Way Off the Runway

 

F. Martin Ramin for The Wall Street Journal, Styling by Anne Cardenas

     
When Natalya Rovner walks through her neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, it isn't her designer bag or dress that people stop to ask her about. Instead they want to know where she got a certain pair of colorful moccasins. "People will come up to me to ask about things I'm wearing, and it's not like I can tell them to go around the corner—I found the moccasins in Beirut."

   
Due to a surge in sample-sale websites like Gilt Groupe, the cachet once associated with owning a name-brand designer has been significantly diluted; getting your hands on a Marc Jacobs bag is easier than it's ever been. This, combined with a post-recession wariness of conspicuous logo-flaunting and an eco-fueled desire for small-batch, low-impact authenticity, may be shifting the nature of luxury. It's no longer about who made your dress, but at what out-of-the-way dusty market you found it. Call it the Eat, Pray, Love-ization of fashion.

    
"Now you have to try harder. It's not so luxurious to have something that everybody else has, that's sold in every city in the world," said Julia Chaplin, author of the 2009 book "Gypset Style," which chronicles the emerging class of creative types living the jet-set-meets-gypsy lifestyle. Last month, she launched the Gypset collection of dresses, pillows and sarongs made from African textiles. Ms. Chaplin notes that finding items from exotic locales also makes for stellar cocktail chatter. "I think there's something cool about saying you got that thing from, you know, some tiny island in Indonesia," she said.

     
Of course, there's also the implied price tag for items collected in faraway lands. That bracelet may have only cost you 100 pesos in Manila, but the trip that got you there cost a lot more.

   

For those who won't be jetting off to a souk in Marrakech anytime soon, several online boutiques obviate the need to go through passport control. This past fall, Alisa Ng launched the e-commerce site L-atitude, aimed at both real and aspiring globetrotters. The former Morgan Stanley derivatives trader, who was based in Hong Kong, spent a lot of time traveling throughout Asia, where she became obsessed with finding unique, local items. "I realized, 'Wow, why is there no online experience that captures that discovery process?' " Ms. Ng said. The site, which you can navigate city by city (Bali, Bogotá, Manila, Mumbai), features handpicked artisanal clothing, jewelry and homewares as well as modern pieces by the cities' up-and-coming designers.

     

She and her colleagues take regular shopping trips, and employ a team of local "tastemakers" to scope out items for them. Since the site is still young, the "early adopters," according to L-atitude CMO Ashley Wick, "are women that are confident in their own personal style beyond wearing a label; they don't need to wear Louis Vuitton in order to feel like they're participating in fashion." And the nature of the site lowers the odds of showing up to a party wearing the same Turkish sarong as someone else. "We don't buy in mass quantities," said Ms. Wick. "So there isn't the possibility that 100 people will have the same item that you have."

      

Fashion designers are also jumping on the trend. "As the world keeps moving faster and faster, and fashion has become more disposable, people are seeking out things that have a realness to them; things that are not so obviously cranked out of the widget conveyer," said Julia Leach, the former creative director of Kate Spade, who started her own lifestyle brand, Chance, last summer. The line was inspired by the idea of creating a perfect striped T-shirt, for which she trolled French vintage shops to study time-honed sailor-shirt-making techniques. An online store and pop-up boutique in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood also sell items Ms. Leach stumbled upon while overseas ("I'm like a pig hunting for truffles when I travel," she said), including espadrilles from a remote Spanish village, and Indian scarves designed by British textile artist Jeanette Farrier.

During our daily discussions over WWD articles and other fashion articles, Leslie brought to my attention this article and idea of where fashion might be heading. This entire concept is exactly what my group and I were trying to accopmish and understand on my recent trip to Ghana. I had the opportunity to meet with local "tastemakers" in Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi. In Cape Coast we got to tour the Global Mamas organization, which Global Mamas is a non-profit and fair trade organization assisting women in Africa to become economically independent. By purchasing Global Mamas products, you are offering sustainable livelihoods to women and their families living in poverty. All proceeds go directly to the women and to the non-profit programs that assist them with business development. Leslie stated that this while idea of fashion could really peg the changing face of fashion as far as moving away from labels toward more unique items. Both of us agreed this will be interesting to keep an eye on in the up coming years.

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SWERDLOFF, A. (2011, June 25). Artisanal Fashions From Way Off the Runway - WSJ.com. Business News & Financial News - The Wall Street Journal - Wsj.com. Retrieved July 3, 2011, from http://www.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576

Week: Four

Company Name: Ben

Internship position: Product Development Intern