Be sure to check out all the action via Twitter as usual though, and in the meantime, read on for a handful of great stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:
Michael Kors launches digital series ‘Living the Kors Life’ (episode one above) [FashionGoneRogue]
Next rolls out Facebook app to mark 30 years of fashion [Marketing magazine]
Louis Vuitton pushes Kusama collection via augmented reality app [Luxury Daily]
Rebecca Minkoff to bring new lookbook to life with animated GIFs [WWD]
E-Commerce is head over heels for Pinterest, and for good reason [All Things D]
Retailers feast on free Facebook tools, shun ads [Reuters]
Very cute animated video just released from Louis Vuitton, providing a “fantastic and surrealist voyage” inside a game case:
It was created by III Studio and said to be about “the universe of games, how they pass the time, evolve from one move to the next in different systems of transition”.
Look out for everything from chess, dominoes and backgammon to cards, dice and roulette, each featuring iconic Louis Vuitton prints and logos.
Louis Vuitton has launched an iPad application based on its book, Louis Vuitton: 100 Legendary Trunks.
Referred to as “a wonderful breakaway through the most beautiful creations of the Maison”, it details 100 pieces of luggage from 1854 to present day, and reveals the adventures of many of the owners.
Included are such treasures as the bed-trunk made for the explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, trunks for the illusionist Harry Houdini or the fashion designer Paul Poiret, the suitcase for Queen Elizabeth II, the vanity case for Sharon Stone, and the artist’s trunk for Takashi Murakami.
The app features more than 1,000 illustrations and unpublished documents, as well as 40 videos and sound clips, and 360-degree views of 10 of the most special trunks. It was designed in partnership with Les Editions de La Martinière and also comes available in four languages: French, English, Mandarin and Japanese.
Check out the teaser video above, and more pics below:
It’s great to see luxury fashion houses finally grasping hold of the fact the web provides an ideal place for them to demonstrate the richness of their brands.
Slowly but surely, we’re moving away from tremendously uninspiring sites built on basic building blocks, to innovative platforms housing everything the company both stands for and creates. Accordingly, that once awful label of ‘digital destination’, might finally be warranted after all.
Admittedly not all of them are quite there…
Dior.com recently relaunched, for instance, and its yet to prove itself as impressive as its preview video implied – a little clunky in functionality, and that’s before we get into the remaining lack of e-commerce debate.
And then there’s say Marc Jacobs, which, as Tony King, creative director of King & Partners, highlighted last week at the Fashion Forward Digital conference in New York, doesn’t quite live up to the luxurious persona with its animated entrance point. (For the record he drew on the likes of Burberry, Oki-ni, Bally and Tory Burch, among others, as examples of digital best practice).
Said to be “an exciting, ever-changing format of exceptional richness and visual appeal”, its design is based on the concept of a journey, tying in, of course, with the brand’s longstanding initiative, The Art of Travel.
On the homepage, a moving cloud of images entices users towards five sections of content:
New, Now: the brand’s online magazine, which offers insights into the house, interviews with international personalities and coverage of events
Journeys: the home of the Core Values campaign, such as this season’s travels to Cambodia with Angelina Jolie, as well as historical content on the brand, details on its craftsmanship, artistic collaborations and store architecture, and links to its Amble application
Collections: a presentation of the entire product range, featuring new moving and 360° images. A multiple search functionality is also integrated, allowing users to refine by category, line, colour or collection
Stores: a detailed information feed of Louis Vuitton stores worldwide
My LV: a dedicated personalised space for users to access bookmarked content such as news and wish lists, and info on past purchases
It’s certainly a hefty offering. The question is, once users have entered in, will they stay long enough to actually navigate their way through it all? While the content is beautifully done (albeit surprisingly in Flash), the functionality is a little slow, and if it’s a sale they’re after, the route to buy is not all that straightforward, once again. But on what level does this matter?
With a brand like Louis Vuitton, is it more important to immerse and engage consumers in the experience with the aim of developing them into sales properties later? Or certainly at least driving them into store instead? Maybe so.
As Rich Tong, fashion director of blogging platform Tumblr recently told me in reference to Oscar de la Renta’s use of social media, it’s about awareness and brand building.
“Oscar de la Renta sells $5,000-$10,000 dresses; there is absolutely no correlation between those dresses and a 15-year-old in the Tumblr community. But Erika [Bearman, director of communications] is aiming more for establishing the Oscar brand in that little girl’s mind, so that when she grows up and does become established or successful, or becomes engaged and wants to get married, she’s thinking: ‘I want to be in an Oscar dress, I want to be an Oscar girl’,” he said.
“For Erika, it’s really about the persistence of the brand; seeding the Oscar brand in these girls’ minds really, really early on. It’s a long-term play.”
Louis Vuitton – once it’s ironed out a few creases – in that case, might just be on to a winner. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops.
Louis Vuitton has unveiled Thandie Newton as the second star of its Double Exposure series, an innovative film project using the 19th century collodion wet plate photographic process.
Following in the footsteps of Sam Taylor-Wood, who first featured in the series in March, the Hollywood actress had to pose for 12 seconds to create the unique images, but the aim of the project was to then bring the authentic technique into the digital age through online film.
“Amidst the frenetic hustle and bustle of the modern consumer landscape one of the key creative objectives for Louis Vuitton was to slow things down, and take a moment to capture the true essence of the sitter, in order to create something that was unique, exclusive and timeless,” reads the write-up.
“In an ‘on-demand’ digital age where new images are created faster and more frequently than ever before, ‘Double Exposure’ was envisioned and commissioned by Louis Vuitton as a counterbalance to today’s disposable media culture. This age old photographic process is a luxurious and languid medium that depicts time standing still.”
Double Exposure also documents its subject with a series of intimate belongings. In Newton’s case there is an object created by her eldest daughter Ripley, a painting from her childhood which symbolises iconic memories from her youth, and her passport – an item considered vital to her life and career.
Newton said: “The images really take you into the heart of history itself. To parallel that we’re getting into the history of me through the items I’ve chosen. One of the things about these photographs is the layers of meaning. Each picture is so unique so it just creates this desire to be my most essential self.”
The full campaign surrounding Angelina Jolie’s Cambodia journey with Louis Vuitton has been released on the brand’s website, offering users an interactive experience designed to keep them on the page.
And it works.
This is a great example of content that surrounds everything to do with what the brand is about, yet doesn’t ever actually push the product. Even the bag Jolie holds in the stills shot by Annie Leibovitz is her own six-year-old one.
Under the heading “A single journey can change the course of a life”, the interactive microsite features a series of short video interviews – a great example of ‘snacksize content’ – with the star explaining her relationship with the country.
In the first one, she says: “I first came to Cambodia about 10 years ago for a film and we were the first film back since the war, so we didn’t know quite know what it was going to be like, or what the people were going to be like, and it was the first time I became aware of landmines.
“I remember standing in the waterfall during one of our shots and they said ‘just stay on this side of the waterfall because that side of the waterfall still hasn’t been de-mined’. And I thought, as somebody from America, what does that mean, hasn’t been de-mined? It’s just the craziest, it doesn’t cross our mind that all these children, and people walking around these areas, have landmines in the ground and that’s just a part of their daily life.”
As the spot finishes, users are invited to enter the name of a place that has changed them the most in front of a map highlighting the locations chosen by others.
Further videos are available to watch for those who connect through Facebook, such as Jolie talking about being inspired by the people of the country, or how important it is to leave home comforts behind and become immersed in local culture even if that means sampling delicacies like crickets or beetles as her children do.
There are also portraits of local people in their natural surroundings, the chance to see Jolie and Leibovitz on set, and an interactive video through which you can hear sounds from the country such as the temple of Pradak Village or children playing in a rice paddy.
The brand’s reference to travel is cleverly integrated throughout the site, evoking a sense that the user too is on a journey. By selecting a left-hand tab that says “find your way” for instance, videos that have been seen appear under a heading called “where you’ve been”, and those still to be watched under “yet to discover”.
The video series finishes with a spot called “Advice for the journey from the world’s greatest travellers”. In it are lines such as “The world is a book and those who do not travel see only one page” from St. Augustine, and yet another chance to interact as users can either share the quotes with their Facebook friends or click for another.
Before you know it, you’ve been on the site for quite some time. Nicely done.
Ever wondered what happens at the menswear shows? Louis Vuitton has just published a video documenting behind-the-scenes in the build up to its most recent affair; the spring/summer 2012 collection.
Hair, make-up, music, prepping, pinning, dressing and walking… all with the odd celebrity front row spotting thrown in. Check it out here:
Louis Vuitton recently released a video featuring artistic director Marc Jacobs explaining the concept behind its autumn/winter 2011/12 ad campaign featuring models Zuzanna Bijoch, Daphne Groeneveld, Gertrud Hegelund, Nyasha Matonhodze, Anaïs Pouliot, Fei Fei Sun, and of course, those dogs.
“Steven Meisel and I met and decided we would do this wonderful story of beautiful vintage cars, little dogs and fresh-faced young women,” he says.
“It’s a very classic scenario, and of course it suggests travel and is definitely luxurious, but I think we gave it a fresh, modern and sometimes a little bit naughty, tongue-in-cheek spin.”
Each of the nine stills that resulted for the season are shown in detail. “Wherever she’s going, she’s dressed in style this season by Louis Vuitton,” Jacobs concludes.
The full campaign surrounding Angelina Jolie’s Cambodia journey with Louis Vuitton has been released on the brand’s website, offering users an interactive experience designed to keep them on the page.
