Coach signs deal to open Russian stores

Luxury handbag maker Coach Inc. (NYSE:COH) said Thursday it signed a distributor agreement with Jamilco that will put its products in at least 15 Russian locations over a five-year period.
The company plans to initially put stores in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with the first store set to open in central Moscow in April.
'Opening in Russia is part of our strategy to capitalize on the increasing popularity of the brand with emerging luxury consumers globally,' Coach International President Ian Bickley said in a statement.
Associated Press-Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex

Wal-Mart Revamps Apparel Operations

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is restructuring its apparel operations, closing its product development and sourcing divisions, and eliminating dozens of positions, the world's largest retailer said on Wednesday.
It plans to organize the struggling apparel business around two "hubs" - brand merchandising and buying.
"The restructured apparel organization is built around brands that make clear statements and whose teams are accountable for financial returns," Wal-Mart said in a statement.
In a move to compete with Target Corp (TGT.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Wal-Mart tried to sell hipper clothes, such as skinny jeans and velvet blazers. But the strategy backfired with its shoppers, who were looking for basic, classic and affordable clothing.
It spent last year working to get its apparel business back on track. Claire Watts, the executive who oversaw its apparel merchandising, resigned, and Wal-Mart is now expanding the presence of its apparel unit in Manhattan.
The retailer said that brand merchandising, based in New York, will be responsible for "maximizing the financial performance of private label brands," and will also be responsible for textile design, vendor selection and cost negotiation.
Its buying organization, which will continue to be based in Bentonville, Arkansas, will decide which products to place in each of its stores and how much those products will cost.
(Reuters)-(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando and Nicole Maestri; Editing by Derek Caney)

Net-a-Porter: Another Fashion First

Natalie Massenet, the former fashion journalist turned internet retail store concept entrepreneur, has struck another first for the fashion internet. The much-anticipated relaunch of the Halston brand will be shown February 4th in New York. The very next day, shoppers around the globe will be walking down the street in pieces that were shown on the catwalk. Stacks of $1,495 shirt dresses and $1,795 evening dresses are waiting now in the Net-a-Porter offices. Earlier this year, Net had the first exclusive showing of the new RM by Roland Mouret collection. But this is bigger.
Never mind that the clothes were designed with next fall/winter in mind what matters now is getting it first. How'd Natalie negotiate such a scoop? She and and another driven woman, Tamara Mellon, the President and founder of Jimmy Choo, worked hand-in-hand on the launch of Net-a-Porter. Mellon was one of the first brands to agree to be sold on the site. At a time when most brands were suspicious of the internet and those that weren't were putting their goods on LVMH-backed sites like eLuxury. The deal paid off for Jimmy Choo who was for a long time the biggest brand on Net-a-Porter. And now it looks like Tamara has found a lucrative way to say thanks.
*(The prices paid for the 1970s brands vary widely—from a few million dollars for Azzaro in 2006 to more than $70 million in cash and stock for Bill Blass. The latter was bringing in about $10 million a year in royalties when NexCen bought it that same year. Halston had next to no sales when the Weinstein Co. and Hilco Consumer Capital paid a reported $20 million for it in 2007. Ungaro was doing about $103 million in sales when it was sold in 2005, thanks mostly to an active license in Asia.)

Fashion websites creep up on Amazon

Clothing and other fashion accessories are fastest-growing category of goods to be sold online, with books just ahead
Fashion retailers have long played down the significance of the internet, saying that no-one would chance buying a dress, let alone a pair of shoes, that they hadn't tried on first.
Now it seems the same convenience that helped Amazon garner a enormous chunk of the book market is threatening to change the way we buy clothes - even though there are no virtual cubicles just yet.
Clothes and other fashion accessories now make up the second biggest category of goods that are bought online, ahead of DVDs and games, airline tickets and electronic goods, according to a study of internet shopping habits.
Only books are more popular.
Online-only clothing stores such as Net-A-Porter and MyWardrobe have developed a range of features designed to appeal to fashion shoppers, including allowing them to visualise how an item would look appear alongside others in the store, and linking to video clips of celebrities and models wearing an item.
While these sites often do not figure in the lists of 'top ten' online fashion stores, they have, experts say, increased the appetite of people to shop for clothes online, and forced the larger retailers to improve their internet offerings.
According to Nielsen, which surveyed more than 26,000 internet users across the globe, 38 per cent of the UK's internet population - or about 12.5 million people - bought a piece of clothing or a fashion accessory from a website in the past three months.
In the UK, the most popular sites are eBay, which had 3.6 million visitors in December, followed by ASOS, the online-only store aimed at 16-34 year-olds, TopShop and River Island. Globally, eBay again comes out top, followed by L.L. Bean, the mail order firm, Victoria's Secret, the lingerie store, and Zappos.com, which sells shoe and accessories.
Nicola Copping, fashion reporter at The Times, said: "Online fashion sites tend to be very aspirational. They present things in a very compelling and alluring way, and even if you can't afford an item, you'll often still look at the way they've styled it."
She added that frequently it wasn't full-price items which attracted buyers but the sale sections, where customers could search through reduced stock in a more enjoyable way than on a rail in a store.
Overall, the number of people who bought goods online grew by 40 per cent to 875 million - or 86 per cent of the world's internet users, the Nielsen report found. The highest percentage of online shoppers was in South Korea, where 99 per cent of those who used the internet shopped, followed by the UK, Germany and Japan.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3265478.ece

Fakes are Never in Fashion

It’s estimated that more than $500 billion worth of counterfeit goods are sold annually. Profits from these counterfeit sales fund organized crime including drug cartels, child labor, and even terrorist organizations. “Fakes Are Never In Fashion” is your source to learn about this global crisis, find tips on how to avoid buying a fake, and learn what you can do to help spread the message that fakes are never in fashion.

Go to: http://www.bazaarelite.com/fakes.asp

Negative rating trends predicted for US apparel sector in 2008 - S&P

Negative rating trends predicted for US apparel sector in 2008 - S&P

BANGALORE, Jan. 28, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Standard & Poor's (NYSE:MHP) Ratings Services forecasts negative rating trends for the US apparel sector in 2008 given the current macroeconomic trends such as higher fuel and energy costs, lower consumer confidence due to recession-related fears, and the housing market slump which will have customers curtail spending.

A soft 2007 holiday season for retailers may affect first-quarter to end-March results for most apparel companies.

S&P expects retailers to try and maintain lean inventories and negotiate markdowns and allowances.

Moreover, increased buying power arising from industry consolidation is expected to further challenge most apparel vendors, along with higher labour costs in China that will have a proportional effect on apparel firms' operating and freight costs.

In its report titled, 'Credit FAQ: Rating Trends Forecast For The U.S. Apparel Sector In 2008', S&P said these factors could leave many domestic clothing companies vulnerable to downgrades.

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