Accessories Still Power Fashion's Big Brands

Following the chessboard manoeuvres of the global fashion brands - and their latest financial figures - one fact is so glaringly obvious that no one seems to mention it: the winning houses are mostly founded on accessories Handbags, shoes, and accessories such as scarves and belts started the business - and whatever the excitement current Creative Director Alessandro Michele has created with his recent, quirky librarian looks, it is the torrent of accessories that is pushing the brand towards €10 billion in annual sales for the Kering group Although the brand had already acted as a disrupter of the smooth, high-end fashion of the new millennium, this Spring/Summer 2019 Ready-to-Wear show - held in the scruffy hinterland of a Paris motorway - threw a conceptual grenade at the opening of the couture collections.

Take away the coded messages - written in the Russian and Georgian alphabets - and remove the provocations of the hoodies and military balaclavas, the clothes themselves - and especially the accessories - exuded fashion identity If fashion has been reduced to objects rather than outfits of desire, Demna Gvasalia's other day job as Creative Director of Balenciaga confirms the story So has fashion been reduced to single object of desire produced under the name of a famous fashion house? "How can Hermès be contemporary today? How can we give it a modern expression? Nadège is really answering that question.

She is fluid and full of confidence, but it takes time I have been working 25 years at Hermès and realise I still have a long way to go." . Source