Moncler pays homage to its trademark classics with high fashion style for street and slope

With the PyeongCheng Winter Olympics 2018 still fresh in our minds, and arctic temperatures blanketing the whole of the UK and much of Europe, we can learn a thing or two from the continent about how to keep warm, especially if we take notes from the brand is Moncler's latest on offer as previewed at Milan Fashion Week.

The latest collection for Autumn-Winter 2018-19 from its Moncler Grenoble range gives ski and mountain wear a flair for mix-and-match layering, with exploding floral prints, folkloric patterns taken from Eastern European cultures, and Alpine motifs, assuming technical quality with playful sophistication to face up to sub-zero temperatures in the city or up on the slopes.

Meanwhile the Moncler 52 range highlights the brand’s trademark classics reinterpreted with pop colours and contrasting enlarged logo, paying homage to the brand's birth year and defines the natural evolution, of its 66-year of history, based on technical research and creativity.

Indeed the new Moncler 1952 range shows off the brand's forte in delivering lightweight, down parkas and outdoor gear, spiced with street-wise coordinates and  Aztec inspirations.

Moncler was founded at Monestier-de-Clermont, Grenoble, France, in 1952 and is currently headquartered in Italy.






















Known for the brand's unique appeal of combining high style with modern technology taken from mountain apparel, the Moncler brand has been successful in proposing desirable fashion for town and country, from street to slope.

Source and Images: Moncler

Moncler revolutionises fashion showing schedule with monthly installment of 'Genius'

Unveiling its first monthly ‘Genius’ series at Milan Fashion Week (which concluded on Monday 26 February 2018), Remo Ruffoni, the CEO and creative director behind the Moncler brand made headline news with his new way of showcasing the brand's new collections.

Designer Pierpaolo Piccioli has stripped the classic duvet to the clearest shape for Moncler Genius.

Rather than showing in the traditional schedule of twice a year, Moncler is rolling out collections once a month, starting with the first monthly installment of the “Genius” series from a team of  eight designers headlined by Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli.

So far Remo Ruffoni's bold plans and dynamic execution of his strategy to revitalise the Moncler brand have met with commercial success.  Moncler recorded revenues of 1,193.7 million euros (£1,054.28 million), an increase of 15 percent at current exchange rates over 2016.  In the fourth quarter, the company said, revenues rose 17 percent at constant exchange and of 14 percent at current exchange rates.

Recently, speaking to the South China Morning Post at the opening of Moncler's premium 500 sq. metre shop on Canton Road in Hong Kong,  Ruffini said the core of his strategy has been making its signature down jackets desirable items across the globe. “It sells just as well here in Hong Kong as it does in Canada,” he said, and that the company has used new fabric technology to make lighter-weight jackets for warmer climes.  He explained that fundamentally, the brand’s success has been down to two things. “First we are quite young, and (second) we never compromise,” he said in the SCMP report.

Designer Simone Rocha had images of daring Victorian climbers in petticoats in mind. She worked on voluminous silhouettes and deconstructed proportions merging a taste for embellishment with the performance quality of Moncler.

Designer Craig Green conceives items that rewrite the dialogue between clothing and body, dress and habitat. 

Simone Rocha.

Since Remo Ruffini took over the helm in 2003, Moncler manufactures and directly distributes the clothing and accessories collections through its boutiques and in exclusive international department stores and multi-brand outlets, and collaborates with a host of global designers including currently British designer Craig Green, whom Ruffini describes as “one of the few geniuses in menswear” and Simone Rocha. 


















Source and Images: Moncler

Milan Fashion Week Moncler's duvet shapes have a couture élan

The French-Italian brand Moncler (short for Monestier-de-Clermont, an Alpine town near Grenoble, France) is well-known for its lightweight, down parkas and outdoor gear.

Designer Pierpaolo Piccioli has stripped the classic duvet to the clearest shape. Take a look at what the designer unveiled at Milan Fashion Week for Autunm-Winter 2018-19 at Moncler Genius.

The designer follows the idea that purity is reached when form reflects essence. 

His take on functionality has a couture élan.    

Source & Images: Moncler

LENZING announces TENCEL™ as its flagship brand

Austria-based textile and nonwovens cellulose fibres producer LENZING has announced that it is entering a new phase launching its TENCEL™ brand as their flagship brand for textile with a new slogan “Feel So Right” to foster a connection between industry partners, retailers and consumers.  

The TENCEL™ brand portfolio covers a wide range of applications, from activewear to denim, home, intimate apparel and luxury ranges, notably TENCEL™ Active,  TENCEL™ Denim, TENCEL™ Home, TENCEL™ Intimate and  TENCEL™ Luxe, all enabled by two fibres: TENCEL™ Modal and TENCEL™ Lyocell.

Sketches of a nature-inspired TENCEL™ Luxe lounge dress
introuced by Lenzing  and  lingerie guru Jos Berry.

Among the first to team up with LENZING for this new branding milestone is renowned lingerie guru, Jos Berry, Founder and Creative Director of Concepts Paris, introducing a nature-inspired lounge dress made with 100 percent TENCEL™ Luxe, a breakthrough sustainable cellulosic filament yarn specifically for the luxury fashion market, launched a few months ago.

TENCEL™ Luxe sustainable cellulosic filament in a range of colours;
designed specifically for the premium fashion market.

Featuring liquid-like drape and a silky-smooth hand feel, the lounge dress was recently showcased at the Nature Moves Us Exhibition at Interfilière Paris in January 2018 and would be showcased in Hong Kong during Interfilière Hong Kong, slated for 27-28 March 2018.

Ms Berry explained: “With a change in lifestyles, the dividing line between underwear and outerwear is becoming blurry, leading to growing importance of loungewear in the fashion industry, and the TENCEL™ Luxe lounge dress is a perfect fit to the narrative. Given TENCEL™ Luxe is designed for sensuality and engineered for sustainability, we hope to showcase inspirational designs of nature beyond flowers.”

“The TENCEL™ Luxe lounge dress by Jos Berry is a great example of how comfort and sustainability can be integrated with high-end fashion and lingerie,” added Judy Chen, LENZING’S director of Global Business Development, innerwear. “Since there are virtually unlimited possibilities for using TENCEL™ Luxe in fashion, we look forward to seeing more integration of sustainability in the innerwear and lingerie sector through this innovative cellulosic filament yarn.”

Earlier this month, at a press conference on February 13^th 2018 during the Premiere Vision Paris international textile trade fair, LENZING’s Chief Commercial Officer Robert van de Kerkhof said he expected 2018 to be a game-changer year for the fibre group. 

Designed and based on the findings and insights of an extensive market research, the brand architecture is deemed as an important step for LENZING to make the transition from a business-to-business (B2B) fibre producer to a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) brand, underlining its core principles of trust, transparency, reliability and amicability, said Kerkhof, and by leading technology innovation in the textile sector.

Acknowledging a growing trend amongst retail brands and consumers to seek out products that make them look and feel good, but also do good via sustainable and transparent production processes, the TENCEL™ product brand as been redefined with the tagline “Feels so Right” to better communicate the fibre’s characteristics and value.

LENZING’s director of Global Brand Management, Harold Wedhorst, who is based in the group’s Hong Kong office, said their aim is to grow TENCEL™ beyond fibre types and functional characteristics to become a true consumer-focused brand, offering the holistic benefits of botanic fibres that bring comfort and high performance for everyday life.

New swing tags and marketing materials will be launched on a retail level to provide clarity on product benefit claims.  "Co-branding programmes and co-marketing campaigns with retail brands will enable us to reach out to consumers directly," said Amit Gautam, Lenzing's vice president of Global Business Management in Textile.

Read about LENZING'S Denim Competition.

Photos: Lenzing / Lucia Carpio.

Premiere Vision Paris Feb 2018 show reported 54,500 international trade visitors

Reporting an attendance of 54,500 from 120 countries to its February edition of trade fairs, organisers of the prestigious Première Vision Paris say the strong visitor figures confirms its role as the leading influential event for the entire international creative fashion industry.

Held over three days (February 13th – 15th 2018) at Parc des Expositions in Villepinte, Première Vision Paris organisers reveal 71% of the total visitors had come
 from outside of France. 

Among the European countries, the French market was strongly present, with trade and professional visitors up by 4%.  In second place was Italy with 6,125 visitors  - 11% of attendance), followed by the United Kingdom with 5,291 visitors (10% of attendance), then Spain with 3,475 visitors, Germany with 1,844 visitors 3% of visitors, the Netherlands and Belgium. Portugal sent a healthy figure of 1,180 visitors while countries from Northern Europe were led by Sweden (508 visitors) and Denmark (473 visitors).

Some 9% of the professional visitors came from Asia, led by which sent 1,544 visitors, following by South Korea with 990 visitors, and China with 780 visitors.

Turkey saw an almost 20% increase with 2,859 visitors, ranking it as 5th among visitor countries.
However the organisers say the total visitor figures of the February 2018 edition also show a slight decline of 3% compared to the February 2017 shows, following growth experienced in two previous successive editions.

The slight pullback in visitors has been attributed this season’s show dates with the Chinese New Year, a situation that on its own accounted for 50% of the decline in visitors - with visitors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong falling by 42%.

Attendance at the show also reflected current challenges related to the transformation of the retail landscape, which is particularly affecting the US market, with US attendance recording some 1,900 visitors, a decline of nearly 5%.

The next edition of Première Vision Paris will take place September 19-21, 2018.

Photos © Lucia Carpio 2018.

Paris Federation of High Fashion and Premiere Vision trade fairs to join forces to support young fashion talents.

Top quality fabrics are key to the creation of high fashion.  Thus it has come as welcome news that two top French companies responsible for promoting world class fashion materials and quality creative designs should join hands for a valuable cause, with the common goal of bolstering Paris’s position as fashion capital of the world.

Première Vision February 2018 held at Parc Des Expositions, Villepinte, Paris.
 Photo © by Lucia Carpio.

An agreement has been made between the Fédération de la Haute Couture de La Mode and Première Vision - the two leading companies in Paris which share common goals that focus on the international developments of their trade events; a support for creative fashion and young designers and a strong stand and engagement regarding the fashion industry’s key structuring issues, such as Fashion Technology and Responsible Creation.

 Designs SS 2018 by Ziad Nakad
shown at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week.
Photo: Kirsty Sparow / Getty Images for Ziad Nakad

The agreement, which took effect on 1 January 2018 and announced on 15th February 2018 at the conclusion of the latest edition of Première Vision trade fair,  is aimed at strengthening the existing close links between the two companies, with the goal of supporting young creative companies, providing them with training and helping them develop creative and innovative fashion.

This partnership is structured around 3 main areas, according to the announcement:
• Paris World Fashion capital
Developing a programme of initiatives and joint lobbying efforts with the international community and its institutions to enhance Paris attractivity.
• Innovation accelerating the development of Fashion Tech and its players thanks to the first major and dedicated platform: the WEARABLE LAB, a key new development of Première Vision.
• Young Creative talent - supporting the future of creative fashion of young designers and companies selected by the Fédération de la Haute Couture de la Mode during the Paris Fashion Week®.
Première Vision will in turn support the young designers at participation at their trade fairs, specifically in the DESIGNERS APPARTMENT and NEW NOW for emerging brands in their search for creative materials - fabrics, leathers, components - and partners to manufacture their collections.

Paris textile trade fairs recorded 81% of visitors came from abroad, say organisers

The very established Messe Frankfurt France which organised the group of  complementing textile and fashion trade fairs: APPAREL SOURCING PARIS – AVANTEX PARIS – SHAWLS & SCARVES PARIS the accessories showcase – TEXWORLD PARIS – TEXWORLD DENIM PARIS -  which took place at Le Bourget, Paris, from 11 to 14 February 2018, reportedly welcomed 13,606 international visitors, acknowledging that opening the shows on a Sunday had been a success.

 “This February 2018 show with our initiative for a Sunday opening was a trial run for us. The gamble of opening the trade fair on a Sunday (had) paid off with an attendance of 18% of total visitors, who were able conduct their business in a calmer atmosphere,” said Michael Scherpe, President of Messe Frankfurt France, adding that the second day of the fairs, which fell on a Monday proved to be their busiest day of this edition.  However he confirmed that come September 2018, the shows will revert to their previous timetable to open on a Monday, 17th September running until 20th September 2018.

Mr Scherpe revealed that this February, the shows’ attendance remain international: the top five countries were respectively France, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Spain, and Italy.  New visitors were recorded from North America (+7%) and the African continent (+26%), led by the countries who are major suppliers for Europe such as Morocco (+25%) and Turkey (+15%), who came to Le Bourget to carry out sourcing.

The shows welcomed also visitors from emerging markets such as South Africa as well as Ethiopia, which was the country of honour this season.

“The Southern Hemisphere has proved to be very promising, since Australasia recorded a healthy increase of 55%. Nonetheless, we have noted a drop of 6% in attendance from Asian countries, obviously due to Chinese New Year, an all-important family celebration.  Anticipating that many Chinese exhibitors would be bringing their families, the shows also set up a day care centre to accommodate accompanying children.

“On the other hand, Turkey is very active with a 20% increase.  Returning to Europe, here visitor numbers from Eastern European countries have kept growing compared with February 2017, especially from Russia (+38%), Poland (+15%) and Hungary (+8%), and we see favourable results for the Ukraine, Cyprus, Finland and Bulgaria.

"These steady and sustainable visitor numbers go to demonstrate how very attractive Messe Frankfurt France’s Paris shows are and their strength as a business platform,” said Mr. Scherpe.

All Photos © Lucia Carpio 2018