经济学人下载:伦敦时装周

London Fashion Week
伦敦时装周

Rags to riches
朱门华裳

British fashion is becoming more hard headed
英国时尚产业跨入高端大气上档次时代

The Delevingne effect
卡拉·迪瓦伊的美女效应

WITH its whirl of frocks, models and million-dollar deals London Fashion Week has always been rather a closeted affair, accessible to few. Amateur fashionistas have had to wait for glossy magazines and blogs to tell them what to wear next. But at the second of London's biannual fairs, which ran from September 13th to 17th, that was starting to change. Around half the shows were live-streamed to the internet and TV channels with bulletins broadcast to commuters waiting at underground Tube stops. A free pop-up cinema screened fashion-themed films.
按照以往的惯例，伦敦时装周是裙裾飞扬的大牌成衣、魅惑性感的T台模特和投资上百万美元共同打造出的一场仅为极少数土豪奉上的时尚盛宴，而至于那些不入流的时尚人士则只能从铜版纸装订的时尚杂志和时尚达人的博客中得知下一季的流行趋势。但是从9月13日至17日的这场时装周作为伦敦今年举行的两场中的第二场，则开始有了些许的变化。约有半数的秀场通过网络和电台进行直播，那些想和土豪做朋友的小伙伴们甚至可以在地铁站候车点的公告牌前、影院观影前荧幕弹出的时尚主题短片中观看走秀。

This push to bring Fashion Week to a wider audience is likely to pay off. Though unaffordable to most shoppers, high fashion is the beating heart of high-street retail. More wearable versions of the transparent outfits that entertained audiences in London this month will soon appear in shops up and down the country. In the week following last September's shows, online fashion sales were up 45%, according to Ve Interactive, an e-commerce firm. Caroline Rush, chief executive of the British Fashion Council (BFC), which organises Fashion Week, expects that the digital buzz surrounding the event will push buyers' orders well beyond ￡100m ($160m).
该做法的确为时装周吸引了大批消费受众群体，尽管对多数消费者来说要买的起这些时装至少要卖个肾，但这些高端时尚却是那些他们可以消费得起的高街品牌（如ZARA、BERSHKA或MANGO）的设计源动力。至于在本月秀场上的一系列令台下观众喜大普奔的透视时装将陆续出现在英国小伙伴们生活当中。据电子商务公司龙头企业——Ve Interactive的数据显示，九月时装周后一周的时间内，在线时装交易额同比上涨了45%。负责时装周运行的英国时装理事会（British Fashion Council）首席执行官卡洛琳·拉什（Caroline Rush）推测数字化的环境将推动超过一亿英镑（折合一亿六千万美元）的订单交易生成。

The changes seen at the shows are part of a wider effort to bring a businesslike approach to British fashion. London has long been feted as a breeding ground for brilliant designers. Many of them, including John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, trained at Central St Martins, a college known for turning out skilful originals. But a tendency to focus on art over business has meant that too many designers have failed to make the most of their critical acclaim. London Fashion Week has long been seen as the tiddler of the “big four” global shows, overshadowed by the spectacles in Milan, New York and Paris.
时装秀观看模式的改变是英国时尚产业商业化的一场巨大变革。伦敦向来被誉为是盛产高富帅设计师之地，知名设计师包括John Galliano和Alexander McQueen等，他们均毕业于培养高技术水平设计师的英国圣马丁艺术学院（Central St Martins），但这种艺术形式商业化使得多数设计师都无法正确处理好外界的褒奖，无法从中真正获益。事实上，伦敦时装周一直以来都处于全球四大时装周之末流，与米兰、纽约、巴黎三大巨头的时装盛宴相比，实在太过逊色。

The BFC wants to change that. Since 2009, when it appointed Ms Rush (its first full-time chief executive) the council has pushed to make young designers more market savvy and encourage greater investment in fashion. In January it appointed a new chairman, Natalie Massenet, the American creator of Net-a-Porter, an online fashion shop that last year saw sales of 368m, as its chairman. Ms Massenet has said she wants to stop "business" being seen as a dirty word in fashion.
英国时装理事会（BFC）为了改变这一处境，自2009年起任命拉什女士为首位全职首席执行官后，便极力让设计师新秀们敏锐捕捉市场需求并且鼓励他们多多投资时尚事业。而理事会今年一月上任的新任主席—娜塔莉·马斯奈（Natalie Massenet）是全球化奢侈品网上专卖店Net-a-Porter的创办者，该网站去年创下了368,000,000英镑的交易额。马斯奈女士表示受任为该理事会的主席是想改变“商业运作”在时尚圈的恶名。

That may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Britain's fashion business adds about ￡21 billion to GDP. Oxford Economics, a consultancy, reckons that a good chunk of this is retail. But from designing clothes to selling them, fashion employs more people than any other creative industry in Britain. The designer end of clothes making has done especially well, growing 20% a year over the past decade. An increasing number of British designers have set their sights on overseas markets, especially in Asia. Paul Smith, for example, plans to open 20 new stores in China in the next five years. Attracting foreign talent, meanwhile, may soon be made easier with the introduction of a “London visa” for talented designers.
事实也没有像马斯奈女士所说的那样严重，实际上，英国时尚产业为其国民生产总值增收210亿英镑。作为提供经济顾问机构的牛津经济研究院（Oxford Economics）日前表示该项收入很大程度来源于蓬勃发展的服装零售业。从服装的设计到销售，整个过程相比于其他创造型产业为英国民众提供了更多就业岗位，最为出众的是服装设计师行业，其以每十年20%的增幅不断上涨，越来越多的设计师小伙伴们将目光对准了海外市场，尤其是盛产“大妈”的亚洲。据知名时尚品牌Paul Smith计划，中国在未来五年将陆续迎接其20家专门店的开幕。与此同时，英国或为引进海外人才而对杰出设计师放宽申请“伦敦签证”的政策。（伦敦签证——有才的你，值得拥有~）

The renaissance of British fashion has been given a boost by some new ambassadors. The “Middleton effect”—a bump in sales attributed to the Duchess of Cambridge's fashion choices—has had a beneficial effect on British brands in America. A new crop of British models, among them Cara Delevingne, bestrides the international catwalk. Now Boris Johnson, the floppy-haired mayor of London, has joined the campaign. At a fashion shoot to promote British menswear this summer he could not remember who designed the suit he was wearing but his words were on message. “London is to the suit”, he said, “as Parma is to the Parmesan cheese”.
英国时尚再卷狂潮，新来的几位大使功不可没。—剑桥公爵夫人（Duchess of Cambridge）的时尚穿衣品味带动了美国发展的英国本土品牌，这就是所谓的“米德尔顿效应”（亦可称“公爵夫人效应”）；英国模特后起之秀中的佼佼者，卡拉·迪瓦伊（Cara Delevingne）也在世界T台上掀起浪潮；而现如今伦敦市长鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson）顶着他那头标志性的蓬乱金发也加入到该行列中。在今年夏季召开的一场提升英国男士服装知名度的时装发布会上，这位不知道自己定制西装的设计者姓甚名谁的市长大人却讲出了“伦敦之于西装，恰如帕尔马至于帕马森干酪”。