The Conversations

In this episode Jason fills us in on his experience - upon his return from the Business of Fashion Voices conference in England. He breaks down the key themes, his highlights and the main takeaways.

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American fashion designers have been riding the hype machine for over two decades. The playbook often involves Anna Wintour's anointment closely followed by Vogue, the CFDA and few other retailers and gate keepers as 'one to watch'. Hollywood is courted, then muses and clients, with the public expected to follow suit, leading a designer to great long term success. As evidenced by the closure of a host of American labels in recent years — most recently the well-liked Zac Posen — is this formula is flawed? 

What was once seen as a dream making recipe has proven otherwise, with the rise of digital, social media, direct to consumer practices and increasing consumer power. In this episode, we dissect the America fashion scene.   

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Social media influencers are the arguably the most powerful tastemakers and trendsetters in fashion today. Their influence extends beyond how we dress and beyond our beauty routines to impacting the very way we consume and think in the rise of the direct-to-consumer sales model. Anchoring our conversation in Instagram’s move this week to stop publishing 'Likes' as a measure of a post’s success (in the US), we deep dive into the influencer landscape discussing from our perspective what we have found both challenging and optimistic about it overall.

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In this episode, we circle back on our sustainability conversation from S2 E11, and this time we're joined by Céline Semaan - writer, advocate, founder of The Slow Factory, Study Hall and one of our industry's leading voices in this issue.

With fashion's environmental impact being brought to the forefront as an issue of our time, solutions and greenwash marketing are being added to the mix in equal measure. The answers to solve our industries waste, climate change contributions and human rights violations are layered and complicated - requiring but not limited to; legislative action, major financial investment, addressing our relationship with selling and consumption, innovation, business and manufacturing restructuring, radical executive updates and complete participation from all industry players. With so much at stake it’s a challenge we can’t afford to ignore, but with the aforementioned requirements for reconciliation before it’s too late, can fashion truly tackle sustainability? We take a second look at these topics with Cèline and cover much more.

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In this episode we ask, who are our fashion heroes? With fewer barriers to entry in fashion right now, one can catapult to the highest ranks of the industry with a pretty face and a t-shirt concept. But when we seek out innovative leaders, unbridled creators, or razor sharp business strategists, it’s less clear who the real players are in today's crowded landscape, with so many variables to consider against new and undefined markers. What do you think?

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In this episode we attempt to tackle the ideas behind what it takes to be a brand in the current saturated fashion landscape. With so many variables pertaining to channel, distribution, HR and business strategies, paired with cultural themes including sustainability, inclusion and political correctness, folded in with growing economic pressures, and increasing customer power, fatigue and shorter attention spans - how is a brand to stand out and not just survive, but thrive? We discuss and ask you to join the conversation!

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"In the current culture of accountability, where activism is shaping the zeitgeist, the fashion industry has staged an extraordinary consumer-facing performance, checking the boxes on race, body, gender and other forms of inclusivity. In an industry that’s hardwired to embrace the new only to quickly move on to the next trend months later, is fashion’s current interest in inclusivity simply a fad?" - writes Jason in the introduction of his Business of Fashion op-ed for their current print and digital issue, the theme: Inclusivity.

In this episode we'll be breaking down the topics Jason covers here, as well as discussing the grievances made by Pyer Moss designer, Kerby Jean-Raymond in his own op-ed about BoF's founder and EIC, Imran Ahmed's handling of the making of this Inclusive issue and it's subsequent celebratory gala event.

Welcome to season 3 of The Conversations! We hope you enjoy, subscribe, rate and join the conversation. 

CAMP: Notes On Fashion is the highly polarizing theme of this year’s Costume Institute exhibition at The Met and the subject of this week’s podcast. We discuss the many different perceptions of camp and the campiest ones to own the attitude and help define “the movement,” since the invention of the contrapposto pose. Some subjects were soundly handled in the exhibit, but other influencers got barely a mention. If camp is in the eye of the beholder, was the exhibition an accurate representation of camp? Tell us your thoughts in the comments. 

There’s no room to make a wrong move in your messaging, imaging and opinion-making in culture today. Traditional, nontraditional media, citizen reporters and straight up mean girls are there to call you out and there is no shortage of platforms from which to air ones’ grievances. Call-out culture is a powerful tool in bringing attention and action to issues, but when is it doing more harm than good, what are the dangers when we conflate issues and meanings and what are the responsibilities of the people doing the calling out? We debate this question, highlighting some of the most recent controversies brought on by to call-out culture.

This week we discuss the increasingly hot topic of sustainability in fashion. What does it mean, what does that look like, what are some of the solutions, what are the advantages and disadvantages of marketing and what are some of the barriers that will need to be reconciled in order to shift towards a more sustainable industry? We don’t have all of the answers and it's clear this is a very complicated and involved subject, but in this episode we explore the multi-pronged discussion - in what will continue to be one of many layered conversations we have here on the podcast.