- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
We can call them sarongs, or kilts, but following the drop-crotch trend, menswear without crotches at all revealed itself for Fall. Less girly and more layered and industrial the skirts at Siki Im, YSL, Givenchy were paired with drab grey separates and covered black legs (be it leggings socks or trousers) Raf Simmons took the trend to a Amish edge with a long full skirt over a trouser. We aren’t sure that men will jump on the bandwagon just yet, but it has at least sent the gears in motion.
- Lynn Furge
Buffalo checks at John Richmond, Paul Smith and Trussardi 1911, oversized floppy hoods at Galliano. Practically luxe parkas with cashmere scarves partnered with knee-high socks and chukka boots at Michael Kors. Fur mittens and layers of plaid and camo at Rag and Bone, when the outdoorsmen were not hitting the slopes they were hitting the range… the hunting range that is.
- Lynn Furge
It may not be modern military, but something regal yet war-like popped up on several runways this Fall 2010 season. Tim Hamilton made a type of gilet that was definitely outwear, but strung with belts reminiscent of a bib with leather pants, gloves and a long tunic shirt. Thom Browne placed the fencing details into the crotch of his athletic wear whereas Rick Owens had the same idea, he morphed it into a gothic version; long lanky knitwear. And Philip Lim’s leather gilet read like a fencing bib as well, especially with the side buckles.
- Lynn Furge
Whether it was button placement or belts, the male silhouette took on an unusual shape this Fall 2010 season. Waists were nipped in, in almost a nod to the equestrian or military horsemen, but done in modern fabrics and paired with every day basics like cuffed denim or riding gloves.
- Lynn Furge
Orly Genger by Jaclyn Mayer is a jewelry line as rich with texture and color as the creative partnership between designer Jaclyn Mayer and artist Orly Genger themselves. Merging the looping texture of Gengers ropes with the functionality and beauty of Mayer’s jewelry, Orly Genger by Jaclyn Mayer was born and touted by industry experts as being right on target for the future of fashion jewelry. The New York based design team has again partnered with VPL to bring forth a lively collection and Creative Director Lynn Furge caught up with Jaclyn to find out about the perfect partnership between fashion and art.
Lynn Furge: Where does your fashion background start?
Jaclyn Mayer: I’ve always been interested in design but my formal background started at Parsons. I did my MA at London College of Fashion as well in womenswear.
LF: What made you choose to use the rope materials that you do…
JM: The rope comes from the collaboration I do with the artist Orly Genger. Her work is all made with large scale rope and the jewelry line started when we decided to try to make wearable pieces using the knotting technique from her artwork. (www.orlygenger.com)
LF: What do you consider first when you are designing shape, color or texture?
JM: For our newest collection probably color because we started to dye the rope to make the colors we wanted. After we dyed the rope we deconstructed it, unraveling it, creating texture. After the deconstruction we knotted it to create shape….It all sort of happens naturally. It’s not so planned out. It’s more about process.
LF: Speak to me more about color and your choices for this season…
JM: For the Spring 10 collection we used climbing rope. I was really attracted to all the different patterns and colors that the climbing rope came in. And then tried to mix it up with more delicate chains and metallic ropes. It also came from rope that Orly used in her art. In our new collection which we are just about to launch, the colors are much more subtle and gentle. We dip dyed the rope to create fades and tie dye effects from the knotting and unknotting. The colors really stem from the fall. It’s an autumnal palette while the spring collection was much more bright and fun.
LF: How do you feel jewelry fits into a modern woman’s lifestyle?
JM: Jewelry is a really personal statement. Because all of our pieces are hand made, I think it also make them feel more special and unique. One of the things which we try to do with our line is to have the pieces become extentions of clothing. Because they are fabric based, and some of the pieces are quite large, they almost become sculptural pieces on the body.
LF: What 3 consistent elements make up an Orly Genger by Jaclyn Mayer piece?
JM: 1.) Rope 2.) A Sculptural Quality 3.) Texture
LF: Who is your muse?
JM: Orly Genger
LF: What is coming up in the horizon for Orly Genger by Jaclyn Mayer?
JM: We just made pieces for the VPL Fall 10 runway collection which was just shown in New York. It was our second time showing with her and that’s always really exciting. We are launching our new fall collection in the next few weeks and can’t wait to see the response. We hope to really just be able to keep working and growing. We only started a year ago so we can’t wait to see what the next year brings!
www.jaclynmayer.com
www.jaclynmayer.com
Photography: Lynn Furge
Vision: Markus Ketty
Hair and Make Up: Fiquet Bailey @ Luxe Apothecary
Model: Nicole @ Directions US
Shot on Location @ Blue Lotus NC
Friends, Family and clients still ask on occasion “how did you do it – how did you manage to sell over $500K in shoes within 14 months?”
As mentioned in previous posts, the supposed “secret” to selling is actually not a secret at all. Based on my experience, there are three skills you must embrace to become a top-tier sales Jedi in today’s hypercompetitive marketplace:
1) Understand selling is just a numbers game
One day you’ll sell $11K in three hours of work and the next you’ll struggle to sell $1K over the span of an entire day. But in the aggregate, remaining steadfastly focused on your goals will pay off, with a gradual climb toward long-term success.
2) Understand the 80/20 rule
As mentioned in post #2 of this series, memorize the 20% that makes 80% of the difference until it’s instinctive. This is imperative; your long-term viability as a sales professional depends on it.
3) Develop the ability to quickly identify, hone and leverage the triggers of your target consumer
Of the above three skills, point #3 will catapult you the furthest and fastest. Triggers become significantly more apparent as the frequency of sales presentations increase.
Nordstrom is the ideal environment for scaling sales trigger understanding because a sales rep executes roughly 20 presentations/day during the week and more than 40/day on the weekend. Retail is a fast-paced and transaction-oriented environment. Therefore, within a very short amount of time you’re blessed with the benefit of executing hundreds transactions and obtaining large swaths of customer feedback. These are crucial in facilitating your understanding of the wants, needs and ultimately the triggers of your target consumer.
The downside of this type of sales environment is the very “short leash” you’re given. If you don’t produce the boot will arrive on the horizon very fast. You are expected to ramp up sales significantly faster than in other sales contexts.
For instance, on the other side of the pendulum reside enterprise sales. In the beginning, these are long, drawn out and sporadic transactions (2 – 6 month sales cycle). Every opportunity to identify and hone sales triggers must be cherished. In this environment, you are given a longer lead time to “figure it out,” but even then your “leash” is only as long as the market allows – which isn’t more than four months.
- Gary Whitehill
In thinking about what types of questions I get the most as a User Experience consultant, I came up with one question that is not always asked directly, but that is implied in almost every introductory meeting I have. That question is “Should I hire a UX Designer?”
If the answer to that question is yes, then the next question is usually “When in the process should I hire this skill set?” Let’s look at each question in more detail.
Hiring a UX Designer
When I talk to entrepreneurs and start ups about this topic, I usually try to get a feel for several things. First, does your product and/or service plan on interfacing with users? In my career this interfacing has most often been through a web site (web browser) or a mobile device. However, I have also been hired to work on intranets, desktop applications and database entry systems. Users are not always direct consumers of a product. They may also be employees that are interfacing with objects that enable your product/service to get to market, or maintain a product/services presence within a market. So my advice would be if your product or service relies on these types of interactions, bring in someone who knows users of all kinds, and the types of behaviors to expect from these users.
The second thing I try to get a feel for, is how familiar the entrepreneur or start up is with a user experience designer role. Meaning how well do they know what I do and how I can help. You might find yourself asking “what does a user experience designer do that I can’t do? I know people. I know how people think and act, after all, I interface with systems, websites, and mobile devices all the time, and am a pretty average user. How hard could it be to look a little closer at how I function and design for interactions based on my behavior?”
When I see someone asking these questions, I know that they haven’t worked with someone that does what I do before. So, I would answer these questions with, of course, more questions:
- Who are your users?
- What need is your product filling?
- How are the users filling this need without your product?
- How can we learn lessons about their present day behavior (if there is any) and translate that into the medium that you will be delivering your product through?
Oh, and usually, your user is nothing like you, or not as close as you think. Users surprise us at how stupid they are for not realizing how the product/service works. They should just get it. Well keep in mind you want them to pay you for your goods, not the other way around. Why not bring in someone that can help take your product and make it more clear to users? Why not cut the users’ learning curve and instead of trying to completely change their behaviors and habits, work with them or at least learn from them. Considering everything else that you have to do in your day, get funding, talk to stakeholders, plan risk assessments, network your tail off, don’t you think you should bring in an expert to bridge the user gap? It not only ensures efficiency, but also a higher quality of product.
So, when in your process should you bring in a UX designer? Well, in reality this always depends on budget. However, I think that bringing someone in as early as possible, like when you are first considering a user interfacing product, is beneficial.
They can help you to think from a user’s perspective about what the product might be and also help you talk through what features might exist. How helpful would that be in a stakeholder/board meeting? This doesn’t have to be a huge amount of effort from the UXD at first, but could be hourly consultation to steer you in the right direction. The UXD can begin doing user research at this time and can help to define a more detailed strategy for your product, again by bringing in the user point of view. So, ideally you would bring in a UXD before you are even beginning to put together your website or application. If this is not possible, then it is essential that the UXD be present during the website/application planning phase. If you want to do holistic planning, then leaving out your users is not the way to be successful.
The moral of the story is, user research is intensive, and taking the research and knowledge and designing an interaction around it is even more intensive. This is not something that can be done just by knowing websites and computers. User Experience Designers can help you to plan your product and service and create an interface that is pleasant and easy to use. This does not have to be high budget either. A great UXD is flexible and creative and will try to help as much as possible if time is available. But you must be open to someone else being the expert when it comes to user/customer behavior.
This doesn’t mean you should give up all control, but it does mean that there are people out there that can teach you a thing or two about who you’re trying to reach and who can help make your product/service better. Why not let them help?
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
Support one of Nolcha’s new ones to watch by clicking on this link and voting for Fernanda… your influence may put her collection on the red carpet where it belongs!
http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/82/fashion.html
Earlier this week I was teaching marketing to about 20 entrepreneurs here in NYC.After the class several came up to say they got some super-cool tips on how to immediately impact their sales with little or no cost. Just rewriting and designing their marketing strategies based on what they just learned.
And here is what they learned: the difference between selling the features and benefits of your product or service.
Features—a physical or tangible component of your product / service. Using a product example, a bicycle: weighs only 23 pounds, has 21 gears, Shimano brakes, 110PSI high-pressure tires, and is designed light and built for speed.
And for service-based businesses, an example would be a chiropractor’s office: we offer a 10 minute evaluation and assessment of your pain (or situation), then do a series of 3 to 5 treatments over the course of two weeks, followed be an additional assessment, and so on.
Benefits—the non-physical, emotional and intangible reactions to your product / service. In our product example: this super-light, super-fast bicycle with 21 gears will make sure you can get up that insane mountain you have been training for all these months. When you get to the top, you’ll look behind you and know you just conquered that amazing ride you’ve been dreaming about….
In our service example: your initial evaluation with our top chiropractor will immediately ensure you are getting the exact treatment you need for your situation, and as quickly as possible. With this you can relax and let our expert chiropractor do his (her) magic on your body. Watch how quickly your body will respond to his (her) touch and adjustments.
Question: Do you think people buy from features or benefits?
In our class this week this became a debate. Some said features, some said benefits and some said both.
We all agreed that people buy on benefits. BENEFITS!
Why?
Because people want to know how they will benefit from using your product or service. Yeah, sure it is helpful knowing how many gears the bike has, but really getting them to feel the accomplishment of getting to the top of the amazing mountain is what is going to override the features.
If they feel the possibility of owning your product (or hiring you for your service), you will make the sale so much easier to accomplish.
People buy on emotions!
Still not convinced? Look at Apple’s iPhones. For many, many people, if it ain’t an iPhone (or other Apple product) they are not interested. It is NOT because of the features (although this certainly helps) it is because they have positioned themselves quite successfully as a hip, cool, state-of-the-art company. And people want a piece of THAT in their lives.
STILL not convinced? Park your rear-end in front of the TV for 30 minutes. Watch two cable stations: Home Shopping Network and QVC. Just watch what these masters of selling do: they can take the ugliest piece of (you know what) and sell millions of them. How they do it is mention (briefly) a feature and then spend 10 minutes talking about all the benefits of it.
Benefits, benefits, benefits!
So if it is in fact benefits that sell your product or service, where are you putting your marketing resources: features or benefits?
If the former, I highly, (I mean highly) recommend you immediately shift your energy into the latter.
And if you do not immediately see results, please e-mail me. I’m not kidding!
Action Steps for the Week
Take a look at your product or service. Make a list of the top 5 features of it.
Next, write as many benefits as you can think of for each of those features. Go nuts with this and then pick the top 10-15 of them (depending on how you will use this information.)
HERE’S THE CATCH: Do this from your customers’ perspective, not yours!
If you are not sure their perspective, find out. There are many ways to get this feedback from them: surveys, calling them, standing on the street corner and asking them, you name it.
Once you are clear on what the benefits are, you are now ready to put your promotional materials together. Briefly mention the feature and then all its benefits. Do this for the top features.
NOTE: avoid grandiose claims like, “The world’s best…” or “You’ll love the taste of…” That stuff does not work. Instead, back it up with statistics, data, survey results, scientific discoveries, etc. Third party endorsements are golden.
Lastly, use testimonials that add credibility to what you promote. Do these to your marketing and you will most likely be amazed at the quick results you will see.
- Stefan Doering is the creator of BEST Coaches’ groundbreaking 90-day “UnReasonable” program
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
If Alice in Wonderland was an entrepreneur, who would she invite to her tea party? First, there would be the Mad Hatter, moving from one seat to the next, drinking tea and spending money every which way. But it’s hard to tell if that’s real money or just more debt.
Then there’s the Cheshire cat, smiling brightly because he knows the way out of recession, but like the economic recovery, keeps fading in and out of view. Commercial banks are happy to come to tea, but they are hard to pin them down when Alice asks them for a loan. And where is the Consumer in all this? In the teapot of course – like the Dormouse – trying to avoid more taxes and ever increasing health care costs.
What is Alice to do? At the table over the past few weeks are some thoughts from entrepreneurs about the current economic conditions that are worth reading. Many of them agree – “money is the biggest challenge”. But they suggest this is not the time to give up your dream. Downturns often create opportunities. They say: “Study the landscape to make your product better or different from the competition”. And “price your product appropriately”. Use technology to grow if you can’t expand your staff. Mushrooms may work for Alice when she wants to grow, but the real world requires hardware and software. “Get systems in place to guide everyday tasks.” Then you can manage the work flow and your future growth.
Remember to keep everyone in your organization “on the same page”. These entrepreneurs have a lot more to say and it can be found here in the “How to Succeed” section.
Alice in Wonderland has an easy way out thanks to Lewis Carroll – she can just wake up! But the rest of us need to come up with something more specific to get out of this economic rabbit hole. Hopefully the advice from these entrepreneurs will help.
- Alice Krause, former Deputy Executive of Chase Bank’s retail businesses, is Founder of the award winning NewsonWomen.com
Chicca Lauldi’s collection of beautiful nudes were a play on texture with silk and fur being the most predominant. Moving into fitted black dresses was smart, but a little more innovation could have been seen.
Mauro Gasperi’s line of stark hard womenswear followed the bodycon hourglass situation we have been seeing pop up all over the catwalks. The knitwear pieces had enough structure to make them polished and grown-up which seems important come fall.
Cristiano Burani closed the show with a strong group of separates. Skinny wool trousers in a chic pumpkin color paired with leather tops. Sheer slip dresses with leather undies, Floor skimming evening gowns that the light passes through as the models glided down the catwalk.
The future of Italian fashion looks bright.
- Lynn Furge
- Lynn Furge
Tata-Naka’s digital printed denim sweatpants which evolved a sense of humor to the denim craze we saw at spring.
Felder Felder’s ruffle detail, especially at the hip, which no doubt consumers who catch on to the craze from Spring 2010 will demand more come Fall.
Cooperative Designs’ graphic bright shaggy sweaters with matching neckwear which conjured up the image of a softer Tron.
Bodyamr’s entire collection, from the cashmere and sheer zipper hourglass sheaths to the digital screen printed draped cocktail dresses. Exactly how women want to dress right now!
Irwin & Jordan’s menswear inspired checked cape reminiscent of equestrian utility with a softness in the fine gauge wool and light airy movement.
Nikki Noo whose first collection ever unveiled at the Lingerie Exhibition in Somerset House. Classic feminine bras and panties with smooth silk florals were perfect underthings for both the hourglass pieces and chunky knitwear, but it was the kneelength silk pajama pants which will beautiful in and out of the bedroom layered with some of the season’s sheerer pieces.
Ada Zanditon’s forest skyline bat inspired sheer t-shirt that to layer for Fall will be amazing under chunky knitwear and a black stocking cap, so cozy and now it’s ridiculous!
Makepiece’s ruched natural-toned maxi dress that marries eco and the comfort dressing together like a dream.
Henrietta Ludgate’s English equestrian inspired eco collection with bridle belts and sculpted wool collars so sumptuous it brings new meaning the idea of “organic clothing.
Emesha’s sexy ballerina dress that is modern, body conscious, graceful and graphic all at the same time.
Holly Fulton’s art deco inspired bright shifts make us long for New York in the 20’s all while hoping the colors will be a hit on the High Streets as well as Palm Beach.
Mary Katrantzou’s entire baroque collection, but mainly the pieces that mix texture like lace with silk and of course the larger than life neckwear that had gentle shells adorning gilded scrolls.
Christopher Raeburn’s genius use of ex-military fabrics from canvas to parachute material to create the most usable but chic parkas for both men and women this side of Sandhurst. The new accessories collection of messenger bags and little hats were hits as well.
Craig Lawrence’s gold gilded collection, like a Klimt painting in real life or a gold gilded flapper, the texture in each piece is unreal.
Fannie Schiovanni and her chainmail is the lady-like way to do gothic medieval. Dressing Lady Gaga for the cover of Q Magazine, this stand-out has just gotten her start of press as far as we are concerned, her elegantly draped pieces of metal are fantasy (if worn alone) and reality (if worn over a simple t-shirt dress) combined.
Maria Francesca Pepe’s vampire chic collection with religios iconic jewelry, fang necklaces, bloody hearts, slashed leggings and a shaved chinchilla type coat with a biting belt.
Sam Ubhi’s cuff with deer head, which will pair wonderfully along both the menswear capes and the dark and stormy earth element dresses.
St. Erasmus Jewelry whose inspiration lies within the beauty and sophistication of Holly Golightly but we also see mermaid elements within the netting pulled over the baubles. Either way, his maxi pearl rings and layers of necklaces are better than breakfast at Tiffanys and much more figure flattering.
- Lynn Furge
