http://jakandjil.com/blog/ is where all the action is at.

The devil is in the details.

Mr. Tabbert was on the hunt for 150 dishdashas, the ankle-length garments worn by men in Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. In July, actors will wear them in a simulated Iraqi village, posing as townspeople, clerics and insurgents at a National Guard training ground in the Midwest.

Mr. Tabbert is a costumer for a company that outfits mock battles and simulated Arab villages that the military organizes around the country.

“I was certainly not pro-war,” he said. “I looked at what we were doing as a positive way to train the soldiers, in light of the fact that they are being deployed anyway.”

Through his work, soldiers learn how to differentiate between villagers and opposition forces, he said, adding, “It’s teaching the people how to not kill people.”

As in New York, where the denizens of Bedford Avenue are clad in American Apparel, as if in uniforms, while Park Avenue wears Pucci, each Afghan or Iraqi social stratum has its own particular dress. Mr. Tabbert studies images on the Internet to determine, for example, the exact embroidery on the epaulet of an opposition leader’s military uniform, and provides some actors with wristwatches to signify the wealthier townspeople.

I can’t wait to read this – I’m debating whether to muddle through in French or wait for the translation. Perhaps Mauvais Garcon could become my spring challenge.

Art v fashion, is precisely how the journalist and writer Marie-Dominique Lelièvre chooses to open her new biography, Saint Laurent, mauvais garçon, which has in recent weeks shocked France. “He was only a couturier,” she writes. “He didn’t invent the artificial heart, he didn’t lead any revolution and he is not the author of any masterpieces.”

Last weekend Lelièvre gave a book talk in Bordeaux. “Half of the people insulted me while the other half praised the book. One man reproached me for ‘killing his dream’. Both sides ended up shouting at each other. I asked the organisers if it was always like this. They replied, ‘only when authors come and discuss the Israel-Palestinian conflict’.”

Who says a size 12 doesn’t look as good as a size 0?

The picture above is just part of a spread shot by Terry Richardson for V Magazine. The magazine will be on newsstands January 14, but for now you can preview it at Refinery 29. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the fledgling “real people as models” movement. From what I can see, Richardson (of all people!) makes a good case for the sexy non-stick hanger.

Coach continues to be the envy of many retailers on the block, despite the challenging recession environment. It’s another one of those workhorse case studies that I pull out for study in many business scenarios. The two areas I often highlight: the brand’s strong commitment to consumer research (rather unusual in the fashion luxury world) and its flexible approach to product mix.

Consistently ranked among the most competitive retailers, Coach boasted $3.2 billion in revenue for 2008. Last quarter, the cash-rich company reported net sales totaling $740 million, compared with $745 million a year ago, a decline of about 1 percent—and an earnings drop of 29.3 percent—during the most challenging retail environment in decades.

Direct-to-consumer sales, mostly through Coach’s 400-plus retail and outlet stores, rose 9 percent last quarter to $634 million.
Eighty percent of its products are sold directly to consumers.

In Japan, Coach holds a 14 percent share of the imported accessories market, second only to Louis Vuitton.

The company spends $5 million a year in surveys, tracking, and testing.

In 2010, 50 percent of the company’s bags will cost from $200 to $300, compared with 30 percent in 2009.

Analysts praise the company’s chameleonlike ability to adapt rapidly. “Management has been thoughtful and strategic in how they approach this period,” said Todd Slater, an analyst at Lazard Capital Markets.

I’m looking for bright spots to post this week and this article on fashion brands doing well caught my eye. I am particularly heartened to see the booming Isabel Marant numbers. Like every other wannabe honorary French femme, I love her masculine/feminine balancing act and attempt to re-create it on my own (with uneven results!)

Brands like Tommy Hilfiger, D&G from Dolce & Gabbana, and Tory Burch, all selling below the luxury designer category, are growing now because they expanded or reorganized, repositioned collections or introduced new lucrative lines before the first signs of the recession.

Sales of the Tommy Hilfiger Group, a unit of Apax Partners, a private equity investment group, rose 21 percent, to $1.6 billion, for the financial year that ended March 31, according to Fred Ghering, Hilfiger’s chief executive officer.

In 2006, the Dolce & Gabbana group brought the collection’s production inhouse, ending a license arrangement with Ittierre group of Italy. Since then, the collection has had average sales growth of more than 8 percent a year, reflecting its more sophisticated styling and fabrications. For the financial year that ended March 31, D&G sales were €706 million, or $1.04 billion, roughly 44 percent of the group’s revenue.

Tory Burch does not disclose its revenue, but sales are expected to rise modestly this year to $200 million, thanks in part to increased wholesaling outside the United States.

There also are companies that do not appear to be doing anything special, like Isabel Marant of France, and yet are growing at a healthy rate — more than 20 percent a year, according to Isabel Marant’s chief executive officer, Sophie Duruflé. Wholesale revenue for Isabel Marant and its secondary collection, Etoile, rose 29 percent last year, to €25 million, and they are expected to increase 35 percent this year, said Ms. Duruflé. Isabel Marant plans to open a store in New York’s SoHo area next year.

Buyers are particularly vocal in their praise for such midrange lines.

At Harvey Nichols in London, U.S. labels like Milly, Rebecca Taylor and Tory Burch have “performed really well” this fall, said Suzanne Pendlebury, the womenswear buyer. She noted that separates from brands like Vanessa Bruno from France, Diane Von Furstenberg, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Anglomania and the Danish labels Bruuns Bazaar and Malene Birger are seeing strong growth because “with these labels, rather than buying one expensive designer piece, you can afford to buy a few items that work together and produce different looks.”

At Bon Marché, Ms. Chapellu said that contemporary labels like the Marant collections, Vanessa Bruno, Marni, Marni’s Summer and Winter Edition and Marc by Marc Jacobs have all sold well this fall.

Check out the first part of his show, broadcast live online, which of course, crashed due to the fashionista stampede.

According to Suzy Menkes:

The most dramatic revolution in 21st-century fashion took place this week under the sweeping eyes of two giant robots. As they rolled down the stage at the Alexander McQueen show, the machines cast their cameras in diverse directions to project images on to the ever-changing kaleidoscope of a backdrop.

Out there in cyberspace, 29,000 hits in one second crashed the live show, which took the British designer back to his roots as an extraordinary showman. Fashion followers had wanted to experience the in-the-round filming and hear the debut of Lady Gaga’s new soul pop single.

“It’s quite daunting and scary to acknowledge the transformation that is going on in the world,” said Mr. McQueen, whose Twitter posts have already linked him to his public.

This show was intensely thought out and a full-on techno revolution. It started with a screening of snakes writhing over a bare body that was laid out on the sand, before the show plunged into its underwater theme: creatures of the deep printed on to the carapace of a mini-crinoline, each individual digital pattern engineered to the body.

Mr. McQueen’s partner in this underwater adventure, which he named “Plato’s Atlantis,” was Nick Knight and his 9-year-old SHOWstudio, which has been the crucible of techno developments in fashion.

Yes, the cameras were there but will it sell?

Lindsay Lohan and Spanish designer Estrella Archs showed off their new hot mess of a Spring 2010 Ungaro collection today in Paris.

And the Fashion World’s Mean Girls could simply not stop ragging on how bad it was. (To be fair, there seems to be at least one kind person from Australia running off at the mouth.)

One Twitter trendoid was appalled at the lack of gowns.

And then there were the heart-shaped pasties. …

‘It’s not good to show your nipples, so they should be covered,’ Lohan wisely told Reuters, referring to the omnipresent heart-shaped pasties. This did not explain why some models wore larger versions of the heart-shaped pasties on their foreheads.

WWD called the collection “an “embarrassment,” among other things.

“As for the clothes, they looked cheesy and dated, as has often been the case chez Ungaro during the post-Emanuel revolving door of designers. Hot pink, orange and flashy, with an overworked heart motif relentless in its execution, the collection displayed none of the promised younger side Lohan was supposed to deliver. Nor in a million years would one guess that the lineup was designed by one young woman and “creative directed” by another. Glitter heart pasties all around, ladies?”

Yet another example of how this new-fangled internet is messing with old hierarchies.

At the D&G runway show in Milan last week, the chief executives of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman were relegated to second-row and third-row seats. In front of them, sitting primly in the first row, was Federico Marchetti, chief executive of online retailer Yoox.com .

Front rows are reserved for those most important to a brand’s success—celebrities, important retailers and magazine editors. In past years, Mr. Marchetti sometimes borrowed tickets to shows from other guests. But in the past year, Yoox has expanded its business of creating online stores for luxury brands such as D&G, the casual ready-to-wear line from Dolce & Gabbana, and for Jil Sander—whose site launched just today. And this season, Mr. Marchetti has actually been invited to too many shows. “I don’t have time anymore,” he said at a party thrown by Versace in Milan.

The warm welcome extends to bloggers. While the New York shows have been inviting some bloggers for a few seasons now, many of Europe’s luxury houses have been slower to allow bloggers into the shows. But two days after the D&G event, at a show for the high-end Dolce & Gabbana line, four surprised bloggers found themselves seated in coveted spots near the queen of fashion, Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Luxury brands have long been leery of the pedestrian Internet, a place where consumers coldly compare prices while forgoing attentive service. This was OK for Lands’ End, maybe, but not for Lanvin. After all, what woman would buy a $2,600 dress without first trying it on? But online luxury sites like Net-a-Porter.com proved that many women would do just that. Now, Yoox—which says it plans to take itself public on Italy’s stock exchange in coming months—is running online stores for brands including Bally, Valentino, Pucci, and Marni.

This season, Twitter and Facebook are littered with fashion brands—including Louis Vuitton and Burberry—testing how social-media sites might benefit them. At the shows in Europe, audience members can be seen typing the digital messages known as tweets into their iPhones and BlackBerries as the models sashay down the runway. A number of brands—including Dolce & Gabbana and Burberry—have tried streaming their shows live on the Internet. Alexander McQueen will live-stream his show from Paris next week.

I love this unexpected yet so perfectly authentic celebrity endorsement. Spark any thoughts of perfect odd-pairings for your brand?

Full article here at the Wall Street Journal. Scroll down (in that link) and watch the video of Mr. Buffett singing the company and the owner’s praises. It’s Omaha enthusiasm at its finest.

America’s foremost capitalist may not have much in common with China’s top Communist, but Warren Buffett and Hu Jintao do appear to share the same clothier.

Move over Brioni, the truly rich and powerful are wearing Trands.

The obscure menswear label is produced by Dayang Group, a clothing company founded by Li Guilian, 63 years old, a diminutive farmer-turned-fashion mogul, in northeast China.

Ms. Li’s company got a major boost after Mr. Buffett, chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., recently appeared in a Dayang promotional video, posted on the company’s Web site. He heaped praise on Ms. Li, her company, and the nine Trands suits he proudly owns. Shares of Dayang’s Shanghai-listed subsidiary, Dalian Dayang Trands Co., have soared by more than 70% since the video was posted on Sept. 10.

While not known as a fashion plate, Mr. Buffett says his Trands suits transformed his image. “They’re comfortable and people tell me they look good,” says Mr. Buffett, reached this week at his office. “I went 78 years before I got a compliment on my appearance.”

Mr. Buffett, who says he has no ownership stake in Dayang, especially likes that his new suits are wrinkle-resistant. “If I am on a trip and wearing them day after day, they don’t wrinkle,” he says. He says he gave his old suits to charities.