Fashion Notebook

Breaking News: Commes Des Garcons' Rei Kawakubo To Design Next Guest Collection for H&M

Now this is one that actually has us a little hot under the collar.   

Lagerfeld, sure. Viktor & Rolf, cute. Cavalli, sexy. Stella McCartney, feh. Rei Kawakubo, what?!

That's right, empress of whimsical Japanese luxe label Comme des Garcons, Rei Kawakubo, has announced that she will be the featured artiste on H&M's next designer collaboration. The collection launches first in early November, to coincide with the opening of H&M's second Tokyo store. In the following days, it will roll out to doors in the rest of H&M's global markets.

The collection will include apparel for men, women and children, as well as accessories and a unisex fragrance. This certainly is a much more expanded program than the fast fashion retailer has done in the past, and it would seem that the growth of product offering owes everything to the freshness that Kawakubo can bring to the brand.

Much like the Japanese designers Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, with whom she formed the Japanese triumvirate that defined much of the new wave fashion of 1980s American culture, Kawakubo's designs are structurally intense, and often include popular cultural references in a rather Pop Art motif (such as a series of men's suits she rolled out a in spring 2006 back that featured the iconic Rolling Stone's lips n' tongue logo splayed across the fabric). She was also the mentor for another fashion avant-gartist whose star appears to be ascending these days, Junya Wantanabe. For a look at some of her work, check the photo above.

That said, we're so interested to see what she turns out when she's not using high-tech fabrics or restrained by price points that might tie in some of her more flights of fantasy designs. As we see it, this could be a love it or hate it collection, and we just hope that the quality matches up to the buzz that will no doubt follow this collection's launch. We remember hearing that there were some issues with the clothes that Cavalli put out on the racks, not to mention those of the McCartney collection (said one of our friends, at the time: "I walked out with a cute dress that turned into a pile of buttons and thread after two weeks.").

Anyways, as always, here's the mutual lovefest that always follows these kinds of announcements.

"I have always been interested in the balance between creation and business," said Kawakubo, in a statement. "It is a dilemma, although creation for me has always been the first priority. It is a fascinating challenge to work with H&M since it is a chance to take the dilemma to its extreme and try to solve it."

See what we mean? Seems like old Kawakubo might be prepping us for the design vs. quality vs. price issue we outlined above. Less avant garde, but better quality, or more envelope pushing and delicate? Again, will be so interesting to see her "solution" as she calls it.

And now from H&M's creative advisor Margareta van den Bosch (great name, non?!):

"Rei Kawakubo has been at the top of our wish list for a long time and we are thrilled that she has chosen to collaborate with us," said van den Bosch, in a statement. "We have tremendous respect for Kawakubo's fashion philosophy of questioning fashion's ingrained patterns, and admire her artistic approach to design. We are particularly excited that the collection will be launched in Japan, Kawakubo's native country, at the same time as the launch of our new store there."

Ok, so we'll have to stay tuned, but we think this could be good news. It will drive some buzz—as these collections have done in past incarnations—for both the designer and the retailer, exposing the younger, less monied set to Kawakubo's work and perhaps building brand affinity there, while probably giving H&M a much fresher and more high-concept street reputation for the risk they're taking in bringing her in.

We'll be checking back in November to see what the product looks like!

Marketing Ethics in The Valley of the Stardolls

  Stardoll.com, a social-play Web site for 9 to 17 year-old girls, announced this week that it has inked a deal with supermodel/auf'er Heidi Klum to promote her latest jewelry collection.

Essentially, the deal shakes out in a Second Life kind of way. Heidi gets her own store, located in Stardoll's "Star Plaza" shopping center, where the girls can look through her collection, buy "virtual versions" of the product that they can use to bedeck their avatars, and talk shop about fashion. They can even look through Heidi's "closet" of favorite handbags, shoes, clothes and awards show outfits. Oh and she gets this avatar (see right) that doesn't really do graphic justice to Klum's on-screen beauty.

“I don’t just think about it as selling jewelry, [but] I try to make it about who I am,” Klum told me over the phone. “I think it’s great to be in connection with young girls who are interested in fashion . . . It allows [the girls] to interact with those celebrities they are fans of and get an insight into what that person’s favorite clothes are.”

Klum isn't the first to go this way with Stardoll. A partnership with LVMH in December landed DKNY (see store format below) and Sephora in the space, and before that young starlets like Hillary Duff, the Olsens, and Avril Lavigne had also set up shop on the site. And there are more to come! The site, which claims to have 12 million visitors, is seeking other high-end partnerships with brands including Stella McCartney, Vivienne Tam, Liz Claiborne and Henri Bendel.

No doubt, digi-deals like these are already popping up everywhere, but the fact that they're luxury players that are effectively marketing to kids—essentially recruiting future shoppers while their brand loyalties aren't yet set in stone, not to mention further glamorizing a materialist marketplace—seemed just a little bizarre to me.

So I rang up Susan Linn over at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to  get her thoughts. Picking a fight, I know, but I thought she might be able to shed some light on this trend.

“The real purpose of social networking sites for young kids like Stardoll, BarbieGirl and even Webkinz and Club Penguin, is to train kids to shop,” she told me. “It’s a good thing for the corporations to make a lot of bucks, but it’s not a good thing for kids. What these companies want to do it get children in the habit of consumption . . . and instill the idea that they deserve luxury products."

But is that Stardoll's fault, really? If we're supposed to stop instilling kids with the idea that they deserve expensive things, why don't we just cancel any number of reality and "scripted reality" shows, not to mention MTV shows like "Cribs" or VH1's "The Fabulous Life Of" series? Certainly those shows glamorize opulent wealth and rampant consumerism.

To whit, Paul Kurnit, president of Kid Shop and a marketing professor at Pace University, told me that the children using sites like Stardoll are already exposed to hyper-consumer culture via television shows like those mentioned above.

“Luxury is aspiration and a lot of those brands and those celebrities are fashion and lifestyle brand badges that today's teen and tween girls want a piece of,” he said, adding that he feels Stardoll does a good job of delivering for both its users and brands.

So, dear reader, what's the verdict? Is Stardoll out of line, or is it merely keeping with the times?

Is Cavalli Another Stella for H&M?

So the reviews are coming out following the launch of Roberto Cavalli's collection at H&M yesterday (photo below, from H&M). We've been following the collection as the campaign from H&M's Red Room unfolded last month, and initial reports seem to indicate that things aren't going so well.

While all the blogs and newspapers are reporting that the collection sold out almost instantaneously—not such a surprise, since the hype around these designer collections for H&M has consistently drawn tremendous public interest with the promise of big-name designs at bargain prices (more on that in my essay on such designer/retailer partnerships)—some, like our friends over at Racked have some rather disquieting news to report.

According to the blog, the clothes are little more than "cheap junk!"

"I grabbed a jacket that costs $350 and it looks like something  you'd get at Wet Seal," Racked reports in an update from this morning. "Total crap.  This is really bad. It might be the worst thing I've ever had to experience. I'm shaken."

Uh-oh. This one smacks of that ill-fated Stella McCartney collection, where girls ran back to the store with little dresses that had come undone and buttons that were falling off. Not good news, as I've heard many of those pieces were left, immobile, on sales counters.

Which reminds me, what ever happened to that Madonna collection that debuted in March? I've still yet to see anyone wearing it or hear of anyone that bought one of the pieces. Tips welcome!