On the fashion front

Though its runway shows in New York are as over-the-top as ever, the fashion industry is battling an economy that's diminishing the luxury market.

By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2003

NEW YORK -- Bill Blass, dead since June, can still draw a crowd.

His high-end clothing line, designed by Lars Nilsson, hit the runway during February's Fashion Week, attracting a packed house of people who matter. Department store executives. Aging socialites. Anna Wintour, Vogue's editor in chief.

Sleek models paraded by in cashmere, chiffon and chantilly lace. Thigh-high boots and touches of metallics gave the classic collection a hip edginess. A single outfit in Bill Blass red paid homage to the past.

At show's end, the standing-room-only crowd was abuzz as Nilsson ducked onto the runway for a quick bow.

"He loves women," gushed Vanity Fair's Amy Fine Collins. "Lars is the real thing."

But the next day, Nilsson and his entire design team were abruptly fired from the company, which has owned the designer's name since 1999.

"Basically, the clothes were not selling," said Michael Groveman, president and chief executive of Bill Blass Ltd.

At the New York City shows, dozens of designers spend big bucks to create a buying frenzy for the upcoming season. But as Nilsson learned, selling high-end apparel isn't easy. And it's getting tougher, thanks to a shaky economy and impending war.

"Fashion is between a wreck and a hard place," said David Wolfe, creative director with Doneger Group, a merchandise consulting company in New York. "The fashion show business has become show business. Meanwhile, customers just need something nice to wear."

The disconnect carried to Manhattan's Bryant Park, where a temporary tent city provided show space for a jam-packed schedule of more than 70 designers. Outside, there were threats of terrorist attacks and subfreezing temperatures. Inside, a procession of blank-faced beauties pranced like long-legged colts, wrapped in everything from crystal-encrusted evening gowns to zebra-striped corsets.

The fashionistas were out in full force. Among the standouts: a man in a full-length pink mink coat and matching mink hat and a woman with rubber galoshes and a red hat that resembled a melted M&M on her head.

Designers' press reps barked orders into headsets while corralling the crowds. A distinguished-looking gentleman, carrying a handwritten invitation to the Carolina Herrera show, was allowed in only after identifying himself as her accountant. Two teenage girls, the remnants of a once-hot young rap trio, were forced to wait in line for the start of the Baby Phat show until they were recognized and ushered in.

For all the hoopla, the shows were over in less than 20 minutes.

The designers ranged from names like Chado Ralph Rucci, known to fashion cognoscente as the only American to do haute couture shows in Paris, to urban chic labels like Baby Phat designed by former model and hip-hop socialite Kimora Lee Simmons. The only common denominator: These clothes aren't cheap. From $30,000 gowns by Zang Toi to $300 jackets by Ralph Lauren, these clothes are for people willing to spend money for designer cache and cutting-edge trendiness. Unfortunately, the ranks of those consumers are dwindling.

"The luxury market is changing and diminishing," said Wolfe of the Doneger Group. "There was an unrealistic bubble in the '90s. There's still over-the-top luxury, but now we define it in our own terms. What's ending is mindless status."

Marshal Cohen, senior industry expert with the NPD Group, a market information company in Port Washington, N.Y., said designer brands can still pull people into stores in a lackluster environment, but that doesn't mean people are spending like in the past.

"The designer market is considered a loss leader by most stores because it brings in a higher level of consumer, one seeking something different," Cohen said. "But even fashion-focused shoppers driving the upper end markets are cutting back."

It has been an uneven year for designers, with some brands booming while others flailed. Luxury brand Yves Saint Laurent recently reported it wouldn't be profitable until the end of 2004 or 2005, a year later than expected. Prada's sales last year were down 3 percent.

Overall, sales of bridge and designer segments were $11.5-billion in 2002, down 3 percent, according to Cohen at NPD. (The two segments account for about 14 percent of total women's apparel sales of $83.6-billion.)

Some brands defied the trends. Luxury brand conglomerate LVMH, Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, said sales of its fashion and leather goods grew 16 percent last year. The House of Dior said 2002 revenues were $422-million, up 50 percent from the year before.

But for both LVMH and Dior, the bulk of the revenue comes from leather goods and other accessories.

"Christian Dior is fantastic, but they're not selling anything that comes down the runway," said Wolfe, referring to Dior designer John Galliano's renowned Paris shows. "You see someone dressed up like a clown, but you'll go in and buy the handbag. You just register the name, then you're inspired to buy something sensible. Usually an accessory."

One example: Dior's hot-selling saddle shoulder bag, which appeared on Sarah Jessica Parker's arm in several episodes of Sex and the City, is made in 125 versions, at prices ranging from $595 to $10,513.

And though the president of Bill Blass Ltd. complained that sales of Nilsson's high-end women's collection were poor, reportedly $20-million, the company pulled in more than $600-million from licensed products emblazoned with the Blass name, including jeans, men's shirts and ties.

But the high-powered hype that is Fashion Week isn't about selling ties. It's about selling sizzle, making grandiose statements, testing trends, being seen. This branding opportunity doesn't come cheap. Tent rental in Bryant Park ranges from $14,000 to $39,500 and that's just the beginning. Add in the expense of models, makeup and hair artists, lighting, music, photography and production and the cost can reach $1-million. Sean "P. Diddy" Combs' show of his Sean John label, held at Cipriani's restaurant, reportedly topped $2-million.

Robin Givhan of the Washington Post said the twice-annual circuit of shows, which begin in New York and jet-set through London, Milan and Paris, are the fashion industry's equivalent of spring training, auto shows and the Super Bowl rolled into one.

"I walk away with a sense of the overall view of what the next season will hold," she said. "Everybody hopes to see the next great new thing."

If great equates to outrageous, there was plenty to see in Bryant Park.

Gaelyn & Cianfarni, two designers whose show was sponsored by the antifur lobby, showed skirts made of recycled bicycle tire tubes and a purple latex evening gown. Designer Betsey Johnson, known for doing cartwheels down the runway, created froufrou first communion dresses with puffy crinolines for grownup weddings. Custo Barcelona's models were outfitted in multicolor patchworks of graphics, stripes and plaids finished off with gloves that looked like oven mitts.

Even a more conservative designer like Cynthia Steffe gave her sportswear a youthful twist by pairing tweed skirts with three-quarter-length leggings and topping them with white fox capelets.

There was no shortage of trends during the weeklong fashion extravaganza. Micromini skirts and painfully pointy-toed shoes were everywhere. The rumors of war were reflected in a raft of garments in hues of military green. For those who prefer to escape reality, there were filmy skirts, diaphanous blouses exposing plenty of breasts and miles of trailing ribbons.

Designers took inspiration from nearly every decade: Charles Nolan of Anne Klein found his in early 1920s French art; Marc Jacobs mimicked Courrege's geometric look from the '60s; Diesel Stylelab's dark grunge, with a purple velvet tux jacket emblazoned "Jimi (Hendrix) for Prez," echoed the '80s.

"There's no such thing as a fresh start. Everything is evolutionary," said Doneger Group's Wolfe. "Though I'm delighted to tell you the '70s revival, which lasted longer than the '70s, is nearly over and the Village People can go back to wherever they go between revivals."

Every designer strove to present the look that would land on the front of Women's Wear Daily and on the body of the celebrity of the moment. Most telling trend: In a noticeably low wattage season for celebrities (exceptions being Sigourney Weaver, Kim Cattrell and Alicia Keyes), front row seats were always reserved for celebrity stylists like Philip Bloch and Patricia Field, who pulls clothes for the characters on Sex in the City.

Though getting garments worn on the red carpet guarantees free publicity as the images are replayed on TV, in magazines and on the Internet, consultant Wolfe questions the value of such marketing.

"I can't imagine any woman needing a red carpet gown and those dresses are never in the stores anyway," he said. "It amazes me we're such a nation of sheep, blindly following celebrities."

(No one can accuse Wolfe of slavishly following trends. Speaking before a roomful of Doneger's clients during fashion week, he wore a multicolor striped shirt, lime green tie, leather pants, and a brown tweed coat accented by an orange kerchief.)

It's not only the fanciest gowns that seldom find their way into retail. Though it varies by designer, a high percentage of the garments shown on the runway never make it into production. In most cases, buyers have previewed the collection and already placed their orders for the coming season before sitting through the razzle-dazzle of the runway.

After the tents have been torn down, designers' publicists go to work, sending out "Look Books" and videos of the runway show to buyers, stylists and fashion editors. The runway collection is edited -- a polite way of saying pieces that will never sell are dropped -- and color and fabric variations added. At a trade show held at a cruise ship terminal a week after the runway shows, those buyers who haven't yet seen the collections have the chance to touch the merchandise and place orders.

In the end, if the designer is lucky, the oven mitts, three-quarter-length leggings and latex gowns make way for more user-friendly apparel that finds its way onto store racks and, hopefully, into customers' closets.

But it's a treacherous road from a designer's sketchbook to booked revenue and one that's become ever more rocky in recent months. Richard Roberts, president of Cynthia Steffe, said there's been a noticeable slowdown in spending on high-end apparel since October.

"Consumers are definitely reluctant to part with their dollars," said Roberts, who added that, contrary to this tightfisted trend, his company's sales have continued to grow. "Malls are not as vibrant or crowded as you might think they would be. Spring stuff is prompting business to pick up some and newness always helps. But for the last several years, there's not been one new reason to buy."

If consumers get the message from the runways, they'll want to race out and buy minis and more minis.

"That's going to be the must-have of the season," Roberts said. "But it won't take long to saturate that market."

Cohen at NPD doubts miniskirts will spark life into women's apparel sales, which have been declining for the past two years.

"Women are saying, 'I don't care what the designers are putting in front of me, I want to buy something to match my black skirt,' " he said. "They want to add onto their wardrobe, not throw it out."

Cohen said he's only seen one fashion innovation lately that might spark a trend, but it's not one that will make designers rich.

"In California, girls are wearing men's pajama bottoms as streetwear," he said. "They're better quality and incredibly less pricey than women's and they have a different look. This has the potential to be a hot item. Unfortunately, it's inexpensive."

-- Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727)892-2996.

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