Oh my! A few Marc Jacobs Beauty products have just gone on sale at Sephora.com three weeks early. Shop shop shop til you can shop no more here! But fast, cos it’s only on sale today and tomorrow (if stocks even last that long)…
Guest contributor LSN Global retail editor ALISON BISHOP reports on how Nike’s ‘Making’ app puts sustainable design front of mind for fashion and sportswear creatives…
Ever the innovator, Nike is building on its sustainable product design credentials by sharing its in-house Materials Sustainability Index for anyone to learn from and use – in the form of its new Making app. After collaborating with students at London College of Fashion’s Centre for Sustainable Fashion, the new app helps designers and product creators make more informed decisions about the environmental impacts of the materials they choose. It works by ranking textiles and other materials used for product design based on four environmental concern areas: water, chemistry, energy and waste. For example who knew that the manufacture of silk uses 50% less water than cotton?
“It’s the start of a conversation,” Lee Holman, Nike’s vice-president of global apparel design told me. “Innovation is in Nike’s DNA, and sustainability is an integral part of Nike’s design process. We’ve created the Making app to empower any designer around the world to make better materials choices in the early stages of the design process. Ultimately everyone wants to create products that are better for the planet, and we want to be able to facilitate that idea.”
It’s quite a statement from the sports giant, especially considering it’s not a selling tool and it’s not connected directly to any Nike product. It’s just for the good of the planet. We call it ‘Brandstanding’ at LS:N Global. Sustainability is the new battleground for brands that want to resonate with disillusioned Millennial consumers (25-35 years old) and brands with cast iron credentials will win the vote. Now I might even design myself a version of Nike’s Flyknit trainers…
Just in time for Ramadan, Harrods has installed its summer accessory campaign, The Handbag Narratives, featuring a host of unique collabs with some of its biggest selling handbag brands.
Specially created bags from the likes of Burberry (a clever squashy number called the Crush), Fendi, Mulberry and Victoria Beckham have been commissioned in miniscule numbers (there are only four of Beckham’s duck-egg blue python Tote Minis), perfect for those with deep pockets and a love for super-luxury and exclusivity…
Victoria Beckham Tote Mini, £2,750
BOYS IN BLUSHER (AND EYELINER AND LIPPY)
The big beauty buzz for me during the last few weeks has been around men’s beauty and grooming. With the news of Tom Ford’s imminent grooming line (due this autumn) and Marc Jacobs Beauty’s unisex products (coming to a Sephora near you soon), it seems men’s luxury makeup is tipping into the mainstream. Pushing things further, Hedi Slimane’s models at Saint Laurent wore full-on eyeliner and lipstick for the SS14 shows in Paris. If anyone understands youth culture it’s Slimane so I’m keen to see if the cool young indie set take this aesthetic to its natural conclusion. Having grown up on Nick Rhodes, Adam Ant and David Sylvian, I hope they do. (more…)
