A FOR COMPANIES

A close colleague worked for an expensive watch company and complained of their common freebie practice. Give a celebrity a ridiculously expensive timepiece, make sure they wear it around the papa-paparazzi, watch the watch sales climb sky high. It’s simple actually. Sacrifice the manufacturing cost for publicity. Marketing for the price of manufacturing. That’s a hell of a lot cheaper than sponsoring the Governor’s Island Polo Match or Fashion Week. Then again, Mercedes Benz couldn’t give out cars as freely as Piaget can dish out timekeepers. Cars would draw too much attention to the classless practice. But how about for watches, handbags, jeans? And moreover, is Crest giving dentists free Whitening toothpaste for their clients any different than Piaget giving Kevin Bacon a free watch?

Both genres want people to buy their product and raise their gross margins by exploiting different human emotions. And it feels different. When companies like Johnson & Johnson, CVS Caremark and even Amazon.com give products, they attach the message that they care about the consumer. Providing dentist offices with special toothpaste sends a message that you care about the dental hygiene of the citizens. Luxury companies exploit insecurity. Giving celebrities free watches sends the message that they think the citizens aren’t cool enough, successful enough, smart enough, fancy enough, and so on in absence of the product. If Lady Gaga has a G-Shock, you need a G-Shock. When in reality, she probably doesn’t even know she ever wore that G-Shock.

And it works; which speaks to either the sad insecurities or zombie-like state of our nations crazed consumers who never really know what they like. In a state of constant advertising, celebrity promo and product placement, do we ever really know what we like? Is Sookie drinking a Pepsi the same thing as Sienna Miller toting a complimentary Birkan? Nope. They just come out of different columns of the budget, but the freebie effect is the same.

Emma Dinzebach

Rolando Santana knows dresses. He grew up surrounded by fabric (his mother was a dressmaker) and moved to New York City in 1991 to fulfill his fashion industry dream. After twenty years in the fashion capital of the world, Santana still finds inspiration for both color and structure in his homeland.

Do you have a theme in mind when you start a new collection? 

Yes. So for Spring 2011, it’s Modern Mexican Architecture. Then finding pieces that help me translate that onto a dress, whether it’s a color story or structure. For instance, we have one print that looks like cement. It’s very textured and printed on linen fabric. So seeing a cement wall and translating it onto a dress.

What inspired Modern Mexican Architecture?

My first collection launched in the height of the recession, so I really wanted my next collection to be bright, vibrant and inspiring. Being from Mexico, there are always such bright colors: yellows, reds, stripes. Previously, we played a lot with fabrics and draping. People reacted really well to it but were also inspired by the more sophisticated pieces – the blacks, neutrals, pieces that were classic but with a modern twist.

For 2011, I sought to combine those two elements. There is an architect named Luis Barragan, and he uses bright colors but his architecture is incredibly simple. I liked the combination. The main concept of the line is simple shapes with a lot of play on fabrics – pleating, draping, sequins, but sequins used for texture. Not bling all over.

Your first job when you graduated from FIT was for Spenser Jeremy. I read they “recognized your talent.” How so? 

Since it was a small family-owned company, I was exposed to the business end – production, merchandising, working with the design team. They had a private label and never a designer who really catered to the account. They wanted me to design a few dresses, and I made a presentation. I was assigned to the account. It was my first design job, and it opened the door creatively for me.

Why dresses?

Dresses are the ultimate feminine expression. The ability to create something special that is very easy to wear. With a dress, it’s just one piece. After so many years in the fashion world, you see pieces come and go, but the dress always remains. If a woman has a choice to buy separates or a dress, a dress is the way they will go. For everything.

Do you have a fashion design who inspires you?

Not a big name designer like Dior, but I’m inspired my contemporaries. More so by just traveling, people watching. Last weekend I was walking on the beach and started picking up stones. I was inspired by the sand, neutral colors. I started sketching some designs then in the studio, see if the fabrics works for them.

So if you could travel anywhere, where would it be?

Somewhere in Mexico. I would like to find a city that brings inspiration for fall. A city I haven’t been to where I could look at textiles and fabrics. Being remote from everything. I wouldn’t choose a glamorous spot, but rather explore within my roots and translate that into a more universal, cosmopolitan taste.

Santana and I spoke a bit about on the need to be remote and alone to find inspiration and work out designs. Creating space to be inspired is even harder for a designer launching their own line, their own business. Santana continually works to achieve this balance. When he left his studio last night, he sent me an email thanking me for my time. It was almost midnight.

To sample Rolando Santana’s dresses, visit his sale this week.

Emma Dinzebach

For most city women, runway shows and buttery bags in Bergdorf are special treats, but Monday afternoon Oscar de la Renta streamed his resort runway show live on his website. Traditionally, runway shows have been first for buyers and next for fashion news gurus but with the fashion industry quickly evolving, variety in social media brings Bryant Park in our own back yard.  The first of the fashion industry’s real-time runway shows, de la Renta’s bold move indicates future transparency of a once exclusive industry.
Of course, it’s not the same. Live streaming sucks out the romance and strips the viewer of a bona fide artistic experience. I viewed Monday’s show sitting in a coffee shop in the East Village. I was distracted by an NYU student spilling his coffee and two police approaching man outside. Without the protective tent walls, the real world stampedes an experience formally glamorous and surreal.  So why are many designers considering the new platform?

In a WWD interview, Oscar de la Renta expressed strong feelings about participating in new social media efforts such as the live runway. While the industry as a whole is unsure of the effects of new social media ventures, leaders agree that being the first to experiment and take risks is the hallmark of fashion.  After all, garments go from factory to frame faster than ever; and not just the designer lines. More affordable retailers like Zara and Charlotte Rouse rely on designer runway collections. The faster their designers view these collections, the faster they create their own versions. For them, they can view the shows in their design studios and have versions drafted that day.

Which poses the question: will the fashion industry’s increasingly fast pace cause designers to sacrifice quality or require them dig deeper in the the bowels of their artistic capabilities? Only time will tell. For now, we’ll try an enjoy the opportunity to watch de la Renta in our bathrobe, or on the LIRR, or in a taxi, or in Prospect Park. The possibilities are endless.
Emma Dinzebach

Fashion designer, Yigal Azrouël, didn’t attend design school. “I didn’t know I wanted to do this!” he confessed yesterday afternoon when he stepped out of his studio for a moment to chat on his current sample sale. Inducted into the CFDA in 2004, Azrouël debuted his first international runway show in Paris in Spring 2005. Heidi Klum, Kirsten Stewart and Katie Lee Joel are all fans of the Israeli-born, French-Moroccan designer. But like every designer, big and small, if he could choose to dress anyone, he would outfit fashion icon, Kate Moss.

How did you know you wanted to be a designer?

I was always attracted to fashion. Then I started making pieces for myself, then for friends. Eventually, I put together a small collection.

What do you consider your breakthrough pieces?

My leather jacket. Our t-shirt. We have a very special t-shirt that is washed with milk – something I developed in Italy. Also dresses. The dresses are a big category for us.

How would you categorize your style?

Simple. It’s not like making collections from the same fabric. It’s making individual pieces work together. Some pieces are fashion forward but in a very simple way. Clean lines, a cool little jacket, pants.

Who is wearing Yigal Azrouël now?

A lot of the cool, downtown crowd. When I go out… when I walk down the street, I see musicians, rock ‘n roll, actors, artists.

So when you spot someone walking down the street wearing your designs what do you think?

Depends who is wearing it, and how they are wearing the clothes. I don’t like when people try really hard. For me, less is more. But for the most part I get excited when I see someone wearing my designs. It completes my day.

I know you aren’t one to follow trends, so where do you derive inspiration?

My inspiration comes from the fabric. Most the day I’m sketching then draping, sketching then draping. Like sculpture – you don’t always know where you are going when you sculpt something, but you are slowly chipping away. I like when fabric surprises me… when it tricks me.

If you didn’t design clothing, what would you do?

I’d be surfing. I’ve been surfing since I was six.  Sometimes on a nice day with good swells, I go to Long Beach and surf then come back. I used to even go in the winter, but not as much anymore. I’m building a house in Costa Rica, and if I didn’t design, I’d live there and surf. And fish, so I could eat.

In one sentence, what do you do all day?

Think. I think all day long.

Emma Dinzebach