4 May, 2021

TRP Travel Retail Style Index: May 2021

Welcome to the latest travel retail column for DRG by Alison Farrington aka The Retail Planner (TRP).

This month’s highlights come from a purposeful social retail pop-up in Hainan, a luxury hometail makeover and the latest TikTok trend.

1/ SOCIAL RETAIL. Societal pressures are the focus for a new type of phygital pop-up courtesy of Japanese skincare brand SK-II that has debuted a retail-tainment destination in the Haitang Bay Duty Free Shopping Centre in Sanya, Hainan.

The pop-up is an immersive representation of the P&G-owned brand’s new SK-II Studio animated anthology series called VS. The film and retail campaign aims to highlight career pressures faced by women and viewed through the experiences of six athletes taking part in this year’s Tokyo Olympics. (more…)

Disneyrollergirl 0 Comments Beauty, Brands, Business of fashion, Retail concepts, Shopping, Technology, Trends Bicester Village, celebrity, DFS, Gucci, luxury, LVMH, shopping, SK-II, skincare, Tiffany, TikTok

8 April, 2021

Ask Alison: How Browns Brook Street has recast itself as the new luxury omni-flagship

Browns Brook Street The Focus

There’s a new luxury retail destination in town and it’s a storied Mayfair townhouse that features a heady mix of culture, community and the latest personalised tech-led shopping services. DRG retail editor, ALISON FARRINGTON reports…

Apart from the appealing fact that visiting an actual store is somewhat of a novelty as we emerge post-pandemic, we are about to enter a new era of phygital retail. Phygital 2.0 plays to the strengths of being inside a physical boutique environment – all the trappings of tangible and joyous purchases plus social interaction – while having frictionless digital retail services at your fingertips.

Launching on 12 April, at a reinvented flagship location, Browns Brook Street is the manifestation of owner, Farfetch’s visionary ‘Store of the Future’ omnichannel strategy that we first heard about in 2017. (more…)

Disneyrollergirl 0 Comments Art, Brands, Business of fashion, Design, Events, News, Online shopping, Retail concepts, Shopping, Technology, Trends Alison Farrington, Ask Alison, augmented reality, augmented retail, Browns, Business of Fashion, Farfetch, London life, long read, retail concepts, technology

31 March, 2021

Are NFTs, digital currencies and ‘The Internet of Value’ really going to change modern life forever?

This month I’ve not been able to move for news and hot takes (pay wall) on NFTs. I don’t know how long they’ve been around but like most media people, I got wind of them after the artist Beeple sold an NFT (essentially a one-off digital file) of a digital collage he had made (pay wall) for $69.3 million. Boom! Suddenly everyone was interested.

I read a succession of articles to get my head around them but I should have just waited. Because Professor Scott Galloway has the ultimate explainer on his recent podcast with smart futurist Raoul Pal. (more…)

Disneyrollergirl 0 Comments Art, Business of fashion, Technology, Trends art, Beeple, Business of Fashion, influencers, long read, NFT, retail concepts, technology, trends

24 March, 2021

Hermes AW21 – a dance of toughness and tenderness

Hermes aw21

The three-part Hermès AW21 ‘show’ started in New York with a dance performance choreographed by Madeline Hollander. Impeccably scheduled, the live stream began with dancers sporting identical uniforms of turtleneck, pleated midi skirt and tall boots, performing elegantly rhythmic sequences and gestures expressing the heartbeat of “how New Yorkers move through the city”.

The live broadcast switched seamlessly to Paris, where we watched a runway show of models weaving amongst towers of orange cylindrical boxes, followed by a third act, live from Shanghai, choreographed by Gu Jiani. (more…)