The heady days of haute couture are passing, says Wall Street
Journal reporter Agins, and are being followed by name-brand mass
marketing. The great fashion houses, one gathers from her report,
are fading in an excess of hauteur. In a text that is more knowing
than it is dishy and more respectful than it need be, Agins shows
that some emperors of the garment trade are not that well decked
out. She gets down to business in the odd world of $10,000-a-day
supermodels and wealthy fashionistas, garmentos and knock-off
artistes, beginning with the fall of Paris, the capital of high
fashion, where style, not substance, had been all. But baby boomer
career women let go of fashion; most people eschewed fancy dress;
fashion was valued less than before; and top designers abandoned
originality. "Bridge" goods (less pricey apparel) took hold.
Boutiques replaced the top ateliers. Widespread licensing of
T-shirts, briefs, and fragrances and the sale of signatures was
followed by street vendor forgeries. Now, to express individuality,
everyone may wear the same garments, on which only the names are
changed. And the names drop like confetti. The story is traced
through various players, from Armani to Ungaro and Zoran.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger) try to
capture the flag for their own logos. As Donna Karan discovered
when she went to Wall Street, fashion's connection to the real
world is frequently tenuous. It is chi-chi and edgy, frou-frou and
funky and up-to-here with arrant snobbery. Businesslike and
entertaining as the discussion of the upscale rag trade is, the
real contribution of high style practitioners is simply assumed,
not made evident. A reader may want to call for a pox on all the
fashion houses (which is probably not the author's plan). Here,
backstage in a special industry, is a knowledgeable reporter's tale
of marketing a la mode. (Kirkus Reviews)
The time when "fashion" was defined by French designers whose clothes could be afforded only by elite has ended. Now designers take their cues from mainstream consumers and creativity is channeled more into mass-marketing clothes than into designing them. Indeed, one need look no further than the Gap to see proof of this. In The End of Fashion, Wall Street Journal, reporter Teri Agins astutely explores this seminal change, laying bare all aspects of the fashion industry from manufacturing, retailing, anmd licensing to image making and financing. Here as well are fascinating insider vignettes that show Donna Karan fighting with financiers,the rivalry between Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger, and the commitment to haute conture that sent Isaac Mizrahi's business spiraling.
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