Conversations with Anna's friends

Who knows me is very familiar with my non-negotiable respect and admiration of my icon, the legendary Anna Wintour. And she is, in fact, behind the scene of the past week’s 4 sessions of VOGUE CONVERSATIONS, where Designers and Fashion Leaders were freely talking about their insight and vision on the actual and the what the future could possibly hold for all of us.

Main topics were related to:

-         The need of long term strategy

-         The re-thinking of fashion cycles

-         The consumer-led change

-         The Resilience that Brands need to show during the second phase

-         The new cooperation between the off-line and on-line channels

-         The purpose of the Fashion communication (where Humanity should come first), where deeper messages need to be conveyed from the industry

-         The Global Vision of the brand that will need to become more local and adjust to single markets

-         The significant boost to a client centric mindset and the importance of the Emotional Factor

-         The Re-thinking of supply chains

-         Big call to Operations to shape the new normal in store

The density of topics is such that gives an incredible opportunity to re-think the whole way of working we previously knew.

I enclose the related  link for any of you who would like to catch up with those talks where missed: from there you can pick the topic you are mostly interested in:

https://www.vogue.com/article/anna-wintour-introduces-vogue-global-conversations#intcid=recommendations_vogue-bottom-recirc-similar_eaa2dc02-3677-43f1-9c10-e68c709f4a85_cral2-2

I would like to personally touch base on the People Factor. Far too often I have read catastrophic forecast about the risk for the retail compartment to suffer irreversibly, as a complete switch of consumer’s behaviour will take over.

I have read countless numeric reports about the +% of on-line sale and the -% of physical stores during this very challenging moment in time.

My view on this is very much aligned with the words of Remo Ruffini, CEO of Moncler “, who claims that we need a long term strategy, as “2020 is important but it is more important to keep the brand very strong”. This will require resilience to navigate the so called Phase 2 of this pandemia, when businesses will re-open, surely not relying on the immediate turnover they were used to deliver just until 2 months ago.

BUT: this pandemia will finish AND clients will still, and even more, desire the one-to-one experience, the touch of the product, the relationship and the story telling of the client advisor, all factors that cannot be delivered by the most technological on-line business. It is on this ground that our clients still make a choice to visit the physical store, even giving up some “deals” that they could find trough alternative websites. Especially when it comes to Luxury. Luxury is the dream, and the dream needs to be nurtured, which can happen only with a personal approach and by “seeing”, “touching”, “feeling”. It is a JOURNEY.

I strongly believe that, once the most challenging period will be over, Retail will shine again as it is a Place of Social Interaction Experience.

Surely, many other factors must be taken in account, of which also a close collaboration with the on-line channel, key to ensure that Brands resist during a long period of restrictions in humans’ movements.

I completely embrace the invite of the whole panel of those talks to take this opportunity to rethink about the message that the Fashion industry will want to deliver from now on. A message that will need to be much more about Humanity over Vanity, about Sustainability over countless Fashion cycles, about quality over quantity, about Serving and Listening to our clients as “the answer is in the audience below us” (Virgil Abloh, Menswear CD of LV).

If we look for something positive in all of this, we all have a unique opportunity to re-shape our entire Industry.

The question is, quoting Remo Ruffini, when calling for a long-term global strategy: “I am afraid we have short memory and forget easily, usually, and quickly”: what is your view on this?