One for the maximalists, this OTT £76,500 smartphone has just gone on sale in the jewellery rooms at Printemps and Harrods. Aimed at wealthy women, the Savelli ‘Black Insane’ white gold phone boasts white pave diamond buttons and a black alligator case with ringtones developed by French DJ Stéphane Pompougnac. I think I’ll stick with my Blackberry thanks… (more…)
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…
How to capture the zeitgeist of the current moment? You could do worse than peer into a makeshift photo studio at precisely 730pm at the old Selfridges Hotel last Thursday. Here, 300 invited denim lovers gathered, smartphones in fist, to shoot the world’s first ‘co-created and interactive denim campaign’ for Selfridges’ new Denim Studio. (more…)
For Burberry Prorsum’s SS14 menswear show in its new London home we were treated to a collection called Writers and Painters. A gentle mashup of Alan Bennett boyish shapes and a Hockney colour palette (primary brights expertly layered by Burberry stylist Elliot Smedley), it was certainly commercial but thoroughly eye pleasing.
Styling is so important for a show like this in which the pieces don’t reinvent the wheel and you can’t inspect the quality up close. The outfits were accessorised with soft leather drawstring duffles and polka dot ‘Wave’ sunglasses. (more…)
