Czech Fashion today

Czech Fashion is outstanding as the fashion designers of Czech Republic have ... Fashion in Czech Republic has always influenced the fashion trends of other ... Czech design is being presented itself at EXPO Shanghai during the Czech Fashion Week, featuring runway shows by five Czech fashion ...

As a Design and Merchandising major at Drexel, I was intrigued to see what Czech fashion consisted of. I always had this idea that European style was classy and sophisticated, and everyone always looked presentable. Well, after being in Prague for a few weeks, my Prague 20th Century Art and Design teacher informed me the Czech fashion is an oxymoron, meaning that Czech fashion is non-existent. Prague is city full of tourists, and actual locals are hard to come by. Although I have not witnessed the cutting edge fashion I assumed all Europeans possessed, I have stumbled upon my own findings for shopping and authentic fashionable Czech clothing.

My first day in Prague consisted of exploring the city and picking up a few necessities for the next few weeks (soap, towels, dishware etc), and while running these errands I naturally came upon the Czech Republic’s largest mall, the Palladium. The Palladium was recently constructed in 2007, and consists of four levels, boasting over 200 shops and roughly thirty restaurants and cafes. It is located in Náměstí Republiky, and it's easy to get to by taking the Metro. The Palladium has many stores that we have in America, such as Guess, Calvin Klein, and The Body Shop. Other familiar stores include H&M, Lush, Sephora and TOPSHOP. The Palladium is so massive; we have visited a few times and have yet to find time to see everything at once.

Also on the Metro, the Můstek stop offers shopping geared more towards tourists, with large popular chain stores such as The New Yorker, another H&M, Zara and United Colors of Benetton. While these stores are still great and have a lot to offer shoppers, I personally was on the search for apparel that was different and unique, and made by Czech fashion designers.

Last week when I had time to explore, I found two great boutiques, both selling clothing, accessories and jewelry all created by designers that lived in Prague and/or were Czech! Both stores were really unique, and I was happy to find something that was original. The first store is called Leeda, which is a fashion brand created by Czech designers Lucia Trnková and Lucie Kutálková. The boutique carries their clothing line, as well as a few styles of footwear plus an assortment of accessories including earrings, bracelets, headbands and necklaces. The clothing was ready to wear sportswear with a trendy twist, and all the clothing had a bright color palette.

After leaving Leeda, just a few stores down the block I found another great Czech fashion store called Nakoupeno, which carried Czech fashion and jewelry designers. This store was similar to a funky vintage shop, it was strategically cluttered, and one could spend an hour walking around and still not notice everything on display. The clothing sold at Nakoupeno was bit more eccentric than what was Leeda. There were a lot of skirts made of metallic spandex, dresses with a large bubble skirt full of fake sunflower heads (or other flowers), and striped parachute pants. Although I couldn’t picture myself being able to pull off some of these really interesting outfits, I did manage to find a black and crème striped turtleneck dress, with lace trim on the hem and sleeves, and to add a bit a punch, banana appliqué patches around the collar. It’s a great combination of the everyday, with a little something extra. Nakoupena also carried quite a few jewelry lines; all in all, there was something to be found there for everyone.The most prominent ones, in fact, even sit in the first row at New York fashion shows, and get freebies from popular brands. Here in the heart of Europe, it is not quite like that – few individuals in the industry realize the potential of involving bloggers in their PR strategies.

Despite that, there are a few influential youngsters whose readership rises every day. What is their impact on a country like this one, which is widely considered unfashionable? We spoke with two of them to find out.

UNYPRESS: A lot of Czech people who love fashion say that overall, Czech people don’t know how to dress up. It has become sort of a cliché. Is the statement justified, or is the fashion situation better now?

Zuzana Hnídková: Czech people generally do not care so much about clothes. Just l

ook around and you find immediately that for the majority, clothing has only practical significance. Yeah, of course there are exceptions, and the intensity of those is rising. But if we wanted to sum up Czechs as a nation, linking them with the word “fashion” would not be in place. It is rather “beer.”

Lucie Ehrenbergerová: I think it is more like a cliché. As time goes by and options arise, everyone slowly finds their way to distinguish themselves from the rest, or at least get inspired a little bit!

UNYPRESS: Do bloggers get enough spotlight in the Czech fashion industry? What is the next level?

LE: I would say that bloggers are starting to receive attention. Surely it cannot be compared with other countries, but given how slowly everything develops in the Czech Republic, it is definitely a great start. What would be the next level? Perhaps when they start to perceive us as celebrities and we get invited to parties and fashion shows!

ZH: I think it is getting better. Of course it is different compared to Western countries, as Lucie said, where bloggers are recognized as respected fashion icons. But that is because the whole fashion blog thing got here with much delay. We will see what happens in a few years, whether the Czech bloggers will also appear in the front row of fashion shows and design their own collection of shoes. I myself am very curious about this.

 I would say that generally, fashion blogs do have a chance to influence people, but only in the sense of inspiring someone to wear a daring combination of clothes, for example. Because if someone does not care about fashion at all, the blog can hardly have any effect on them, as they would not browse it on their own.

  What were your blogging beginnings like? Was your readership rising steadily, or did you struggle at first? And what kept you going?

 I started blogging over a year ago. At that time, I tried to get noticed mainly by commenting on other blogs. I also used to write my posts in English only, because I thought that Czech would be useless – there were very few Czech blogs and potential Czech readers. But later, with the development of the Czech blogosphere, I began to write in Czech, too. I did not give up English and I’m happy about that, because I have more options in terms of cooperation with various international e-shops and so on.

A good way to raise awareness about your blog is to join different online fashion communities, such as lookbook.nu, where I find new, inspiring bloggers. And from time to time, someone finds me there, too. Then the readership rises pretty sharply. Last time I posted a popular photo, I got 100 new followers a day!

 I have been blogging for six years, and it took a lot of effort to get to the point where I am now. I gradually changed the focus of the blog, and the amount of readers has [risen], too. Today I think I have found what I like, and the main interests that I would like to pay attention to in the future.

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After having somehow tried to understand how to create one or more customized t-shirts, we’re now gonna talk about the other important aspect we need to consider if we aim to start a succesful business: promotion.

Make some simple tests market addressing yourself to relatives and friends to gain a sincere opinion about what you’ve done; try and sell some of your “pieces” on ebay or on other websites; if you know somebody who owns a fashion store ask him his expert opinion.

Focus on your target: who you think will wear your creations? You must create very clearly in your minds the image of your standard purchaser in order to reach “him” in the best way, with well targeted promotions conceived in a graphic and style that could capture his attention. Teenagers? Great public? Sport fans? Trendy people? You need to chose.

Create a logo easy to remember and that, at the same time, manages to express “a concept”. The clients range you aim to must recognize itself in your logo!

If you’re planning to sell your line mostly online, be very careful about your site’s placement on the search engines market and cure properly the graphic side of it, always having in mind who will visit your page: if you address to a young public don’t use too many technical and specific words and focus on sense of affiliation and group instead. Do you need any clarification about how online promotion actually works? This link might help you, taking to you the example of myspace, one of the most used site to advertise personal creations (music, clothes, paintings and so on).If you decide to propose your line also to the traditional market (much more hostile and hard to win), you need to intensify your promotion activity by advertising your product in any possible way…make that all of your friends and relatives wear your creation!

If you are convinced that a painting on a white shirt will make you earn a lot of money easily, you’re probably getting wrong.

Anyway by proceeding by objectives and planning your steps very carefully, you’ll manage to get lots of satisfactions, as already proved by many succesful business ventures both on the internet and on traditional market.

So, work hard and step by step, putting all your effort in achieving your goals. If your activity makes you happy and interested in your work, your passion will push you through new hints, tendencies, ideas: this, plus your enthusiasm and tough work will lead you to the construction of a prosper business.

Genius, extravagant, their look is unmistakable: major fashion designers in the world have got their own peculiar style, which make them recognizable even when they’re transformed in…cartoons!

This is what a funny editorial on Elle Spain’s pages show us. Its title is “La Moda Animada” by Ulrich Schroeder and it appeared on April number of Elle Spain magazine.

Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs, John Galliano, Sonia Rykiel and Alber Elbaz become cartoons acting in a reproduction of their natural habitat, still keeping the attitudes that made them notorious.

So among the pages, you’ll see: Karl Lagerfeld walking the red carpet as the big bad wolf;  Jean Paul Gaultier hosts a small party on a balcony over Paris; Marc Jacobs, as a kilt-wearing duck, directs the backstage chaos of a show; Donatella Versace vamps for the paparazzi as a blonde duck; Lanvin’s Alber Elbaz, also as a duck, puts the finishing touches on a dress; Dolce & Gabbana, reinvented as Mickey mouse and Goofy, sketch their latest collection; John Galliano takes to the runway as a pirate-inspired duck; Sonia and Nathalie Rykiel dine as ducks at a Parisian café.

What do you think about this step back from seriousness taken by Elle Spain? I think it’s really nice and funny (maybe because I’m literally Disney-addicted).

The it-model of the campaign is always his best friend Agyness Deyn but this time the  protagonists of his line of tees are no longer models: what’s more Fashion than designers?

House of Holland by Henry Holland proposes a series of t-shirts featuring a powerful clique of fashion designers proudly posing…naked! John Galliano, Donatella Versace, Alber Elbaz, Karl Lagerfeld & co for once appear not covered in beautiful self-designed clothes (or, talking about Galliano, even masked, as he likes to show himself in many of his catwalks’ endings), despite all the nudity fashion industry throws our way.

Many times on this blog’s pages I talked about new brands (e.g. 5preview, scandalousinnuendos) which reached fame and success thanks to the internet (free) advertising through social networks like myspace and a consequent massive word of mouth effect. Behind them very often there are group of friends that manage to start their “business” all by themselves, with few expenses and a lot of…creative imagination.

Let’s see now how they did that analyzing two different steps of this process: creation and promotion.

Who knows, maybe one of my readers might be interested and one day will become a notorious designer thanks to my suggestions!

Thousands of websites and e-shops promote t-shirts on which customers can print paintings or sentences chosen by themselves so that they can buy customized and particularly fanciful creations for few euros.

There are a lot of peculiar techniques of production and when you’re projecting how to build up your business from zero, you need to think about which one suits your idea the best considering your starting budget and the way you want to develop what you have in mind in the future.Infact you can choose between simple print, embroderies, serigraph and so on and your costs of investment change according to the technique you decide to pick: the most common one (which is also the cheapest) is the print, that gives you the possibility of creating what you want easily, with no need of particular skills or experiences. If you have got a smart idea but few money to invest, you can rely on external entreprises that will produce the t-shirts for you on commission or, even better, you can start your own activity zero costs by adressing yourself to websites you trust: if you are sure they will take care properly and seriously of print quality and adequacy of materials, they’ll do the job for you with very low prices (you won’t have to buy all the very expensive equipments necessary for professional prints) and you’ll have the time to concern just about the creative side, promotion and selling of ready-to-wear t-shirts.

Any advice about recommended websites needed? The most popular ones are: Customthink, E-shirt, Spreadshirt and many more.

For those who are really curious about how self-made t-shirts are actually made, here you have two videos which show us different techniques involving different “instruments” to create design tees on your own: have a look and see if you can find some inspiration!

Designers are recentely a bit in cage because of fashion system crisis: they were told they need to slow down with their extravagant creations, trying to link themselves to a major number of clients, so more and more often their clothes are getting wearable, many times they re-invent collections inspired to previous ones by the same brand declining in different ways fashion statemens clients appreciated the most (buying concretely in stores).

Anyway, they’re still keeping a free-zone in which they can work as real artists, creating objects exactly as they had in mind, avoiding worries about “next phases” (anyone will buy it?): accessories, in particular shoes.

Let’s see what happens when designers’ imagination gets wild and leaves their heads directly aiming to reach our feets!

So, here you have just few examples of Beautiful Killers, that are pure joy for eyes and at the same time cause of extreme suffering for our poor feet and (not to forget) for our wallets (Alexander Mc Queen’s ones overcome 4000 $)!

Besides even many professional models seem to have quite a few problems handle with these creations…

What do you think? Can you “suffer” these fashion crimes or you’d like to see in shops just normal, wearable, practical, common (and maybe a bit boring) accessories?

Well, I guess you’ll easily get my opinion if you “carefully” analyze the adjectives I chose for the previous sentence!

Collaborations between different brands are the way forward now in a rapidly changing fashion landscape.

Everyone from high-street retailers right through to smaller are collaborating with creatives from all disciplines in an effort to bring a bit of true individuality, exclusivity and authenticity back into fashion. Besides, this kind of cooperation between forces having same interests (selling their creations to as many clients as possible) but sometimes very different targets (e.g.: haute couture VS fast clothing clients) seems to give strenght, adding attractiveness, to a fashion world which is suffering the effects of the post global economic crisis.

What people want now? A nice price. The “nice price” gets fashion, but it’s not something simply temporary.

This attitude is taking the form of an earthquake hitting the fashion market: Topshop arrives in New York, in the middle of Soho, Zara opens shops very quickly all over the world even in places far from the fashion crowds like New Delhi or Bombay. As it seems, Zara (inditex Group) has a large number of designers at work everyday to be able to offer their clients new lines 12 times for year: big names of fashion maisons, once very snob, will have to reconsider this phenomenon to reach the success of fast fashion, so called for its abilty of proposing new clothes (almost) continuously.

Perfect example of a successful collaboration between big names and fast fashion is H&M, who recently put at work designers like Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Roberto Cavalli, Victor & Rolf, Jimmy Choo and many more.

Here you have the wonderful spot created by H&M for the arrival in stores of the line conceived by Karl Lagerfeld, which ironically jokes about what the common posh chanel haute couture target clients of Lagerfeld could think about this “joint venture”.

I’ve already tried and introduce you the topic of Fashion Bloggers in general, now let’s see if we can dig deeper by asking some few questions to a “real” italian fashion blogger, lovely Nathalie Maggiori from My floor is red.

How long have you been keeping your blog? What does its name “My floor is red” mean?

I’ve started my first blog about three years ago writing on the platform of style.it, then I decided to move to google.it and this is where I decided to create “My floor is red”. Where does the title of my blog come from? Probably to my lack of imagination! I had no particular titles for my blog in mind and many of my outfits were, at the beginning, self-made photos shot at home…with my terrible red floor well exposed: that’s how I decided to make something I hated a peculiar attribute of my blog!

What pushed you to the idea of creating a blog? In your mind, you decided to put your focus on fashion from the beginning or this idea came to your mind little by little?

The idea, actually came to my mind on the way! At first my blog followed more the scheme of a diary: I talked about anything happened to me, my passions and even my personal happenings. By the passing of time I decided then to restrict my topics and give fashion a central position: this is how it’s born what many people call “fashion blog”.

According to you, what made you become one of the most followed italian fashion bloggers? What’s your secret?

Well, I really don’t know, I even do not consider myself as one of the most followed ones!  Anyway, in my opinion in order to make a blog really enjoyable and appreciated by your followers you need to cure it finely, you must post articles quite often and periodically and be willing to accept advices and critics: who writes a blog, despite the others, step forward and get involved, and shouldn’t behact with superiority, as there is no such difference with those who read! However there are also different cases of people who already work for the fashion industry and can count on a large amount of experience in the sector, so…

How did your “blogger occupation” change your relationship with fashion industry?

I’ve had the chance to meet many nice and kind persons, while others acted less professionally. Let’s say that requests of collaboration are directly connected to the success of the blog: many times those who get in touch with me just want to know about the number of visits reached by my blog per month. So we can say that most of the contacts depend on the merely “numerical success” of the blog, not caring so much about other aspects (like the effective blog quality), and this fact makes me a bit disappointed.

What do you think about the unstoppable advance of fashion bloggers? Is there a link between this new approach to “common people” by fashion maisons and economical crisis which affected heavily the fashion system?

In my opinion things are definitely changing! One example of this new wave could be Luisa Via Roma event that took place these days in Florence.

How are your relations with other bloggers? Do you collaborate with each other or you feel competition and rivalry instead?

I personally do not feel myself in competition with any other blogger. I keep my blog for a passion of mine, during my free time…I mean, for me my blog it’s fun, not a job!

Sometimes I accept to collaborate or to promote advertising banners on my blog…but not certainly for an issue of money, I only accept proposals which I judge interesting for my readers and me. I’m studying law, I see my future in the legal sphere! If anyone ever felt a threat coming from my blog (I don’t even think it’s possible), I’d tell her/him not to be worried about anything: I do not aim to any “position” in the fashion system!

Your outfits are always very original because you manage to combine perfectly designer clothes with other brands suitable for any pocket (H&M, Zara…): anyway, if you’d have to chose between 3 total looks signed by 3 different designers, who whould you pick?

I know you’re also a super busy law student! How do you handle this whole combining fashion blogging actvity and your career at university?

Well, you can say that aloud, it’s not easy at all! Trying to combine the two things it’s sometimes really  impossible (e.g. during exams session). Anyway, I often use my blog as a solution to chill out and take a break from the tension brought by the study, to think to something else!

Fashion royalty romance gossip,

fashion

They said/We said:style

PATRIZIO DI MARCO AND FRIDA GIANNINI PHOTO BY WIREIMAGE

We got a serious case of the awws when we read that Frida Giannini and Patrizio di Marco, Gucci’s creative director and CEO, respectively, have outed their relationship to the world after more than two years of dating. Workplace romances can be risky, but after a fateful business trip to China, the two knew that it was a risk they were willing to take.

It seems like they went about their “coming out” in all the right ways: they separately met with François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR (which owns Gucci), to admit the affair—aware that they might lose their jobs—but luckily, Pinault was “very supportive.” They told the rest of the company before the rest of the world, and we’re hoping that everyone’s as supportive as we are.

This is the second day in a row that our chosen news story has been about the personal relationships of fashion royalty, and though we’re still concerned about the privacy limits that are breached, we totally get that Giannini and di Marco wanted to come clean. It’s nice to hear about a thriving relationship, and we can’t help but imagine that this one is a bit of an Italian fairy tale—full of beautiful clothes, hair products, late night dinners in small cafes, and lots of red wine.

THEY SAID…

Fashionologie: “Although many fashion brands are or have been run by couples — Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti, Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge — this marks the first time the couple is not the owners of the brand but rather its employees.” [Fashionologie]

Frida Giannini: “You don’t want to leave the door open for any criticism. There was transparency, but it was not universal; it was logical. Now there will be more. But that doesn’t mean that Patrizio and I will start to kiss in a meeting.” [The Cut]

Patrizio di Marco: “The relationship Frida and I have is very serious. When in life you choose someone to be with… someone you are looking to spend your life with–well, this is a match of minds and souls. We don’t agree on everything. But you only really argue when you have something important to argue about. Otherwise you realise it’s not worth it.” [Belfast Telegraph]

François-Henri Pinault: “This is a family business—it was started by my father, and I know how that can feel and seem to the outside world, but I also know how much that makes you be strict with yourself. And I knew them, so I knew if anything this would make them more demanding with themselves.” [Vogue UK]

WE SAID…

Sarah Daniel, beauty editor: “Someone’s love life is not important or any of our business, but if you’re a public figure there is no such thing as a private life anymore. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the reality. If you’re someone like Frida or Jenna, thinking you can have a covert courtship is naïve and fighting it only makes us want to know more, turning the most mild-mannered girl into a bloodhound. Humans are nosy and voyeuristic by nature, so of course we’re all very interested in who our heroes and heroines are sleeping with. Not only that, we want to know what their house looks like, what’s in their closet, and on their bathroom counter. It’s why sites like Into the Glossare so popular.”