The DRG Style Index: Celine, Instagram, Gucci Beauty, Joseph, The Harmonist
Here’s the latest DRG STYLE INDEX ranking, a round-up of the brands and industry stories currently buzzing on my radar…
HEDI’S DEBUT AT CELINE
What are we to make of Celine 3.0? I loved Hedi Slimane at Dior Homme and Hedi at Saint Laurent, but I’m not sure how I feel about the exact same look at Celine. It all feels a bit… Sandro circa 2016 (which is kinder than the ‘H&M Divided’ comment on Insta). I did like the menswear though (which is actually unisex), and the women’s boots. As Olivia Singer points out in Vogue, it’s all about the accessory kerching factor, in line with Bernard Arnault’s ambitions for revenues to reach 2-3 billion euros within 5 years. So where to now for the Phoebephiles? I’m thinking Lemaire…
INSTAGRAM’S FOUNDERS ARE MOVING ON
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have reportedly left Instagram to regroup and start up something new. It’s a good time to move on methinks. Instagram is becoming one big advertising-channel-slash-shopping-mall and I reckon people are getting bored. Any ideas what’s next for them?
GUCCI’S BEAUTY WIN
Everyone’s jumping on the beauty community bandwagon. Gucci Beauty’s new Instagram account shows beauty in a non-commercial way, mixing catwalk beauty with historic cultural references. Plus, for launch, it offered followers exclusive filters to ‘dress up’ in on Instagram Stories. Totally camp, cheesy and not very haute, which is exactly what made them so addictive and sharable!
JOSEPH’S NEW GIRL
There’s a new girl at Joseph. Filling Louise Trotter’s creative director shoes is Susana Clayton, a Phoebe Philo lookalike, previously at Givenchy, Gap, Chloé and Rag & Bone. Her aim is to ‘realign it with Joseph Ettedgui’s vision, creating a balance between fashion and a timeless wardrobe of luxury essentials,’ which sounds very promising to me. Her first collection arrives for AW19.
FARFETCH’S FUTURE VISION
Farfetch was in the news this week following its IPO float. According to founder Jose Neves, the online luxury market is set to grow by $100 billion over the next seven years, which I can fully believe as gen Y matures and gen Z takes over. Luxury consumers are getting younger and e-commerce will evolve to serve them in ways it hasn’t quite managed so far. So we’ll see solutions to the ‘last mile’ pain point, faster deliveries (Farfetch already offers same-day in some cities), easier returns and personalisation. As well as its online marketplace of global boutiques, Farfetch also operates a ‘white label’ tech pillar, offering back-end services to luxury brands that elevate their e-com services. Watch this space…
THE HARMONIST: FENG SHUI FRAGRANCE
Feng Shui beauty is a thing. Well, in perfumery anyway. The Harmonist is a fragrance brand based around feng shui elements – fire, water, wood, earth and metal. You fill in your date, time and place of birth on an online form and it suggests the fragrance that harmonises your individual elements and desires. As a concept I think it has legs, helped by the fact that it’s beautifully sensorial – the bottles alone are works of art – and the smells are great. (Mine is Velvet Fire, a lavender-and-spice concoction with a gentle musk dry down that’s supposed to make me more charismatic). And feng shui is perfect for the beauty-self-care-homebody crossover movement in which 70% of millennials apparently prefer to stay in rather than deal with the hassle of going out. Buy The Harmonist fragrance here.
IN OTHER NEWS…
Martine Rose and Colette’s Sarah Andelman are collaborating with Nike.
Rollerskating is having a(nother) moment and this time it’s a feminist issue – according to the NYT.
One of my favourite bloggers, Le Beauty Journal, wrote a great post about the feel-bad paradox of consuming too many self-help podcasts. (That said, I recently revisited the classic self-help tome, ‘The Magic Of Thinking Big‘ and I highly recommend it if you’re in a motivation funk.)
The Guardian unpacks the perils of a cashless society (spoiler: it’s good for brands but not so good for consumers. In other words, cashless means you spend more). Dive deeper here…
Music heads: a new Joe Strummer box set has just been released featuring his lesser known work, including his frankly underrated film soundtracks.
WORDS: Disneyrollergirl/Navaz Batliwalla
IMAGES: Celine, Reuters, Disneyrollergirl, Joseph, Farfetch, The Harmonist fragrance
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1 October, 2018 @ 2:58 pm
I wonder if Celine under Slimane will hit those lofty targets. They pretty much alienated their Philo-phile fan base with this line, and I don’t know if the Slimane fans can make up for the loss of the Philo-philes from a financial perspective. I assume most of Celine’s money was made in accessories, and the ultra-loyal Philo-era consumer base have mostly rejected the two new Slimane bags so far and have resorted to panic-buying what’s left of the Philo-designed handbags. So it will be interesting to see if this gamble will pay off for LVMH.
3 October, 2018 @ 12:35 pm
I know – it’s so interesting! You could compare it to when Hedi took over YSL and there was panic about where the loyal YSL customer was going to go (where did she go??!) but then a newer customer came in and the brand evolved. However, as has been pointed out, Hedi was proposing a radical new look at that time. This time it’s a look that can already be found – at Saint Laurent. I don’t know if it’s about Slimane fans per se, or just ‘younger’ luxury fans that they’re after. The bags so far have been underwhelming but I’m intrigued about the perfume. I do like Hedi’s classic aesthetic (even if it’s a bit overdone) so I’m going to hang in there for now!
8 October, 2018 @ 12:44 pm
It’s all about the money. LVMH saw what Slimane did with YSL and wanted their own billion dollar brand, even if it meant abandoning everything that made Celine the brand that it is today and the women who paid the money that grew the brand. It’s quite the wake up call, actually, to realize that these conglomerates really don’t care about their consumers, more so if that consumer is female, not young, and skinny.
3 October, 2018 @ 8:14 am
Agree about Instagram… I have loved it and encouraged many to use it as a creative outlet…however it is starting to look cheap and has become so annoying with all the crappy low brow advertising…a real shame.
It would be great to see a better version…that isn’t available for Facebook to ruin.
3 October, 2018 @ 12:30 pm
I wonder if they will introduce a version where you can pay not to see ads or sponsored posts! But then there wouldn’t be much left to see…!
15 October, 2018 @ 9:22 pm
Thanks Moss. It’s always the way. Things get commercial and dumbed down :(