Fashion Notebook

Lesssons In Branding: Is Vera Wang the Next Martha Stewart?

Vera Wang, a high-end designer who has made a name for herself over the past two decades creating wedding gowns (with price tags to match, and photo'ed, right), is now opening her own wedding registry—a first in the designer market. Which kind of surprises us, and then, eh, not so much, and then we're all like: "Hey why did no one think of this before?!"

(Full disclosure: It was a late night, and stayed up party with the Cuervo people waaay past our already respectably late bedtime, so if we seem a little dazed today, it's not you, or Vera for that matter. It's us, sweetcakes.)

Anyhow... back to the relevance. VeraWangonWeddings.com will allow not only custom registries for engaged couples, but also a breakdown of runway trends, e-commerce, couples quizzes and wedding planning ideas from Wang herself.

But the bridal registry and e-commerce site is only the tip of the branding iceberg for Wang. In a series of moves similar to those of the one-woman empire orchestrated by love-her-or-hate-her-you-betta- respect-her Martha Stewart, the designer has recently expanded into diverse categories such as bedding, home goods and stationary. Additionally, Wang launched a collection for Kohl's stores late last year.

"Our authoritative position in bridal and bridal registry has allowed us to leverage this [consumer] trust into a lifestyle brand," said Wang. "The next logical step is to capitalize on our relationship with the client over the course of their lives. Our objective is to continue to grow our lifestyle product offering and keep pace with the evolving needs of the consumer."

Wang added that, moving forward, her company is exploring expansion into furniture, decorative fabrics, rugs, lighting and even a Wang-branded line of paint. Now we just won't know who's jungle green to trust when we repaint the bathroom: Vera's or Ralph's?

But what's to stop Wang from becoming like others who burst into multi-category expansions like Bill Blass or Halston, and getting less than sterling results? (Take "less than sterling" to mean abominable here, dears.) Well, apparently, it's because, as Dylan used to croon in that nails-on-a-chalkboard voice: The times they are a-changin'. And so are consumers and designers, y'all!

"We're at a different time for both consumers and designers; and I think Vera is really capitalizing on the ability to do both high and low in the design realm," said Wendy Liebman, CEO of WSL Retail, New York. "The level of sophistication and level of exposure of shoppers has changed and that acceptance, through what's gone on with H&M's designer collaborations, has really opened a door."

For Liebman, Wang's strategy makes sense and she doesn't seem to be stretching the bounds of her brand potential. "The expansion into bridal registry is a logical one, and the home goods are the same . . . Certainly her work with Kohl's appears to be working," said Liebman. "When you look at what Bill Blass or Halston did, versus what Martha or Vera are doing now, you've got a convergence of a smarter shopper and a smarter designer."

Yes, yes, all well and good. And we think V might actually pull it off.

But if her marketing folks are reading this, please, please let us make one wish for how she rolls out home goods, particularly kitchen appliances. Forget the Today Show and get Ms. Wang's face on Food Network's "Paula's Party." We're salivating at the proposition of having Paul Deen (photo, left) do a wedding cake episode with Wang brought on as creative consultant, and having Deen shout out: "We're making weddings today, y'all, and I've brought along my good friend, hot cutter, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, howit creature... Oh whatever y'all, it's fashion designer Vera Wang!" The episode practically writes itself.

This is a sure-fire way to sell Wang, and her image, unequivocally to the lucrative Middle America and mass markets.

Lessons in Branding: A Night Out with Ben Sherman

Having attended many fashion parties that were no more
than an excuse to down a bunch of free drinks before going
out for your real night on the town, we must admit that most of them are throw-aways, except in the rare instance that they shed some light on some real branding work.

While such is by far the rarest of breed in the Fashion Week party line up, Ben Sherman's party Friday night at the brand's Soho flagship proved to be a rumination on the execution of a rebranding, if not a somewhat nostalgic trip down memory lane for us (pictures left, via LastNightsParty.com).

If you haven't checked in with Ben Sherman in a while you should, because it's likely very different than you remember. The U.S. vp-marketing, Dana Dynamite has been working to give the brand some serious hipster cred, starting out  first with a MySpace site several years ago (one of the first to jump on that now über-popular chuck wagon) and extending relationships with a series of downtown New York nightlife's more  prominent partiers (and all too often, party promoters by default... hey, even hipsters gotta eat!).

Most recently, the brand inked a partnership with Merlin Bronques, a downtown scene photographer á la, but predating MisShapes (R.I.P.) and The Cobra Snake (we're fairly sure about this, facts about these guys are usually anecdotal at best) as well as newcomers like Nicky Digital (if you don't know these names, you're either over 35 years old or need to seriously re-read your Hipster Handbook). Bronques produced a series of stills—in k eeping with his hipster verité styles—of downtown's denizens that were used for a Christmas OOH campaign here in New York.  Alongside Bronques came a slew of other night-lifers, such as the DJ/comic (huh?) Mike Nouveau (who's really a web marketing and ad sales guy for Paper, and prior to that held similar duties over at Rolling Stone, pictured, left, with friends) and DJ Jess (the skinny, seemingly sexually ambidextrous DJ who used to, and perhaps still does, spin at Rififfi, where you can expect to hear "Kids in America" and "Common People" about 1.75 times each hour).

So, at the party, it all became clear how these kids—we have to laugh here a little bit, since we've seen them evolve over the past four years from awkward kids our friends used to hook up with to something of legitimate (?) nightlife figures, and speaking of Merlin, why did you lose the wig!!??—have been perfectly deployed to revamp this aged British apparel brand both on and offline (they all promote each other via MySpace pages).

The party was thronged with young kids (check out all the images, here.), which isn't such a surprising thing at fashion events, particularly during Fashion Week. But it was thronged with the kinds of people that we recognize, obviously a direct appeal to young twentysomethings who make the rounds at various clubs decked out in DIY and bargain fashions. The walls were splattered with images from the current campaign, and the room packed with a bunch of young, mod-ish looking pretties that posed for Bronques' pictures. (Though due diligence requires us to report that there were some aging club queens out as well, but that's par for the course around downtown NYC. It wouldn't feel like home without them.)

And while our friend did note that the new outdoor campaign looked like "American Apparel Lite" (which, to be fair, is, itself pretty much "1970s-Era Gym Porn Lite"), Ben Sherman was effectively communicating its new message. After being off of our radar for years, Ben Sherman suddenly felt hip. And the product wasn't—particularly the party dresses—bad either.

And it's not just our musings either. Agyness Deyn, that pixie-faced model you've been seeing in nearly everyone's campaigns this year, popped into the party, wearing some super high shouldered blue jacket and with a mini-entourage of bottle blonds in tow.  That  surely says something, whether she was comp'ed  for the night or not. Though I'm starting to worry about Agyness as a brand spokesperson—seems she's been a bit of the village bicycle lately and while we love her look, we have to wonder how much Agyness we'll have to see before we get fatigue and move on.

And speaking of moving on, while we love the 1980s, I think it's time we stopped LITERALLY reinterpreting the decadent decade. Seriously, there's a way to pull off hip without being a literal reproduction of a Salt N' Peppa album cover. Cheap, clunky gold chain and patent purses were always passé people!

Moschino Jeans Goes Contemporary As "Love Moschino"

Moschino is changing the game at its Moschino Jeans collection, rebranding the goods as "Love Moschino" in a play to get the product into the hot-hot-hot contemporary arena, WWD reported today.

No notes yet on a marketing push, except the article notes that there will be dedicated store openings and "investments in communications" (which we imagine is just fancy talk for "PR" or maybe "web initiatives") in addition to special marketing events. While we're waiting on that, check out this (disturbing?) ad for their "I Love Love" fragrance from the brand's other contempo-line, "Cheap and Chic" (right).

According to the report from Women's Wear's Milan bureau, the label had grown far beyond its traditional denim offering into a full-scale lifestyle collection. The line will be held under the "Love Moschino" moniker starting with the Winter 2008 precollection (seriously, how many collections are there on the calendar now?!) and "has a Twenties feel, with a sporty touch...striped patterns and bright color palettes."

We have to say, we're not in "love" with the new name. What does that even mean? It sounds like those "Love, Live Ferragamo" ads from last year, which were nice, but they were ads, not a brand name. When you're going for contemporary, it seems better to lead with a more straightforward approach, like, say Marc by Marc Jacobs, Michael by Michael Kors, or even Just Cavalli. Somehow, "Love Moschino" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Or maybe it's just us?

Send your thoughts here, or post a comment below. Do you "Love Moschino"?

For the full story from WWD, click here.