daydreaming

Kid Sister's new video for her next single, Daydreaming. This song is the jam and I think could help her blow up. Video isn't exactly epic but love the Murakami reference with the daydream bubbles. This song also has an amazing bridge (featuring Cee-Lo), one of the must ingredients for any killer pop track.

NYC's Finest Brew

The NYT best coffee in NYC map...

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/09/dining/20100309-new-york-coffee-map.html

Big ups to Kaffe 1668, Think, Roots & Vines, Joe, and Stumptown....those places have kept me caffinated...

Nice Kicks continued

I'm really not a designer sneaker person. My fixation on footwear means I'm going to get tired of whatever I buy, and sneakers especially cycle in and out of wear over time. The post this morning made me think, though, about which designer sneakers really have an aesthetic appeal and design point of view beyond embellishment. So I've selected some of my top picks below...interested in seeing the reactions.

YSL, via Saks.com, $575

Margiela, via Aloharag.com, $475

Heyday footwear @ Oak (price on request - three of my least favorite words in the English language - and limited to 15 pair)

Dior Homme classic steez via Barneys.com, $545

And, discounted at Yoox.com from seasons past, the following "bargains":

Givenchy, $370

Raf by Raf Simons, $135

Neil Barrett, $270

Looking back on what I picked I'm not surprised that I went for classic design and white-black-gray colorways. If you're gonna spend like this, it needs to be justifiable. Now, when it comes to Dunks, its a whole nother story. 

Nice Kicks....NOT

Apparently for Spring 2010, cobbler Christian Louboutin is launching some footwear for men. It does take me back to the ill-fated Jimmy Choo mens line which shuttered (I believe) back around 2002, in spirit if not in execution.


When I heard Louboutin was expanding into men's footwear, I half-expected well cobbled shoes with red soles. High-end brands like Lanvin and Margiela, while fashion focused, have consistently crafted exceptional and tasteful footwear (to go along with margin-making sneakers). I was also curious how Louboutin would position vis-a-vis Jean-Michel Cazabat, a less-recognized but equally prestige shoemaker who has been putting red soles on men's shoes for years.


Behold, fashion footwear fail:


Jean-Michel Cazabat shoes currently @ Barney's, $550.

Louboutin's 2010 shoes, in the $1200 range:

photos via upscalehype.com

Besides the recession-unfriendly price tag...THIS is what you're going to launch your line with?


Some designers really go for the craftsmanship in their footwear. Some go for the fashion. One dominant trend in the latter for the last decade has been instantly recognizable branding elements to signal the brand and therefore the price of fashionable luxury items to other consumers. Maybe this started with the Gucci horsebit loafer but it has exploded into some truly gauche territory, as you can see above. I get that you want people to see your shoes and realize you designed them, but good luck copyrighting studs as a design element.


I'll reserve total jugement until I see them in stores, but I anticipate seeing these both in Kanye's next video and at the Barney's Warehouse Sale come next August for 60% off.


And I will just add: when Jennifer Lopez is singing a song about your brand - and falls on her ass while doing it - it might be a good time to rethink.

party for less

Yesterday I went to the last day of the Armory Art show for the first time and it reminded me how truly little I know about art. I actually picked up a Children's Guide by accident and realized that there are frameworks to understand art about which I understand nothing. The show was packed and three hours wasn't nearly enough to see and digest everything, but I managed to pick out some things that I really loved. Below, some of my favorites:

"The true artist makes useless shit for rich people to buy." Truth.

 

My favorite piece by far. From far away, it looks like a painting of a city as seen from an airplane. But up close:

Its a collage. Title: "Party For Less." Gabi Trinkaus. 

And how could I resist this one?

All my pics from the show, here.

T-ease me

The men's line from T by Alexander Wang is starting to hit stores today. This guy's name has become synonymous with the 'model off duty' look and he's managed to supplement his core runway buisness with expensive knits for the ladies. I look forward to seeing how it does for men, and spending $75 a t-shirts.

(Image via WWD)

In stock now at Opening Ceremony. Certainly to follow at Barneys, Oak, et al.

Speaking of Oak, they have their own fashiony t-shirt, the torque tee:

I look at these and it makes me think of the immortal words of Adam Sandler praising his Red Hooded Sweatshirt:

Oh what is it about you that makes me so jolly?,

Is it your fifty cotton or your fifty poly?

 

I'm ready for t-shirt weather.

Being Stupid: Diesel in 2010

Diesel's recent ad campaign "Be Stupid" has inspired pretty interesting discussion amongst some of my friends. I'll lay out my  hypothesis right here: a great and controversial ad campaign cannot fix a brand when its other components need serious help - especially in fashion.

The ads do what they're supposed to - alledgedly. They get people talking, right? The brand is getting more attention. But Diesel can't manage to translate that attention into sales or even visits to its wesbite. I did a quick comparison to two other companies - Polo and Gucci - based on the fact that all three are global brands with significant ad spend, editorial coverage, and all three have e-tail components to their website. As you can see below, Diesel has had almost no change in traffic over the last year, not even around Christmas, when the other two sites peaked.

So this illustrates the campaign not converting eyes into site visits, but that's only a tiny piece of the picture. Diesel had executing some amazing promotions in the last several years, notably their 30th Birthday which involved parties all around the world culminating in a huge party in Brooklyn with performances on the scale of the VMA's. And while those events brought in celebs and press...very few of those "influencers" were wearing Diesel.

I believe Diesel has lost its core customer for good, and needs to replace it with a new one - but may be poorly positioned to do so. A little history may shed some light on the brand issues:

Around the turn of the millenium, Diesel stood for premium denim. It was THE premium denim company until Seven came along to fight it for the crown. Most of the people who wore Diesel jeans - at least the ones I knew from home and college - wore them because they signaled a certain cache. Or their mothers had bought them, a purchase which was even MORE predicated on that cache, because those mothers wanted their sons to be seen in the most expensive jeans they could buy.

That works for a while, the economy takes off, new denim brands emerge, and Diesel gets huge. More company-owned stores, expansion into more points of sale, Diesel becomes ubiquitous - everything from Barney's to Urban Outfitters to Macy's. Diesel's price point starts climing and I think at one point a pair was almost $190. The Diesel Style Lab line closes and opens and closes again. The umbrella company that owns Diesel also starts buying up other labels - Margiela, Dsquared, and Victor & Rolf. Diesel Stores are opening everywhere. Then a lot of the points of sale start disappearing and stores stop carrying the brand - bringing us to now, when Diesel is mostly distributed through Diesel stores and the department stores that had made it a core offering like Bloomingdales, with little-to-no specialtiy retail support.

Diesel also launched a "premium" Black Gold label designed by Sophia Kokosalaki, and also has a hotel, a furniture line, and other ancillary products you most likely didn't know about.

Diesel was stupid and overdid it like so many brands before them, going from coveted to overexposed. But there's more. In the men's market, buyers looking for visible brands gravitated to Seven, True Religion and Rock & Republic (barf) while conisseurs moved towards premium labels that provide superior quality - Nudie and PRPS probably being the most successful examples. The women's market, which is much more fashion-driven, has gone through many more iterations of the it jeans - going from Seven to Citizens to J Brand to Current/Elliott and who knows what will come next. In a really telling move, Barney's stopped selling women's Diesel and moved men's out of Co-op (its biggest denim point of sale) and onto what I call the "Dad floor."

When Diesel stopped being about denim customers and started being about Diesel customers, they abandoned thier chance to sustain the same kind of growth that they had been enjoying. I would guess that the typical Diesel customer looks something like this:

(Photo courtesty of MTV)

Only problem is, they're already loyal to a gentleman named Ed Hardy.

Diesel wanted to move from being a denim brand to a lifestyle brand and it did that - and lost a lot of brand value along the way. THAT was stupid. The brand now finds itself needing to grow its share among the douchey, competing for dollars against spray-on tan and Dep. As much as I love their events, Diesel needs to stop wasting money courting hipsters who are going to go buy selvedge and start promoting events at Seaside Heights and Lake Havasu.

No amount of great advertising is going to win back your old customers.

Then again, maybe I should take some of Diesel's advice:

And a few post-scripts:

1. I didn't really make it clear but my point is that a brand that tries to double its price over 4-5 years (99-2004) with no clear improvement in the product and declining perceived value among its core customers is going to lose ground that can't be made up by ads, no matter how good they are.

2. If you want to know what jeans I lust after these days - feel free to buy me a pair of these

3. To read more about Diesel's branding drama click here