Wintour Is the Cover Star of BoF’s Latest Print Issue: ‘America’
BoF’s latest special print issue focuses on America, the world’s largest consumer market and greatest exporter of cultural and technological change. Who better to decode the state of the nation and its fashion industry than our cover star, Anna Wintour?
Anna Wintour on the cover of BoF
1,316 SHARES
1 COMMENT
BY IMRAN AMED
APRIL 20, 2017 05:30
The Business of Fashion is proud to release our latest special print issue in partnership with QIC Global Real Estate. This time, we focused our lens on America.

BoF Professional members on annual subscriptions receive our print issues first. Not a BoF Professional member? Subscribe here.

LONDON, United Kingdom — It’s been a rip-roaring start to 2017, and all eyes are on the USA. From the skyscrapers of New York City to the buzzy parties in the Hollywood Hills and the “unicorn” start-ups of Silicon Valley, everyone, everywhere across the nation — and around the world — is trying to navigate the risks and rewards of doing business in Donald Trump’s America.

The fashion industry is no exception.

On the surface, things look positive. Consumer confidence in the USA is at its highest level since 2000, having surged since Trump’s election victory last November. Unemployment is at 4.5 percent, the lowest level since the financial crisis of 2007. Stock markets have reached all-time highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average surpassing the 20,000 mark for the first time in January and sustaining that record-breaking milestone into April, just as we went to press.

And yet the retail sector has taken a turn for the worse, as a general malaise has grown into a full-on crisis. Since January, a wave of bankruptcies has washed through the fashion industry with restructurings at American Apparel, BCBG Max Azria, Nasty Gal and The Limited. There is talk of deep problems at Neiman Marcus, Payless Shoe Source and Bebe. Meanwhile, Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Sears and Kmart are in the process of closing nearly 400 stores. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 30,000 retail jobs evaporated in the month of March alone.

The political backdrop has been no less chaotic. The election of Donald Trump has triggered widespread dissent. The Women’s Marches, held in more than 400 cities across the country the day after the inauguration in January, culminated in the largest single-day protest in US history. Trump’s controversial immigration ban has sparked outrage and judicial intervention; diplomatic dust-ups with Australia and Mexico have put traditional alliances in jeopardy; and threats of all-out war loom in North Korea and Syria. And that’s without mentioning the US administration’s war on the media, its Russian entanglements and its threats to impose a crippling 20 percent border tax on imports.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, the rise of new technologies, from robotics to artificial intelligence, promises an altogether different future, while destroying elements of the economic and cultural past. Times are changing and in many ways, America — still the world’s largest consumer market and greatest exporter of cultural and technological change — is at the centre of the storm.

BoF’s latest special print edition is our assessment of this fast-changing situation, providing an in-depth, forward-looking lens on the business of fashion in the USA.

Our first port of call was the office of our cover star Anna Wintour, the most powerful figure in fashion, who over the past three decades has become not only editor-in-chief of American Vogue and artistic director of Condé Nast but also a kind of head of state for American fashion more broadly. As Condé Nast’s chief executive Bob Sauerberg said to me, if there was a president of fashion, it would certainly be Wintour, who gives us her take on the current American reality.

Perhaps one of Trump’s most controversial positions has been his stance on immigration, a cornerstone of America’s historical economic policy. In April, almost 1,500 economists — including six Nobel laureates and members of the Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr and Obama administrations — signed a letter to the current president and the congressional leadership affirming that immigration is good for the American economy. “Among us are Republicans and Democrats alike. Some of us favour free markets while others have championed for a larger role for government in the economy. But on some issues there is near universal agreement. One such issue concerns the broad economic benefit that immigrants to this country bring,” they wrote.

To underscore this point, we spotlighted the talented immigrants at the creative helms of four of the greatest American fashion brands: Calvin Klein, Coach, Diane von Furstenberg and Oscar de la Renta as they reposition themselves for today’s new retail reality.

Elsewhere in the issue, we provide a sobering, in-depth analysis of doing business in Trump’s America, and explore the mall brands of Columbus, Ohio, which have long suffered from generational and technological change. And we also try to understand how Trump’s conservative social and domestic policies jive with a new wave of politically active fashion designers representing a more inclusive and fluid definition of American identity.

But there are clear opportunities in today’s America too: for instance, the rise of fashion entertainment and the coming of so-called “sewbots.” In Hollywood, the ringmasters of American entertainment at behemoths like WME-IMG and CAA have their eyes firmly fixed on the opportunity as fashion becomes a bona fide pillar of popular culture. Meanwhile, over in Atlanta, Georgia, a start-up has become the face of a new industrial revolution in garment manufacturing, giving birth to robots that can produce fashion goods with little human labour.

Finally, I’d be remiss in not mentioning our own American expansion and the opening of BoF’s new office in New York City’s SoHo, populated by our small but growing editorial and commercial team, including Lauren Sherman, Chantal Fernandez and Johanna Stout. We are all looking forward to working more closely with our American partners at this time of great change in the fashion industry. With our eyes and ears on the ground, you can count on more agenda- setting reporting and analysis, as well as innovative commercial partnerships, in the years to come. This is just the beginning of our own American story.

businessoffashion.com

 

[MON]

I seriously cringe every time I read "_____'s America".

Anyway, as much as I love and adore Anna, I'm having a hard time understanding why she's the cover star for the American theme, which happens to be focused on politics. It's a safe choice and a forced one at most.

I would've wanted to see a cover featuring Americans from the industry who are on different sides of every issue. That would've been a better representation of the current state of things.. not this

 

[sixtdaily]

The cover shot is by Patrick Demarchelier

 

[Benn98]

I seriously cringe every time I read "_____'s America".

Anyway, as much as I love and adore Anna, I'm having a hard time understanding why she's the cover star for the American theme, which happens to be focused on politics. It's a safe choice and a forced one at most.

I would've wanted to see a cover featuring Americans from the industry who are on different sides of every issue. That would've been a better representation of the current state of things.. not this

Interesting. With the core of this issue focusing on fashion, I'd say that Raf Simons or Saunders' views about the current administration would carry slightly more weight than, say Ralph Lauren or Tom Ford. The former will be more directly affected, after all. We already know who are the ones on whichever side, now we want to know how exactly they'll function under this rule.

I think editorially the choice of Anna may have been inspired as a symbol of hope (which of course is very American), but unless policies changes, there's really no way for her to sugarcoat the current state of affairs. Anna is a very crafty woman, and she should be lucky she's servicing Americans where she can jump ships at a whim without any backlash. If she was in Germany for instance, they'd have wasted no time to call her out on her hypocrisy.

 

[andypolanco]

Shes wearing custom Calvin Klein by Raf I believe

 

[MON]

If she was in Germany for instance, they'd have wasted no time to call her out on her hypocrisy.

I agree 100%. It can be seen with the fact that there are rumors that you know who will cover Vogue. The fact that they're so willing to do that means they're so sure that there'll be no backlash, if there be any, it'd be minor and cost her nothing. It's a pity. Principles really do mean nothing against power.

Though I also agree that this might mean hope. Showed the cover to my friends and they immediately said this shows a woman in power. Didn't see it that way at first, but now, it kinda makes sense

 

[dodencebt]

Though I also agree that this might mean hope. Showed the cover to my friends and they immediately said this shows a woman in power. Didn't see it that way at first, but now, it kinda makes sense

Absolutely. Just look at the pose - it exudes power. You rarely see subjects being photographed with their arms crossed for covers and I don't think it was accidental. You have a woman who pulls almost every string imaginable in fashion and across all Conde Nast titles and it shows.

 

[Wintergreen]

I don't know why but at first gaze I thought that was a drag impersonator of Anna. Might be because I've never seen her smile with her sunglasses on.

 

[MulletProof]

if there was a [strike]president of[/strike] fashion terrorist, it would certainly be Wintour

there.