Dress up at Warehouse
Warehouse is getting ready for Christmas and special occasions, and will launch an occasionwear line called Spotlight this autumn. The range will feature dresses, tops, bustiers, skirts, coats and bags, with classic occasion pieces mixed with the season's smart 1960s and prom queen looks.
The 15-piece collection will be available in 263 stores and will have its own dedicated space.
Visual merchandising key to retail success
Visual merchandising is becoming a vital selling tool to retailers, with 89% of high-street operators saying their board-level attitude towards displays has changed considerably in recent years, according to WGSN. Visual merchandising is perceived as a genuine means of gaining competitive advantage over other retailers and is a major draw to consumers. A growing number of CEOs and founders are now taking personal responsibility for merchandising management, a survey in May of the UK 's top retailers on behalf of shopfitting and display company SFD showed.
The survey also showed that retail bosses rated "commercial experience" four times more important than retail experience and 79% said "commercial awareness" was vital to fully understand branding. Asked which stores other than their own they most admired, Selfridges came top, followed by Topshop, Zara, Liberty and Barneys NY.
Kennedy's to star in Gant ads
The US lifestyle brand Gant is known for its images of all-American, upper-class families decked out in casual, preppy fashion, partaking in upper-crust activities such as yachting and lounging around outside luxurious beach houses. The poster children for this lifestyle are the Kennedy's. It is therefore a coup for the company to have snagged Robert F. Kennedy Jr and his family to star in its new spring image campaign.
Kennedy and his wife Mary and their four children will be featured in the Gant catalogues, which will be sent to 3 million customers worldwide, and in Gant stores. Kennedy agreed to the ads in order to raise funds for his Waterkeeper Alliance environmental advocacy group.
www.gant.com
23 January 2006
Gwyneth Paltrow new face of Estee Lauder
Estee Lauder has signed Oscar winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow for a new fragrance launch next Spring. Gwyneth will star in a new print and TV campaign for the 10th anniversary of the Pleasures fragrance brand, then Lauder makeup and, finally, as the face of a new fragrance product next spring, a new version of White Linen.
The actress said this would be her first appearance in beauty advertising, although she was in an ad for a Christian Dior handbag in the late Nineties. Paltrow said she had no qualms about doing commercial work because over the last few years highly regarded actresses, including Halle Berry and Nicole Kidman, have been pitching products.
The print ad has been shot by the photographer Mario Testino.
25 May 2005
No Olympic Gold For Underpaid Sweatswhop Workers
At
the Olympic Games in Athens this year, the logos of McDonalds, Samsung, Coca-Cola,
and other multinational advertisers are saturating the festivities to the tune
of USD1.339 million. But the corporate self-promotion and commercial branding
won't end when the games come to a close.
Sportswear companies have negotiated USD81 million worth of licenses from the International Olympic Committee, allowing them to adorn their products with Olympic emblems. Behind the five intertwined rings and the Athens 2004 kotinos laurel wreath insignia, hidden from the eyes of the world, non-union, underpaid labour will be sewing the shirts, gluing the shoes, and putting zippers to running suits and track apparel branded as Olympic in working conditions that would make even the most highly trained athlete sweat.
While the sportswear market was valued at over USD58 billion in 2002, and select athletes garner millions of dollars through corporate endorsements - such as football champion David Beckham's USD161 million lifetime deal with Adidas - workers in sweatshops in Indonesia, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Turkey, China, Thailand, and elsewhere are paid a dollar or two a day, while facing hyper-exploitation, unhealthy working environments, sexual harassment, verbal and even physical violence from their employers.
This year, Global Unions, Oxfam, the Clean Clothes Campaign and other groups are aiming to change these conditions by turning the spotlight on the situation of workers producing apparel and athletic footwear for sportswear giants Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Fila, Puma, ASICS, Mizuno, Kappa, and Umbro. They call their campaign "Play Fair." "Play Fair campaigners interviewed close to 200 workers in factories worldwide and in factories producing goods for Olympic brands," says Katherine Daniels, trade policy advisor at Oxfam, "and they found cases of workers working shifts up to 16 - even 18 - hours for pittance wages that are not enough to live on. And they found gross intimidation and violations of workers rights, and intimidation for those who wanted to form or join trade unions."
Organizing around workers' rights in sweatshops poses many challenges, particularly since capital invested in the garment industry is some of the most mobile in the global economy. Campaigners and workers are constantly aware that shops may close down and relocate at the merest sign of labour unrest.
And while the conditions in apparel and footwear factories in the global South may be appalling, sweatshop jobs may often be better than other local jobs. Some critics in developing countries have expressed concern that anti-sweatshop activism might backfire and lead to the shutting down of factories and the loss of jobs.
The issue of the survival of jobs in the garment industry, including in sweatshops, is a pressing concern for other reasons. Many countries will face the devastation of sportswear jobs at the end of 2004 when the World Trade Organization lifts the quotas that have regulated trade in the apparel industry. "On December 31st of this year, those subsidies will be completely dismantled, says Alejandra Domenzain of Sweatshop Watch. "There are entire countries - for example, in Bangladesh something like 70% of their national income comes from their textile industry - [whose] economies are going to be devastated."
Source, Sasha Lilley at CorpWatch
20 August 2004