Roy Halston Frowick established his own look, introduced a spectacular new fabric, and reinvented functional glamour. During the 1970s he was right at the very top of American designers. Halston’s ideas were original, sensual, and wearable. His elongated silhouettes skimmed the body, capturing a sophistication that was just as at home at an elegant black-tie dinner or a disco. Fluid and Sensual Halston told me the “the natural flow of fabrics allows the body to create its own shape.” This set him apart from virtually all the other …
Missed Signals
Most of us went to sleep on November 8, 2022, expecting to wake up to a new political landscape. Some were dreading the morning and some couldn’t wait, but as the sun rose, I would argue that all of us were surprised. But really? Consider our behavioral changes in recent years; we have jettisoned our landlines, block calls from unknown sources and ignore unwanted texts. So many of our habits have changed in fundamental ways and it is increasingly obvious that the polling methodologies on which all political predictions are made are archaic. …
What Do Zuckerberg, Musk and SBF (Who?) Have in Common?
Zuck, Musk and SBF: What do these entrepreneurs have in common? A large dose of hubris, ultimately soaring to failure. And they are not alone. However, they are arguably the best well-known, anti-hero poster children of the moment, largely due to their dizzying ability to shed billions of dollars in value and thousands of shareholders and employees literally overnight. By the way SBF is the moniker for Sam Bankma-Fried, headline making founder of FTX, a crypto exchange he started in 2019 that soared to a value of $32 billion by January of 2022, …
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Happy Holiday Shopping
It’s no secret the holiday season is a key sales period for retail, travel, and many other industries, so much so that these sales can make or break a business, large or small. With high inflation and fears of consumers pulling back, there are a lot of unknowns this year. To that end, Commerce Signals has produced a Holiday Spending Forecast to help companies with scenario planning. They do this through permissioned and anonymized view of consumer spending that includes both Visa and Mastercard, credit and debit for 40 million …
This is How Fashion Can Help America Recycle
The slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle” has been around for decades. But it’s only more recently that the fashion industry has begun examining how such actions could improve their sustainability efforts while giving their clothing a second life. America Recycles Day is taking place today, November 15 with the aim of raising awareness about how to recycle, repurpose materials, and reduce landfill waste. So, whether it’s reselling preowned fashion, using deadstock rather than new textiles or recycling existing fibers, there are plenty of options …
Miss Martha Is Still in the Thick of It All
In the song “Martha, My Dear,” the Beatles sing “When you find yourself in the thick of it, help yourself to a bit of what is all around you.” Written by Paul McCartney about his Old English Sheepdog, the lyrics seem apt. The Martha in question here is of course Martha Stewart, once deemed the Doyenne of Domesticity but more recently someone who is on a first name basis in...well, just about everything it seems. From her beginnings as a wedding caterer in the Waspy hallows of Connecticut, Stewart has built a career virtually unparalleled in …
The Robin Report Announces the Retail Radicals: The Movers and Shakers of Legacy Brands
We are pleased to announce the winners of The Robin Report 2022 Retail Radicals. The annual awards program focuses on identifying radical thinkers and doers (innovators and entrepreneurial leaders) exclusively in the legacy (brick-and-mortar) sectors of the retail industry. These radicals are driving the major transformations within their respective retail brands. We celebrate traditional, legacy radicals because they face challenges that are much larger and more complex than those of the legion of tech-driven startups who are so often …
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Karl Lagerfeld: the Eccentric’s Eccentric and Gianni Versace: The Most Complicated Personality
Karl Lagerfeld was the smartest and most broadly self-educated of the Greatest Generation of Designers. He was extremely articulate and entertaining. Karl was also by far the most eccentric member of that august group. He dressed, and for the most part, lived with one foot in the eighteenth century. His fashion genius, however, was predicated on his ability to stay up to date, if not a little bit ahead of the very latest trends. Flying Solo Lagerfeld built the foundation of his fashion empire by himself without a business partner. He was …