Word: fashionization
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Inside, the cavernous space (which includes a huge bar, for one night only) has been decked out not for clowns and acrobats but for a fashion show?one far bigger than those usually staged in Paris, Milan and New York. While the 94 models walking the runway are all habitués of those venues, not one face in the front row at this show (make that shows?five of them back-to-back, with a break for supper) is familiar to anyone who frequents the fashion circuit...
What follows is not the most earth-shattering fashion show, mostly because Hugo Boss clothes are designed for reality and not exaggerated for the runway. Yet it is certainly one of the biggest. A Paris extravaganza staged by Jean Paul Gaultier, for example, will probably feature 100 looks. But tonight an estimated 2,000 items, all impeccably made by Hugo Boss and not one of them a repeat, are shown under the labels Boss Black, Boss Orange and Hugo (both for men and women), as well as Boss Green and Boss Selection...
...scale of this operation: when it comes to giant single-fashion brands, Hugo Boss AG is huge (although not, it should be noted, as huge as Polo Ralph Lauren). LVMH (the market leader), Gucci Group/PPR and Richemont, which owns Chloé, are also bigger, but they are multi-brand conglomerates. Of the single brands, for menswear only, Hugo Boss is as big as its two nearest competitors, Giorgio Armani and Ermenegildo Zegna, combined. The company still makes 1.6 million suits a year, but that's old news; it now reflects a wider cultural shift and has repositioned itself from a suit...
Then there's travel. "If you don't travel in fashion, you are dead," says Sälzer, who has just returned from Madrid, where he had no specific agenda other than that he hadn't been there in a year. Traveling means checking out restaurants, new hotels, the stores, "then three months on, if someone says, 'We should open on this street,' I know exactly where it is and what the area is like. While I travel, I don't decide anything; I'm just being open. But when a decision is needed, I'm ready. I'm a very...
...thousands of years of experience. Yet the crazy thing was, there were big mistakes in all areas. The organization didn't work, and not because we don't know Milan. The problem was, the spirit didn't come over." Once in charge, Sälzer reconnected the company's most fashion-forward sector to its Metzingen DNA. Today, womenswear generates an estimated $263 million for the company. While Sälzer is pleased with that, "I don't want to have this experience again," he says...