Hedi Slimane on the Future of Fashion

[pierce]

"he's always come off as a scene-whore which at his age seems a bit perverted."

I know he might have an obsession with males in youth culture, but the perverted comment is well below the belt.

I enjoyed the article. My reading of what he said is that he has done it. He has achieved his goals as a designer and is now moved on to the next level, which is about making money. I think that he has a good eye for the market, a heidi slimane "Acne" type company seems to be on the cards.

As for youth culture, I too find it fascinating, the way two or three people at a certain time try something new and it just blows up. Be it some guys in college setting up a website for rating the girls in college ( original facebook ) or some guys in chicago buying an old box for practicing your guitar to and making house music for the first time.
Its creativity in its purest form. He has done this himself so maybe he is doing some investigating as to why it happen before moving onto bigger fish to fry.

[Faust]

I think Hedi suffers from the Dorian Grey syndrome, but hey, who am I to judge. Maybe he and Polanski can get it on and flow Lagerfeld into the mix...

[Fade to Black]

as i can hardly stand going to see the younger and more popular bands of the time because of all the kids that show up.

This is a valid point from a personal perspective; even at my age I can't stand being around these types of crowds for extended periods of time.

[delirium]

He seemed pretty level-headed. I liked a lot of what he had to say.

[francojean23]

reading that article on the future of fashion just sent me straight back to my pieces from Reflection , very intrigued to see how slimane works his way back in

[pierce]

In regards to the future of fashion, none of what he says is rocket science though. I think there are pointers in what he states about Apple.
To be honest, its all there for the taking if you can come up with the right model. Acne was started by some web designers with money left over from selling an online game. They had a look at fashion and applied some pretty basic models and look where they got, from selling jeans to collaborating with Lanvin in about 8 years.
If this is what some web engineers can do, imagine if you really did it properly. Someone is going to do it, maybe it will be Heidi. He seems well tuned in, identifying how out of touch the industry is with where the world is gone.

[Servo2000]

To be honest, its all there for the taking if you can come up with the right model. Acne was started by some web designers with money left over from selling an online game. They had a look at fashion and applied some pretty basic models and look where they got, from selling jeans to collaborating with Lanvin in about 8 years.

I'd love to hear more about this (these models) if anyone has more specific information!

[pseudonym]

Oops, for some reason the questions didn't copy in bold. Here is the original link which may be easier to read.

Of course, the link after I'm finished reading!!

JK, thanks for this, I enjoyed reading.

[pierce]

I'd love to hear more about this (these models) if anyone has more specific information!

One model is laid out by heidi in the interview. He mentions Apple he also touches on new distribution models and the ability to easily gain a captivated audience.

Basically what is happening at the moment is that the internet is being carved up into sub internets. You might not realize it, but its almost like a land grab, where users are the land. The most notable of these sub internets is facebook.
At the moment, while not simple, but with effort you can gain a facebook fan page of 100,000 members. This is pretty amazing if you think about what that means in terms of a physical store. Its like having a foot fall of 100,000 people, all interested in your brand passing by your store when ever you want them to ( via news feed posts ). Also when they buy something, all their friends can see.

At the moment the distribution is all through third party online stores. Why is this? If you had control of distribution, you could stream line and standardize it in terms of quality of service to a level that a retailer with a web shop tacked on could never do. Multiple sizes, always in stock with a simplified returns policy. Standardized measurements of all the clothes available, based on what you enter in to your user account. These are all things that are fragmented at the moment. You go to Balenciaga.com and you can only buy handbags and wallets. Why not the full collection. Why not rickowens.eu with full stock of all leathers in all colours in all sizes. Why not have control of how your designs are presented, instead of leaving it up to the oki-ni model, putting people off more than selling your clothes.

This is all Acne did. No revolution. Apple don't go to macworld any more, Acne don't go to Paris fashion week. Its ending up irrelevant.
But because as Heidi pointed out that the big fashion houses are so scared of loosing the family jewels, they won't move until it is too late and the land grab is over. And also as he pointed out, the magazines just don't have the skills to go online in a meaningful way so they are gone as well. Vogue used to be a print design masterpiece, but there online effort in design terms is the equivalent of a local free ads paper. Where is the high end in that.

[Faust]

In regards to the future of fashion, none of what he says is rocket science though. I think there are pointers in what he states about Apple.
To be honest, its all there for the taking if you can come up with the right model. Acne was started by some web designers with money left over from selling an online game. They had a look at fashion and applied some pretty basic models and look where they got, from selling jeans to collaborating with Lanvin in about 8 years.
If this is what some web engineers can do, imagine if you really did it properly. Someone is going to do it, maybe it will be Heidi. He seems well tuned in, identifying how out of touch the industry is with where the world is gone.

If it's so easy, why don't you try it and then report back to us about how you are getting on?

[Servo2000]

I see what you're referring to now -

I know that one argument I hear frequently is that by selling your own wares online you make it difficult for stores to compete with you (since you can keep your prices the lowest and the most stock and the best photos etc etc) so stores don't buy your clothing and as a result you lose people whose job it is to convince people every single day that your brand is valuable, relevant and worth purchasing.

With brands like Rick Owens there's also the 'value' of the stores - Rick selling his own stuff doesn't seem nearly as precious as stocking it at Maxfield's in Los Angeles, for instance. So much with fashion is perception which is also probably why Balenciaga doesn't sell their clothes online. It keeps some element of fantasy and distance alive, most likely.

What you said certainly makes sense and seems very applicable for a brand like Acne who are so tied to the web from the beginning and understand its implications but just tacking on a web component to some things probably isn't the answer.

[Fade to Black]

If it's so easy, why don't you try it and then report back to us about how you are getting on?

+1

been wrestling with a lot of notions the past year, and I'm beginning to accept the fact that I'm not the only one with ideas of my own or suggestions of how to run things, which may very well be better than how a lot of things are run today. Talent and insight or whatever hardly play a dominant role, as with anything, and we aren't alone in our precociousness.

[Fuuma]

If it's so easy, why don't you try it and then report back to us about how you are getting on?

Acne had the backing of a huge marketing company AFAIK so the myth of the small independent brand might not be warranted. I have a pair of slim jeans I got from them in 1997 (I think) and at the time I was a weirdo for wearing slim jeans, they already had a web presence and some backing.

[mike]

That said, I never think it was better before, unless I insist to sell French fries by the beach for the next decade and retire for good.

i bet this is what he will end up doing after he's done with photography

[pierce]

Acne had the backing of a huge marketing company AFAIK so the myth of the small independent brand might not be warranted. I have a pair of slim jeans I got from them in 1997 (I think) and at the time I was a weirdo for wearing slim jeans, they already had a web presence and some backing.

Ance are the huge marketing company. They created a very popular online game which made them alot of money. The jeans were something that they created for friends one christmas, instead of sending out a calendar. They then just invested money from their online game in creating a clothing company. The thing that set them apart is that they had a different perspective on things, they weren't coming from a fashion industry background. Thats how they ended up where they were.