What I love most about Michael Kors is the elegance and simplicity of his products. The brand has mastered perfectly the clean-lined and slightly sporty style of luxury, making it look incredibly sophisticated.
Michael Kors himself once mentioned in an interview with Vogue that “With simplicity you can’t fake it” – which I absolutely agree with. Therefore, I decided to feature this amazing brand in my latest illustration.
So now that the first part is clear, you are probably still wondering what I mean by India Edition? Well, that’s pretty simple – I just returned from my 7-weeks India trip, during which I discovered that Indians are actually quite fond of Michael Kors. Obviously, I wanted to celebrate this fact in my illustration and decided to include the typical Indian henna design on the hands. I think it looks great and I recommend any girl visiting India to get a henna (also called mehndi) design done on her hands. It only costs around 200 rupees or £2, but will be an unforgettable experience.
Inspiration
For this particular illustration, I decided to feature the amazing Marina Gathered Tote bag by MK. I’m sure you will agree with me that it looks very chic and sporty at the same time and therefore perfectly represents the brand’s identity. Also, I thought I’d follow MK’s footsteps and keep my sketch pretty simple this time – hands, bag and nothing else. I hope you like it.
Behind the scenes
I’d like to share with you a few “in the making” sketches. Especially, I thought its funny how I actually had to “apply” the henna design as the last step of the drawing… as if they were real hands.
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Prada has always fascinated me and I’ve been wanting to do an illustration about this amazing brand for quite a while. However, it proved to be an incredible challenge to find the right theme portraying Prada’s brand identity which is associated with elegance, class, sophistication and avant-garde.
Prada’s strong brand image is based on the continuous collaboration between fashion and art, therefore creating an entirely new lifestyle in the world of hyper luxury. Miuccia Prada’s courageous fascination with “ugliness” gives the brand a certain arrogance, showing the rest of the world that it is not necessary to comply with the rules of fashion and beauty in order to succeed. In her eyes beauty is boring whereas ugliness is much more exciting and captivating. The more research I did about Prada the more mesmerized I felt about it, which made me want to include it into my blog by all means.
Inspiration
The inspiration for the Prada sketch is based on the Fall/Winter 2013 campaign which I find very feminine and emotional while staying in line with its typical “detached from reality avant-garde style”. I love the new leather bag which looks very modern and vintage at the same time. Therefore, I decided to give it the star role in my new illustration.
Moreover, I wanted to bring in the dresses from the FW13 collection, which in my opinion incorporate the highest level of femininity – up to the point where they almost look scandalously seductive with the dropped shoulder strap on one side.
Finally, I wanted to stress the avant-garde and surreal style of the brand merging the model with the bag and ending up with the final draft of the illustration. In my artwork I also wanted to show how successful this hyper luxury brand is, meaning that one or the other girl already might have lost her mind over a Prada bag…
Behind the scenes
For this sketch I tried to experiment with a different kind of pastels, going back to the soft and dry pastel sticks, instead of the oil pastels which I usually use.
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When I first saw the D&G Autumn/Winter 2014 campaign it really stroke me how full of emotions all those images are. Normally, luxury fashion brands have very laid back and absolutely expressionless girls in their campaigns, which should represent the coolness of the brand and its superiority. But D&G decided to show their hot Italian roots, loading the campaign with all sort of emotions. I love them for being so different and decided to include their cheeky approach into my illustration.
Inspiration
In my work I really wanted to highlight the Baroque Romanticism of the D&G AW14 collection as I really love those crowns and the huge chandelier earrings with the incredible load of embelishment! It really makes you feel like you’re back in the time, playing a princess of your own fashion castle.
Going very heavily on embelishment as well, I decided to include those cool Baroque Flower Square sunglasses to complete the look of my cheeky D&G Diva.
Behind the scenes
For this illustration my biggest challenge was to draw the small details of the crown and and the earrings with my oil pastels. Moreover, as I was creating a .gif file, my first approach was to draw two identical images with different facial expressions – which I soon realised was absolutely impossible… therefore I had to use a secret trick…
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Hermès – the importance of heritage in the world of luxury fashion…
Description
Before I start explaining my sketch, I’d like to educate you a little bit about the history of Hermès. The brand was founded in 1839 in Paris as a house of harness- and saddle maker and has an amazing heritage! Well, at this point I don’t want to bore you any more, but in case you’re truly interested in Hermès’ story you’re more than welcome to read about it on my Business Marketing Blog.
Hermès is very proud of its craftsmanship and the quality of the products it makes – and I love their products. That’s why I wanted to feature them in my blog!
Inspiration
As mentioned before, when doing some research about Hermès for my Marketing blog I discovered that they used to be a saddle making company! Therefore, I wanted to put their amazing heritage in centre of my artwork. I deliberately drew a horse without a rider, so that the viewer can admire the harness and the saddle in their fullest glory! Around the horse, I decided to draw the iconic Hermès belt which also represents the present time. In other words, not only I wanted to concentrate on the brand’s heritage, but I also wanted to show how the company has developed over the years while staying true to its qualitative leather products.
Behind the scenes
For this one, I decided to experiment with moving images and created my first ever gif. file. Yay! Enjoy!
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I have been introduced to the brand just about half a year ago, but I already learned to love its crazy and ultra-seductive lips clutches. For me personally, lips have always symbolised femininity and emotions. Therefore, I think that it’s a great idea to build your brand around those values.
The idea for this sketch came to me when I attended the launching party for LULU GUINNESS Paint Project, featuring the young artist Joseph Steele. Seeing many beautiful people wearing the clutch at the event I decided that I want to include it into my Fashion Artista blog at any cost.
Inspiration
In my mind, I wanted to create a black and white sketch, although you would normally think that you should draw lips in red colour… I started to browse LULU’s website and found this amazing black Perspex Lips Clutch which I knew straight away will be the centre of my project!
Moreover, I thought that if Lulu’s brand message is all about lips, my project will be all about lips as well! (…and maybe wings as well that symbolise the heavenly feeling you get when purchasing one of those clutches…) Jokes aside, I think that the sketch turned out quite cool – let me know what you think.
Behind-the-scenes
I’ve decided that in order to get you involved in my projects as much as possible I will always try to share with you the process of making each artwork.
Without saying much more, here is a sneak peek behind the scenes.
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I don’t event know where to start with this one… I was browsing through the news the other day and saw an article about this limited edition LEGO clutch by Chanel which is being worn by many celebrities and costs around £5,000. It is made out of plastic and looks just sooo LEGO! I have a small brother (he’s 6 years old) who is obsessed with Lego – he occasionally makes me assemble cars and houses with him… Long story short, I decided that this clutch is just brilliant and I definitely want to feature it in my blog. I instantly had those LEGO girls in my mind who are fighting for this clutch (as it’s limited edition) just like in the real word! And although it is way too big for them and they can’t possibly carry it anywhere they are simply fascinated by this incredible Chanel item…wouldn’t you be?
Inspiration
As already mentioned before, I got inspired by an article featuring celebrities who are big fans of the Chanel LEGO clutch. For me this is just one more proof that everything Chanel does turns into gold.
Behind the scenes
Here is another sneak peek of my work behind the scenes. For this sketch I used oil pastels for the first time in my life (I usually work with soft pastels) and it proved to be more difficult than I’d like to admit as you can’t erase any mistakes once you started to draw… although the colours look very vibrant in the end, so I think it was worth the effort.
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I have always admired Louis Vuitton. I think this brand has such a huge influence on people that its not even funny anymore. In fact, I’ve done some research about Louis Vuitton quite a while ago for my Business Marketing blog. Although, I was analysing their celebrity endorsement methods back then, I couldn’t help noticing how all the branding and marketing campaigns Louis Vuitton does are focused on one thing – THE JOURNEY. Which makes perfectly sense for an iconic handbag brand!!!
Personally, I love travelling! Journeys have always been associated with positive emotions – making friends, discovering new places and cultures, discovering yourself…
For my art project, I decided that its important to focus on the idea of journey. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to feature just any journey – I wanted to feature THE JOURNEY OF LIFE, even more so – I wanted to create an artwork about THE JOURNEY OF LIFE of those two LV handbags!!! Why? Well, because each product has a life. (If you don’t believe me, ask any economist and he will tell you about the Product Life Cycle Theory!) Now, the most amazing thing is that because of the great quality of LV products, the journey of life of a Louis Vuitton bag could possibly be as long as the life of its owner… meaning that your bag might be your travelling friend throughout your entire life!
On another note, I thought it would be rather sweet creating a sketch of two handbags, holding hands on their journey of life… don’t you agree?
Behind the scenes
For this artwork, my biggest challenge was the LV monogram… Believe me, it is incredibly difficult to draw such tiny details with my oil pastels! I still hope that you can recognise the iconic bags, maybe you even know their names?
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Last week, French luxury group Hermès posted a 16 percent rise in second-quarter sales, reaching $1.19 billion (£788m), with highest growth originating in Asia and North America. According to experts, the secret of company’s success is its strong ability to combine heritage with innovation, managing to capture new customers along the way. Luxury Daily magazine also noted that the high revenue of the brand might be due to the to sales of home furnishings and a strong spring/summer 2013 marketing campaign.
Lets take a look at all the above mentioned factors and analyse the impact they might have had on the sales.
Hermès Spring/Summer 13 campaign
The SS13 campaign was very strong indeed, with a particular focus on sport deluxe, which goes well in line with Hermès sports heritage.
The campaign can be described as “Delightful sport life captured in its best moments by Nathaniel Goldberg with the gorgeous Iselin Steiro at the Lake Como, Italy.”
Hermès home furnishings
Hermes has made a huge investment in home furnishings. Designers such as Antonia Citterio, Enzo Mari and Nigel Peake among others, have been commissioned to create designs of fabrics, wallpaper, sofas, chairs, tables, and room dividers. This year, Hermès has unveiled its new collection of bespoke furnishings “Les Nécessaires d’Hermes” by Philippe Nigro. Exposed at the Milan International Furniture Fair in a unique construction created from superimposed origami houses, the interior creations haven’t failed to fascinate the visitors.
Hermès Heritage
Founded as a house of harness- and saddle-making in 1839 in Paris, Hermès has always been proud of its heritage and craftsmanship. Well, what is the best way to show off its incredible and unique “savoir-faire” to the curious customers, other than to go on tour and demonstare it first-hand? Therefore, it is only natural that Hermès came up with the idea of the “Festival des Métiers”, which is a world tour, where Hermès fans have a chance to have a “rendez-vous” with the brand’s craftspeople and experience the fascinating insight into the exquisite production of Hermès hand-made objects.
Targeting the Ultra-Rich
When taking a closer look at Hermès, which sells £300 silk scarves and £10,000 Birkin handbags, it is not difficult to see which customer group the company is targeting. According to Forbes, there are 1,426 billionaires recorded this year, which is 200 more than in 2012. With the increasing number of super-wealthy customers, the demand of exclusive luxury goods is also continuously on a rise. A while ago, a Hermès diamond BIRKIN was sold for $203,150 setting a new world record for the most expensive handbag ever sold at a public auction.
Moreover, according to Forbes most billionaires in the world originate from US, which is one of the countries with the strongest sales growth for Hermès. Sales originated in Asia also experienced a surge, despite the new official policy forbidding business related gift-giving in China. The strong growth in Asia might be due to changing behaviour of the luxury customer, particularly in China, where exclusivity and craftsmannship are becoming more and more important.
Conclusions
1. Positioning
Hermès has a very strong positioning in the luxury market, which it owes its almost 200-year old heritage, exquisite craftsmannship and savvy marketing mix which we are going to analyse further below. 2. Pricing
The incredibly high prices provoke the sense of exclusivity, which is exactly what the luxury consumers are after.
Another way of achieving exclusivity is launching limited edition series. Hermès is a big supporter of limited editions as well as generally limited amount of products being sold in their stores. (I remember that my friend who wanted to buy a Hermès belt had to visit their store about 4 times before finally getting one, as it was sold out every time he came in – they intentionally don’t order a big stock of products to maintain exclusivity.)3. Heritage
As mentioned before, Hermès has a long and solid heritage. However, the most interesting fact about it is the way the brand is communicating it to the customers. I think that the “Festival des Métiers” world tour is one of the best marketing strategies developped for this purpose, as personal contact has always made a stronger impact than any images or videos could ever have. 4. Designer Collaborations
With regard to home furnishings, Hermès is making the most out of its products through collaborations with famous interior designers. As a result, both the brand and the designer benefit from each other’s reputation, boosting the sales of the exquisite home creations at the same time.
There are many other aspects which have to be taken into consideration when analysing a brand’s marketing strategy, but I think that we’ve gone through the most important ones for Hermes.
Let me know what you think about the brand. Do you own or want to own any of their products? What do you think about their positioning and their marketing strategy? As always, if you like this and other articles on my blog, please feel free to like and share it with your friends!
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According to the World Luxury Index™ China, “Chanel has become the #1 most sought-after global luxury brand in China”, overtaking competitors such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci.
Chanel’s beauty products
This year’s report has also revealed that part of Chanel’s success is thanks to its huge stake in beauty segment, as 22.70% of Chinese consumer interest whithin luxury market is in beauty, compared to fashion which accounts 14.90%.
Chanel’s dedication to its beauty products most likely has helped the brand to get the first rank in the report, overtaking Louis Vuitton which is rather focused on fashion.
Chanel has a wide range of beauty products, with celebrities such as Diane Kruger being the latest face of its beauty advertising campaign.
Events & Exhibitions
Another great venture started by Chanel is its “Little Black Jacket Exhibition” tour which is going around the world, including cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. It is not the first time Chanel is hosting an exhibition in China. Its last event was “Culture Chanel” in Guangzhou, which I am looking into further below. In general, events and exhibitions like those ones really push the image of the brand as they have a very special vibe around them and stimulate all senses of the audience, leaving a more lasting impression than any other type of advertising.
1. Chanel’s little black jacket exhibition
Chanel’s little black jacket exhibition in Beijing and Shanghai with celebrtity attendance certainly had a huge impact on Chinese luxury customers and increased the prestige of the brand.
2. Culture Chanel exhibition in Guangzhou (China)
In a collaboration with Jean-Louis Froment, Chanel decided to organise this exhibition which should reinforce the idea of a fusion between art and fashion.According to Jean-Louis Froment, “this movement is driven by a cultural aura that has surrounded the brand since its very beginnings, embodied by its creator, Gabrielle Chanel, who has created a language all of her own. This language, which is part of the history of women and of all the artistic forms of modernity, has spanned many eras: it has given the brand’s creations recognition that is unrivalled, a quest for excellence and the desire to give these creations the status they deserve.”
Bags and Wallets
Moreover, the report states that bags and wallets dominate the fashion market in China, accounting for almost 90% of total interest. Celine’s “Luggage,” consolidates its iconic status in the mainland as the #1 most popular handbag model, followed by Hermès’ Birkin and Chanel’s 2.55. It is a little surprising that Louis Vuitton is not in the top 3, although it has overall the second rank in the report. Talking to a friend from China lately about this issue, I found out that the typical Louis Vuitton Monogram bag is apparently already too common in China and has lost its exclusivity. On the other hand, Chanel’s vision is to remail an exclusive brand. The creative director Karl Lagerfeld mentions in an interview “We don’t have the urgency to expand. We are an exclusive brand and we want to stay exclusive so it’s strategic to not be everywhere. What we are starting to learn is that like every developed market, the clients there want things other people can’t get. That’s what defines luxury in many ways so we’ve been careful, but in a very calculated way.”
“The original square buckle, Link Check, metal chain strap leather string… Chanel 2.55 was born in February 1955, after half a century of temper, carrying the old tradition and modern innovation, the perfect blend of classic visual appeal and practicality Chanel 2.55 handbag, keen attention by numerous fashion and fashion fanatics worship.”
Chinese brand ambassadors
Celebrity endorsement in China is very important as it gives people someone to relate and to aspire to. Many Western luxury brands use East-Asian embassadors as they can deliver the brand’s messaging better than any other celebrity.
Chanel’s ambassador is a well-known Chinese actress Zhou Xun, who has been selected for her strong fashion sense. Karl Lagerfeld is describing the actress as “a synthesis of young Coco Chanel and Ballet Troupe Zizi Jeanmaire.”
What do you think about Chanel? Do you think its ranking in China is well deserved?
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With a 33p surge in sales announcement last week, Ted Baker proves to be on the right track to a worldwide success.
The 25-year old brand has been expanding internationally for the last few years, opening new stores and concessions in Asia, US, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Currently, the number of Ted’s stores globally stands at 300 and the brand is reportedly planning to expand in the Middle Eastern cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Not surprisingly, the sales of the UK brand are mostly boosted by positve reaction of international customers to the humorous and quirky brand and its well-crafted quality products.
When taking a closer look at Ted Baker’s marketing strategy, we can see that the brand has a very unique approach which makes it stand out from the competition and in my opinion is partly responsible for its success.
The brand positions itself in the accessible luxury segment with its prices ranging from 30 to 500 pounds and everything in between.
It is targeting young fashionable customers with a colourfull fashion sense and a desire for good quality products.
Let’s take a closer look at Ted Baker’s marketing strategy. It is fun and approachable, but also cool and luxurious at the same time, which is quite an unusual mix.
Therefore, the brand has to make sure that the product quality is impeccable, otherwise its down-to-earth strategy might bring down ist luxury status quite quickly.
However, as the sales boom, Ted Baker seem to have found the perfect balance between the two traits.
In order to identify Teds accessible attitude, its enough just to take a look at their Facebook page. On the other hand, the company is also organising different events and is advertising in glossy magazines to ensure their positioning in the high-end fashion sector.
Ted Baker is the master of competitions
– they are taking place almost every week
– allow the company to engage better with its consumers
– help to increase the number of facebook followers
– bring the fun spirit of the brand closer to the customers
BUT
– too many competitions (similar to sales) can decrease the luxury status of a brand
– if a brand is easily accessible it becomes less desirable
Ted Baker uses special occasions and public holidays to boost sales
– occasions such as Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day etc.
– suggesting perfect gifts for the special person
– organising store activities around that date to increase footfall
Ted Baker uses innovative marketing campaigns to stand out from the competition
– Ted’s Drawing room
– Life music performances for store opening and other events
– Men’s tailoring events
– Shopping events (Discount All Day at a certain store)
– Sweet shoppe
– Vogue Fashion Night Out
Ted Baker emphasizes its British heritage
– British themed Events and store decoration
– integrated London in ist logo
– British culture and products are very valued internationally
Ted Baker advertises in glossy magazines
– positioning at the same level as other luxury brands
– British VOGUE collaboration for the recent 25-years jubilee
– interviews with Ted Baker help the audience to understand better the brand
As we can see, Ted has a quite interesting marketing mix, organising activities of which I just named a few. It is defnitely an interesting brand to watch and I think we all are very curious how it is going to progress over time.
What do you think of Ted Baker and its marketing strategy? Do you like the brand’s clothes? If you like this and other articles on my blog, please feel free to like and share it with your friends! Let me know your thoughts and don’t forget to follow my blog for more Fashion.Marketing.Secrets!
What I love most about Michael Kors is the elegance and simplicity of his products. The brand has mastered perfectly the clean-lined and slightly sporty style of luxury, making it look incredibly sophisticated. 
Fashion Marketing Secrets 