Six key areas for understanding market dynamics — Applicable to any industry, from fashion to hospitality to automotive and spirits and media, the teardown guide informs unique market environments in which your company operates in. The objective of the teardown guide is to ensure that you develop a corporate brand platform and core creative idea that is both…

The importance of material history in brand building — How to know the value of a thing? On the most basic level, an ESPRIT rainbow tote is made for carrying thins, and is priced based on this performance and features like materials and labor. Tote’s value = performance x price.

How massification is pushing luxury fashion towards craftsmanship and memes — Earlier this month, Angelina Jolie announced her new venture. Called Atelier Jolie, it is meant to give the fashion makers — tailors, pattern-makers and artisans who actually make the clothes — a platform for collaboration with anyone with a design idea. Riding on the belief that we are all creative…

Mapping the four types of cultural output — Kulturindustrie (the culture industry) aims to capture and structure what’s happening in our culture right now, from brand products to places to art and design. It tells us where the zeitgeist is going and what we collectively gravitate to. The purpose of the the culture industry map is to direct…

How cultural acceleration, social fluidity, and the global market made fashion genres obsolete — “An $800 tracksuit is not a tracksuit. A $1,000 denim jacket is not a denim jacket. They’re tuxedos in different forms,” Telfar Clemens said in a recent interview. Beyond semiotics, the New York-based designer’s observation perfectly captures the fashion’s post-genre future. Fashion has always been playing with hybrids, and the…

Four ways of creating more value while producing less — In a recent interview with Financial Times, Chanel CEO Leena Nair, addressed — and dispelled — rumors that Chanel is going public. …

“Telfar is easy to get — if you get Telfar” — April 24th 2023, was the last day of Telfar LIVE, a radical economic-social-cultural experiment by the most innovative fashion brand in the world. …

How taste economics works — There’s a number of ways to assign value to something. On the most basic, economic, level, products perform and are priced based on their properties (materials, labor). Their value is a combination of this performance and price. There’s also a number of ways to evaluate something, from looking only at…

Three species of creative leaders are poised to redefine the industry — “I am back to making jackets,” Demna swore of his new mission at Balenciaga in his first on-the-record interview since two ad campaigns from late 2022 sparked controversy. “[The essence of fashion is] in shapes and volumes, silhouettes, the way we create relationships between body and fabric,” his FW23 show…