I read that the Bravo Network, famous for originating the Project Runway series, is desperate for the opportunity to create a Marc Jacobs reality show:
Bravo Network Desperate For Some Marc Jacobs Appeal: "Project Runway began on Bravo TV, the place that The Rachel Zoe Project calls home. The network has made fashion reality a priority, and it's hoping to continue the trend. Evidently it's got it's eyes set on Marc Jacobs. After reading a past interview where the designer discussed wanting his own reality show, Bravo has been chomping at the bit to get the ball rolling."
Though it would seem that Bravo is likely to need Jacobs more than Jacobs needs Bravo.
Really, Jacobs already has as much attention, prestige and cash as any single human being could reasonably manage in one lifetime, so the only way I can see a Marc Jacobs reality show happening is if global luxury sales continue to seriously crater and LVMH (for whom Jacobs designs both the Louis Vuitton label and his own namesake company) suggests that perhaps Jacobs could do a little something more to prop those wobbling sales numbers back up.
Video clip below of the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2010 collection, arguably the first time a major fashion powerhouse has so openly paraded/celebrated the ghetto fabulous lifestyle down a runway. The Urban Dictionary defines "ghetto fabulous" as: "The combination of bad taste, an urban aesthetic and the desire to wear one's wealth. Basically, high priced but tacky clothing and accessories":
NYMag's The Cut remarked: "The handbags had giant, fluffy fur tails in various neon shades dangling from them, but this is nothing new to those of you who live in Williamsburg. When we lived there not long ago, a bag with a fur tail dangling off of it was at least a weekly sighting ... Marc Jacobs gets his tattoos in Williamsburg; perhaps he's noticed the neighborhood's affinity for tails and wanted to bring one of the most hilarious elements of modern hipster fashion to the Paris runway."
It's a good bet that Jacobs is no longer designing the Louis Vuitton line for Western consumers. LVMH is aggressively expanding eastward (Mongolia, anyone?), with China's consumers now said to spend more on luxury accessories than Western consumers, so this portrayal of Western street fashion is less homage and more like a sales pitch front-loaded with caricature and meant to play directly into Eastern stereotypes of American urban culture.
***Note: stereotyping does not equal racism, but is more the result of uncritical thinking due to a lack of extended exposure and/or direct experience with the culture being stereotyped.
Stereotypes deal in imagery that's easy, safe, often cartoonish and doesn't offend anyone, except maybe the object of the stereotype -- in this case, the kicked-to-the-curb Western consumer with more time on their hands than money in their pockets anymore, so who cares about them anyway, right?
Sheesh, all it takes is one teensy-weensy financial meltdown and spending dries up faster than tear ducts at a Botox clinic. Who could possibly have seen that one coming?
"Fasten your seatbelts -- it's going to be a bumpy night"
The luxury companies were there for us, man -- offering padded, sequined silk shoulders to cry on and dyed, tasseled and studded reptile skin tote bags to hold all our debt-ridden dreams, but did we care? No. Once the bubble burst, we just wanted more more more for less less less until our once BFF luxury pals jumped ship and swam all the way to China.
Will the luxury brands come crawling back? Maybe, but maybe not. Our own economy is presently stalled, even with stimulus checks having flown, but will Asian consumers treat the fashion houses any better in the long run? The Magic 8 Ball says "not bloody likely!"
China's stimulus bubble bursting? -- "The Chinese world is awash with serious cash ... Interest rates are not only paltry but notional. This is more than low-cost capital, or even no-cost capital. Hardly anyone's thinking about repaying the billions of bucks involved. Most of it has swiftly found its way into property and shares. Within China, house sales have surged 70 per cent this year . . . One of the results of this extraordinary sloshing around of cash is naturally increasing the already yawning gaps in China and Hong Kong between the wealthy, connected elite, and the rest."
Sound familiar?
More More More for Less Less Less!
The Chinese government has been steadily issuing stimulus checks to its citizens for the last nine months, and the money has to go somewhere, so why not into luxury property, clothing and accessories -- which, besides fueling a new craze for Western status symbols, has the added plus of keeping an enormous number of Chinese workers employed (albeit at much lower wages than their Western counterparts).
Exhibit A: The NYTimes writes that, "Rolls-Royce, which did not even have dealerships in Asia until 2003, immediately received 20 orders for its new $250,000 Ghost when it presented the car in Hong Kong last month -- despite taxes that double the price." Easy money, meet Rolls Royce.
The massive growth/expansion that luxury brands experienced in the late 90's and early 2000's were a direct result of our own over-heated real estate and stock markets, fueled by the double-dip treat of easy credit and low interest rates. Yet the same thing is happening right now in China, which makes those "Sales are up 29%!" headlines sparkle with less fervor in the cold light of reality.
Facts and Figures: "The Gucci group now has more stores in the Asia-Pacific region except Japan (145) than in North America (102), including 38 stores in continental China without counting Hong Kong and Macau . . . Out of 300 openings of luxury stores in 2009 ... 15 percent will be in China, 25 percent in other Asian countries, 30 percent in the Middle East, and 15 percent in Eastern Europe and the Middle East."
That leaves just 15% of new store openings left for North and South America, Russia and Western Europe combined, so I guess you can't really fault the companies for running to where the cash is flowing. It doesn't matter to them where the money's coming from as long as they're got a pail under the spigot.
Investment researcher Vitaliy Katsenelson writes: "Identifying bubbles is a lot easier than timing them. An astute observer could have seen the Japanese bubble developing in 1986, 1987 and 1988, but he would have been "wrong" until 1989. Now sprinkle on top of this the Chinese government's willingness to do anything in its power to postpone the bursting of the bubble and the complexity of timing increases exponentially."
Keep all this in mind the next time a bafflingly cartoonish collection heads down the runways. It's China's stimulus-flush world right now -- the rest of us are just living in it. While functioning as the comic relief, apparently.
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