We have documented the evolution of the digital fashion movement here over the past year, and the early rumblings are becoming a roar. What may have been a fad is now an established a trend. Given the technological bent of the SXSW festival, it’s not surprising that virtual fashion is at the center of its fashion programming in 2021. If you consider SXSW the leading edge between the present and the near future, digital fashion is worth revisiting. Digital Fashion Is Now and Forever A series of SXSW talks presented by technologists, designers, …
What is It About Peloton?
The omnichannel fitness/lifestyle brand has exploded in the pandemic economy. Peloton was founded in 2012 by John Foley. The founder previously served a brief stint as the CEO of Barnes and Noble, preceded by a variety of dot com positions. Foley discussed his years-long battle with the venture capital community as he persistently pitched his concept. In a 2019 interview with NPR's Guy Raz Foley, he explained, "I would bet I pitched three times a day for four years…I probably pitched 3,000 people, and then the 400 institutions that all said …
Virtual Stores: Are They Here to Stay?
Full disclosure: I did not set foot in a store this season. In normal times, my in-store holiday shopping mood toggles between energized and irritated. Wandering through a crowded, slightly overheated store, dragging a coat with a bulky scarf-stuffed sleeve looking for inspiration is a trial, but there have been moments when retail kismet struck. During holiday 2019, I experienced such karma at Nordstrom’s New York flagship, achieving a satisfied shopper’s dopamine hit, and walking out with several gifts. A Nothing-Like-Normal Holiday 2020 In …
Amazon’s Superpower
Unintended consequences of Covid-19 are that it’s easier to find a captive audience and we now regularly spend time waiting in lines. In the spirit of making lemonade out of Coronavirus lemons, I decided to conduct a quick, socially distanced, unscientific poll outside a Brooklyn Trader Joe’s where my husband was queued up. My question was, “What kind of a business is Amazon.com?” Of the 11 people who took out their earbuds and talked to me, nine of them said basically “online retail.” Another said, “A company that should be broken up because …
Rerouting Retail
In 2015 NIKE opened a Community Store in Brooklyn; It’s not in Williamsburg or Dumbo, it’s in Flatbush. Flatbush is hardly an international retail mecca. In fact, the store is near the last downtown stop, at the end of the number two subway line. The NIKE Community Store model has expanded to include downtown Detroit, Ivy City in D.C., mid-city New Orleans, South Chicago, Portland Oregon, East Los Angeles, and the newest location, which opened in August of 2020 in the Watts neighborhood of L.A. The game plan of breathing authenticity and local …
The Retail Outlook? Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Stanford professor and author of the bestseller Mindset, Carol Dweck describes grading students as a young teacher. If a student was not progressing toward the expected learning outcome, rather than a failing grade, the mark given was a not yet. Holiday shopping is now underway, and 2021 fast approaches, are the signs for retail signaling recovery, or are they indicating not yet? Divergent Outlooks Green shoots have appeared. Goldman Sachs has raised its 2021 GDP forecast to 6.2 percent from 5.6 in anticipation of broad vaccine distribution …
The Retail Outlook? Cloudy with a Chance of MeatballsRead More
Fashion Moves Out of This World
The pandemic continues to unravel both our social lives and social fabric, but changes are not limited to the corporeal; our social media lives are changing too. Gaming has become global, communal and interactive. An August 2020 eMarketer survey pegs the number of digital gamers in the United States at 174.7 million or 52.5 percent of the population. Amazon just introduced a gaming platform called Luna which will stream more than 100 popular video games and will integrate with Amazon-owned Twitch, the live-stream gaming platform. Stastia breaks …
The Indefatigable Walmart Gets a Piece of TikTok
In the game of musical chairs that has been the TikTok acquisition, Walmart and Oracle are still seated as the music stops although they may on be stools, make that stools with a leg missing. Walmart has hung in there after first dancing with Google, then Microsoft, and now Oracle, but with each change of partner, the jackpot Walmart was reaching for diminished in value. Tik Tok posted on Twitter that “Oracle will serve as a trusted tech partner responsible for hosting all US server data”. The Tweet continued, “We are currently working with …