Digital snippets: Tumblr, Versace, Club Monaco, Chanel, Abercrombie, McQueen

A round-up of recent stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital:

• Is a Yahoo-owned Tumblr more attractive to brands? [AdAge]

• Versace transforms Versus line into a ‘digital brand’ (as pictured) [Fmag]

• Club Monaco creates all-blogger look book (and launches it on Tumblr) [DisneyRollerGirl]

• Keira Knightley stars as Coco Chanel for new Karl Lagerfeld film, Once Upon a Time [Fashionologie]

• Video takes aim at Abercrombie & Fitch for “exclusionary” policy, spurs homeless campaign [Hollywood Reporter]

• Alexander McQueen and McQ websites get new look [WWD]

• Why Victoria’s Secret and Burberry win in social media — and other fashion brands fail [Business Insider]

• The seven species of social commerce [Mashable]

• YouTube jumps into retail with shoppable videos for brand channels, first client is Unilever’s Tresemmé [BrandChannel]

• Wearable technology market set to explode, could reach $50 billion, says Credit Suisse [BoF]

How digital innovation is changing the face of fashion

Interested in some key thoughts on where the fashion industry is at with social media, mobile and digital strategy? My knowledge has just been tested by Poq Studio, a company making apps and mobile sites for brands and retailers in this space, and posted in the form of a Q&A over on their blog.

Do check it out – I would love to hear your feedback.

Thank you in the meantime to the team over there for both the invitation and the kind introduction in the piece!

Infographic: wearable tech and the significant lack of fashion brand presence

There was a great piece on The Business of Fashion last week looking at the lack of fashion brands in the wearable technology space and calling for them to start taking it more seriously.

This is an industry that’s estimated to be worth $10bn by 2016, making those in the fashion business at risk of “losing highly lucrative real estate on the emerging battleground of the human body”, it highlights.

“People only have two wrists and one face. And personal accessories are where fashion and luxury brands make a sizable chunk of their revenues,” it continues. “As young technology companies slowly but surely start to develop wearables with more evolved aesthetics, will consumers still have room for bracelets, watches and sunglasses that may look good, but lack appealing functionality?”

Footwear retailer Brantano meanwhile, has just released an infographic via Mashable detailing some of the devices that are either on the market already, in prototype or rumoured to be coming. Laid out from head to toe, it includes the likes of Google Glass, of course, followed by the Pebble smart watch, the Lumoback posture belt and a Kinect jacket called Woven.

If it does anything, however, it’s to support the BoF piece – there is next to zero fashion brands present in the list. Will we get to the point where this shifts?

Shopping tool Hukkster hits Time Inc’s top 10 NYC start-up list for 2013

Time Inc has revealed its third annual list of the 10 start-ups to watch in New York City, and… there’s a fashion name in there again.

Hukkster, as it’s called, follows in the footsteps of Fab.com and Warby Parker (in 2012 and 2011 respectively) – highlighted by the Time Inc group as one of the most promising companies to transform the shopping space.

In this instance, it’s a tool that notifies shoppers when the products they want go on sale. Hukkster tracks more than 1,000 popular online stores, allowing any user to add its bookmarklet to their browser and then hit “Hukk It” when there’s an item they want to keep tabs on.

Once the price drops you get an email, a text or push notifications. You can also opt to only find out when it goes down by at least 25% or at least 50%.

According to WSJ’s profile on the start-up in 2012, and its founders Erica Bell and Katie Finnegan, each time a user buys an item they’ve been watching, Hukkster collects a fee for lead generation, using a third-party service that has relationships with more than 18,000 retailers. Its top revenue drivers, back when the piece was written, were J.Crew, Amazon.com’s Shopbop and Macy’s.

Furthermore, in November 2012, the Winklevoss twins led a $750,000 investment in it.

Hukkster appears in Time Inc’s list this year alongside nine other start-ups from a variety of fields. Included in them are ArchetypeMe, Custora, FiftyThree, Fitocracy, Grouper, IMRSV, Klooff, Qwiki and Upworthy.

An inspirational note: fashion needs to take risk

Despite the significant number of start-ups there are in the fashion space today, the propensity with which the fashion industry in its more ‘traditional’ sense – its brands namely – is open to taking risk, remains very small. There’s a lot to be learnt from the tech world’s “failing fast” mentality to ultimately achieve reward.

So here’s a friendly reminder for the weekend. A touch of inspiration from poet Christopher Logue:

“Come to the edge
We might fall
Come to the edge
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
And he pushed
And they flew”

As told by Steve Zades, creator of the Odyssey Project on Imaginative Intelligence, during a talk on the role of technology for the future of apparel at the Museum of FIT’s tech syposium in New York this week.

 

ThingLink’s interactive images expand to Facebook, again key for fashion

You might remember this piece about ThingLink - a tool that lets you tag any image, with any content, making it instantly interactive. I wrote about its potential relevance to the fashion industry when it launched embeds in Twitter, demonstrating it in action with a Burberry image (as above in a non-interactive format) that to this day is still getting regular “hovers” over it week to week according to my email alerts.

News now has arrived of its integration with Facebook. When you share a ThingLink-enabled image to your Timeline, much like with how it worked on Twitter already, fans are able to experience the content inside the image without leaving the page.

An example has been released from Médecins Sans Frontières to demonstrate it. But this once again this has enormous application for fashion brands trying to share more than just a still shot of their collections. Their videos, show music, e-commerce pages and more.

As referenced previously from Mashable: “That single photo, in essence, just became a platform of its own.” Armani is an example of one designer officially using it, and already doing so on Facebook.

On a similar note, TechCrunch has just reported on rival tool Stipple’s new social commerce element called Stipple Shopping. This allows photos to be placed on Facebook and Twitter that users can explore, compare and now actually buy from too, likewise without leaving the image. Single photos that instantly become stores therefore.

It’ll be interesting to see what cut-through these tools might have. While increasing interaction and engagement is a worthy aim, whether they can actually impact commerce is another question.

Check out the video below…

Third Wave Fashion launches database of fashion tech start-ups

There’s no denying we’re in one of the most lucrative times for fashion and tech start-ups. As reported by The Business of Fashion recently (in debating whether there’s a fashion tech bubble), large sums of capital have been pouring into young companies over the past couple of years, including Moda Operandi ($46 million), Nasty Gal ($49 million), ShoeDazzle ($66 million), BeachMint ($75 million) and Gilt Groupe ($236 million). The latest news in Farfetch’s $20 million and Rent the Runway’s $24.4 million can both be added to that.

Keeping abreast of all this, not to mention the multiple others entering the space on a seemingly daily basis, however, is a heady task. Have you ever wondered just how many there actually are in total for instance? How many of them last past their first year, let alone make returns for their investors? And how many of them are truly relevant to you directly?

Fortunately someone’s been keeping tabs. New York-based consultancy company, Third Wave Fashion, has been tracking the space for two years, and is set to launch a database listing over 650 fashion-focused tech companies in order for us to try and get a handle on it.

Available for paid subscribers, the site is searchable by over 30 different business categories, including image sharing, content-and-commerce, subscription commerce, virtual closets, pre-orders, marketplace and more. These can then be cross-referenced with some 50 tags such as B2B, beauty, luxury and mobile. It also includes listings for 350 investors and 800 founders.

Third Wave Fashion founder, Liza Kindred, said: “The database is a culmination of nearly two years of monitoring the industry. We began tracking companies so we could have a comprehensive view of the landscape, and quickly realized that this information would be valuable to many other people as well.”

She pitches it as a “trusted resource for interested parties such as fashion brands, investors, entrepreneurs, journalists, and emerging designers searching for new platforms for distribution”.

The database will continue to grow as the industry does, but also feature that all-important RIP category for those failed start-ups too.

Further reading: The State of Fashion Tech, a keynote by Liza Kindred

Digital snippets: Nike, Bloomingdale’s, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, Armani, Sephora

A round-up of stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

• Holographic ad gives live demo of Nike shoes on the street [PSFK]

• Bloomingdale’s installs body scanners to help you find jeans that fit (as pictured) [Mashable]

• Michael Kors releases limited edition sneakers to celebrate reaching 500 million fans on Facebook [Web & Luxe]

• Marc Jacobs to dress famous Japanese holograph, Hatsune Miku [Fashionista]

• Armani touts brand personality in latest Frames of Life eyewear campaign [Luxury Daily]

• How Sephora differentiates in digital [Digiday]

• The Business of Fashion is nominated for a Webby Award [BoF]

• This Bond No. 9 ‘digital fragrance’ is only sold via QR code [Styleite]

• Tavi Gevinson creator of The Style Rookie is the next big media mogul [AdWeek]

• Menswear e-tailer FreshCotton creates drug cookbook to promote Stüssy’s spring line [Campaign]

• Fashion e-commerce flowers in the Middle East [BoF]

• Japanese luxury market evolves to keep up with digital generation [Japan Daily Press]

The future of fashion weeks: do you have an opinion?

This is a bit of a different post to usual – a call for content if you will. Over the past two years, Fashion & Mash has grown to have readers from many fascinating parts of the industry – both in brand and in agency, all doing interesting things in their own right, but more importantly with a lot of things to say on this space.

Now, I’m looking for a bit of a view on where this industry’s seasonal fashion week shows can go – my very own crowdsourcing you could say. Does the old model still work? Does it need to change? How do we better align the communications and operations side of what our design houses and retailers do? As leaders in the digital field, you’re the rightly placed disruptors for these businesses – can you shake it up? Do you want to? Does it need it?

If you have any thoughts, on the record, or just as easily off (honestly), I would love to pick your brain. Let me know! Drop me an email anytime, whether it’s just with one sentence or two, or for a bigger conversation with a promised drink at the other end too. I have my own thoughts, and with recent discussions they’re rapidly evolving, but yours will really help fuel this fire…

Thank you!

River Island brings Rihanna content in-store with augmented reality flyers

River Island has partnered with augmented reality company Blippar to offer shoppers interactive content around its new Rihanna collection.

The initiative sees A5 flyers in store loaded with rich media content including exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, latest news from River Island and access to the website to buy the collection itself. Consumers can activate the content by using the Blippar app on their smartphones; pointing their camera at the images.

They can also share their favourite items from the collection on Facebook and Twitter, as well as save them to their image library.

Stephen Shaw, opportunities director at Blippar said: “The most eye-catching and successful Blippar campaigns always feature the most engaging content – and the Blippar team have been excited to work with such amazing electric photography and exclusive video content; when you add superstar models such as Jourdan Dunn into the mix we’re confident River Island customers will be blown-away by the whole campaign.”

As Retail Week pointed out however, River Island’s lack of a mobile-optimised website leads to a poor user experience for those directed, somewhat belittling the benefits of such an initiative.