Simon Doonan at Barneys Co-Op in Brooklyn

This week, Barneys celebrated the opening of its first Brooklyn Co-op on Atlantic Avenue in the Cobble Hill section of town. The doors opened at 10 a.m. without a line of anxiously waiting shoppers, but a large crowd eventually made its way through the doors once they were open. {Racked NY}

Much has been made of what the reaction among Brooklyn residents will be to the high-end retailerâ€s presence in their neck of the woods. Brooklyn has become a hot spot for luxury fashion labels in the past few months, as brands like Swarovski Crystal and Anthropologie have been reportedly scouting out locations there, but it has been smaller, trendy shops like Jonathan Adler and Urban Outfitters that have actually been cropping up along Atlantic Avenue of late. {New York Post}

It is still too early to tell exactly what the lasting impact of the Barneys†presence among these admittedly cooler, more laid-back shops will be, but Barneys Creative Director Simon Doonan seems confident it will be a success.

“The Co-op has always had a certain edgy sensibility. The fit with Brooklyn is a natural one,” he said. {New York Post}

Doonan also told Racked NY that the store made no adjustments to its aesthetic for the Brooklyn Co-op, which carries all the designer brands like Alexander Wang, Richard Chai Love, Helmut Lang and Rag & Bone that you would expect to find at any other Barneys.

Apparently Doonan was quite an active presence at the opening as well, chatting with shoppers and even helping to carry baby strollers down the staircase to the storeâ€s lower level. {Racked NY} He also tried easing the minds of skeptical area residents who worry that the store will bring with it a pretentiousness, telling the New York Post, “”It’s not like we’re opening a Chanel.”

We previously reported that Cobble Hillâ€s economics are not actually that far off from the more notoriously wealthy Upper East Side and Upper West Side Manhattan neighborhoods, and a Barneys should not be impossible to sustain in the area, though the state of the economy will likely create challenges even with wealthy shoppers living close by. Today, we feel there is one more barrier to success for Barneys: Cobble Hill may have the wealth for a Barneys, but does it have the right vibe? Just because a certain demographic has money does not mean they want to spend it on luxury fashion, and we wonder if people in Brooklyn even want to shop at Barneys.

Success at the Barneys Brooklyn Co-op will likely prove to be somewhat of a challenge. Doonan and Co. should be up for it, but only time will tell how they fare. We actually applaud Barneys for taking a risk in a time when the economy has many retailers in a panic – because taking chances on new ventures will probably be necessary to remain sustainable into the future for fashion retailers. Someone has to lead the way, and Barneys should be commended for stepping up.

Additional photos at Racked NY

The future of the web is all about connectivity and providing a fluid user experience where one can seamlessly navigate through related content with the ability to share, save, purchase, obtain, store information, etc. all on the same interface.

A screenshot of the recently revamped Gucci website, with more digital flagship characteristics

For brands, rather than establish microsites for campaigns, like we would physical pop-up shop locations, creating a digital flagship allows the website to be the main hub for all brand communications. Not only does this streamline management on the business-side, but it better serves the customer by presenting all brand content in one central place.

Previously, we covered the 7 Tenets of Successful Brand Websites, in todayâ€s post weâ€re getting a bit more granular. How, exactly, do you go about creating a digital flagship? The answer is that this is a detailed process that should be carefully mapped out, managed and executed to ensure the best experience for the brand and for the end-user. For internal project owners, the main points of consideration below can be used as a guide:

1. Audience Engagement: Understanding how your target audience currently finds and interacts with your brand online is a necessary part of the process. Knowing what people search for, where they are coming from and what their behaviors indicate once on a branded portal has strong implications for all other components; content, social, design and technology. This doesnâ€t only involve a deep dive into the existing site (and microsite) analytics, but also to other third party sites and platforms where your audience lives.

2. Content: Having compelling content that is refreshed on an ongoing basis provides value and keeps people coming back to the site. In the past, brand communications may have been refreshed only seasonally, however with the advent of social media and mobile accessibility, there is an immediacy that has become expected. For brands, it is not always realistic to churn out new content on a rolling basis, but there are opportunities to keep things updated through social media.

–Content Audit: Conduct a thorough review of the existing content the brand has access to. Be creative, think of places content may already exist that has been, so far, under-utilized. And then ask, what new content would make this site more compelling? What is my target audience most interested in?

–Content Map: Now that you have a handle on the content to present, map out how it will be presented. This should align with the Sitemap and Information Architecture. Think about creating a fluid user experience that combines different types of content (brand story, product-related, social) in a way that feels natural to the user.

–Management resources/tools for updates: Based on the content plan, how often are updates required? Is there a team to manage this? If so, what are their technical capabilities? Chances are, youâ€ll need a Content Management System that is user-friendly. Knowing this early on helps ensure the technical platforms chosen are the right ones to help manage the site going forward.

3. Technology: Explore, review, research and learn about the future of technology. In what direction are various platforms headed? How should your site be optimized to handle this from the start? Scalability is key and youâ€ll want your site to evolve with advances in technology. For example, you wouldnâ€t want to build an all-Flash site because it wouldnâ€t work on an iPad or mobile device. Plus, with the new programming language of HTML5 and JavaScript, you can create an experiential , exciting aesthetic that is SEO-friendly and requires less bandwidth compared to Flash. The technical phase is a good time to have third party consultant with internal IT teams to ensure the final decision is based on the greatest understanding of technology possible. This is one of the most important aspects to the project because the technology is often the most costly component and can also be the most limiting to design and social if the wrong platform is chosen.

4. Design: The design direction of the site is the first thing people notice. As a luxury or fashion brand, itâ€s important that the design convey the same level of polish, prestige and craftsmanship as all other brand materials (from print ads to the products themselves). The design should be more than a simple translation of print collateral; rather, the design should feel as though it was intended to live online. Interaction is the critical element here, through interesting navigation, zoom tools, etc. the visuals sell the product, the brand and the lifestyle. In terms of management, think of how new visual assets will be created, uploaded and shared by users to facilitate easy management and support sharing.

5. Social: It is only natural that our interactions with brands online have social components, especially given the high degree of influence social media now has on peopleâ€s perceptions and purchase decisions. For the brand, itâ€s all about tapping into the social networks most appropriate for the audience and finding a comfort level in such a transparent digital world. For a digital flagship, social elements need to be incorporated to encourage sharing, exploring and a sense of conversing with the brand. Going forward, it will be increasingly important to allow users to engage in social actions with a larger community while staying within a branded environment (think Facebook open graph and Facebook connect).

How To: Build a Digital Flagship originally appeared on Fashion’s Collective, and is republished on Signature9 with permission.



The Chanel 2.55, now .2x more expensive?

Hermès posted second quarter sales results that were up 20% (must be the magic number), noting increased demand in Asia and the US, where a weaker Euro may have worked in the company’s favor. Groupe Laurent Perrier, a champagne maker, had a sales increase of 17% compared to the previous year, and Swiss watchmakers outpaced both for a 35% increase in exports compared to the previous year. {WSJ} Chanel recently opened a Korean store that set a one-day sales record of nearly $375,000. {JoongAng Daily}

Still, is now the best time to hike prices – particularly at a double digit rate? We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see if the Chanel rumors pan out, but a recent report from MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse showed a 3.9% decrease in spending compared to last June. With a few notable exceptions, even the good news isn’t entirely good. While sales are up, for many retailers this is an increase over sharp declines last year, so it’s not straight line growth.

What’s more, consumers with household incomes over $150,000 per year – the approximate entry level to be included among the top 20% of US households, account for almost 40% of spending. Luxury sales, which likely rely on $150k+ shoppers for a more significant portion of sales tend to fluctuate with the stock market. {Google News} Lately, the Dow Jones hasn’t been doing so well and may be an early sign of wealthy spenders becoming more conservative with their purchases in coming months.

The good news? Well, for the luxury retailers finally coming around to e-commerce, it may be better late than never. Online sales were up 9.7% overall. Apparel was the best performing category with growth of 18.6%, marking the seventh month of double digit gains. {Internet Retailer}

We know that Chanel has plans to finally offer a wider range of products to online shoppers – expanding on their existing beauty e-commerce area, and giving real competition to web savvy counterfeiters for the first time. Yet somehow we’re not sure if that will be enough if luxury shoppers start questioning why the same bag that was 20% less 2 weeks ago is suddenly more expensive. The Euro hit significant lows against the dollar this year, after laying off hundreds of workers at the height of the crisis we know they’re operating with a leaner workforce, and many brands cut production to respond to lowered demand. While Chanel is certainly one of the brands that can rely on its heritage to lend its products “investment” status, we’ll have to see if shoppers accept a price hike tied more to image than actual costs – or if they decide to invest elsewhere.

Come September, consumers can purchase directly from marcjacobs.com

Reluctance to embrace technology and the Internet, however, has been the norm for luxury fashion brands. Most labels feared department stores would be angry if designers and their wealthy customers dealt directly with one another. A large number of brands relied on department store sites and others like Net-a-Porter to sell their goods online, but the state of the economy has forced department stores to cut steep prices, angering luxury companies that were already worrying about their relevance into the future and ability to compete with knock-off retailers. {The New York Times}

“I was so annoyed last year that I wished no one had our merchandise,” President and Vice Chairman of Mar Jacobs Robert Duffy told the New York Times. “All the department stores were panicked, and they were marking things down.”

Duffy also suggested that the online store for Marc Jacobs may offer exclusive merchandise to attract customers. {Elle}

Word on the street is Jimmy Choo, Hugo Boss, Vince, Lancôme, St. John, Theory, Kiehlâ€s, Lilly Pulitzer, Donna Karan and La Perla will soon or have already launched e-commerce stores on their own Web sites. It seems high fashion is finally realizing profits on clothes sold directly to consumers will be much higher with no middleman taking a cut or dictating prices.

High fashion has everything to gain by taking their products to their own Web pages, but the consumer may end up being the loser in this equation if luxury retailers pull their merchandise from department stores altogether and spike their prices. That may be unlikely to happen immediately, since the economic downturn has caused many aspirational customers to reduce spending on designer clothing, but when the recession truly fades and people begin spending more, high fashion prices might soar above skyscrapers.