The Most Influencial Person in the Luxury Fashion Industry: Anna Wintour

Today, I want to talk about the most influential person in the fashion industry: Anna Wintour. In special, she is a role model for me, because of her professionalism and passion that she puts on everything that she does.

Photo by Pressve.com

There are many things that there have been said about Anna, but what of those are really true?. Let's find out who really is Anna Wintour , their beginnings, their detractors, she as a brand, what are her motivations, and finally, why for me is an admirable celebrity and influential person.


To know I little bit more about her I would like to share this biographical video produced by Bloomberg TV. To watch it, please click on the following link: Anna Wintour Revealed: Bloomberg Game Changers

As we see, she since the beginning effort herself until the top in order to get where she is right now. For sure a role model for women, that teach us that perseverance is everything and try to be the best falls into be a perfectionist and like others has been pointed out very aggressive. Until the point to see her as the worst boss in the world. Thats leads me to talk about the famous best seller, The Devil Wears Prada and the world famous hollywood movie based on it with the same name (The Devil Wears Prada Trailer)

So let's analyzed this, which person that does't want to be the best tried to push in to this team to reach that. Maybe their manners are not sweet and proper as we used to see in other women leaders, but let's faced it the fashion industry is not an easy industry. You need constantly to proof that you are the best on what are you doing and be updated. Any at anytime can proof that you are not longer useful for the business and be out of it. On that sense, I do not find Anna as a rude is pictured in the movie or book. I look at her more as a strong and decisive women that wants to do the best and that is what she ask to their employees.

To go more in deep around Anna, I would like to show you what does her daughter said about Anna in What's like to be Anna Wintour Daughter. In this interview at The Guardian, Bee Shaffer, Anna's daughter talks about her mother. She talks that she learned a lot of things about her mother most of them to become a professional strong women:

1. To be punctual: There is not room for late. Bee learned from her mother to be always on time and organized
2. To not waist time: Get up at 5am, go bed at 10pm. 8 hours of sleep are for wimps (Anna says).
3. Efficient and easily bored: Anna likes to things get done. She is a boss is ok to ask people to do things. Change is always of her. New collections and trends are always on continue changing, you have to adapt and Anna clearly does it.
4. Not as cold as you think: Bee told in the interview that Anna always put others before herself

To explain more my point #4, I would like to show you Anna's Ice bucket challenge with the little ones of her family

Also, I would like to share this interview in the show Late Night with Seth Meyers in which they pointed out that Anna raised 12 million dollars (a complete record) for MoMA in the Met Gala 2014 that Anna organized every year. This year as a co- chair of this event was Sarah Jessica Parker

As a cherry on the ice cream, I would like to leave you with a fun interview done to Anna in which the interviewer asked her 73 questions. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

In conclusion, I find Anna as a strong character in the fashion industry that inspires hundred of women around the world (including me) to reach my goals and to put all their effort on it, as the way that she did. She came from the bottom turn into the most influential person in the luxury fashion industry.

What's coming? In my next post I will talk about Anna's current assistant. The real life Andrea Sachs and Emily Charlton  and see how similar are they to the fiction ones. You would be surprised!


Enjoy the week,

TLBS

The Perfect Xmas Gift... Purses

Hi everyone!

Photo by Favim website

Xmas is coming and the shopping time is here! Prepare your shopping list, because if you have a female or many in your list one stylist, lovely and glamorous option is to show your love with a purse.

Choose the right purse is almost a cience. I know you are now feeling frustrated about it, but I will share with you some knowledge to know how to choose the perfect purse for everybody.

First, there are certain thing you have to consider to have the best selection of purses from what to choose:
1. Your budget: your range of expense always have to be stated in your mind

2. Keep in mind his/ her personality: You know the person, by this time you should be available to say what is his/her style. If you are kind of confused around that, just focus on with what type of purse do you picture it on. For example: If the person prioritize comfort first than style, you should look for something relax like a tote or a bucket bag.

Photo by Fossil website

Photo by Fossil website

If it is not a close person, I would go for a classical style. My best selection in this case it would be a cross-body purse with regulable straps 

Photo by Kate Spade website

3. Know his/her body shape

If he or she is tall big bags and totes are allowed. In general, any type of purses can go well this them.

On the other hand, a small person SHOULD NOT use big purses or totes and specially big cross-body purses  

4. Look for something trendy

Look it the trendy seasonal purses. For more information, I suggest to look up my last post about the trend for this fall 2014.

Purses, bags and clutches trends for Fall 2014

Photo by Selectism 

Now, we will talk about the new styles that are on trend this season. That is why I will talk about what does my favourite style trend gurus are saying about purses in this season.

My first major one and fav is Olivia Palermo. 

About the Color:

She suggest this season the Camel color should be used beyond your coat and combine that with a a demure slipdress, a silk blow blouse or a monochromatic separates. This color as black can be used from head-to-toe.

Photo by Olivia Palermo Blog 

THE SINNER is tried to combine camel shoes with dark tights. Please, do not do it! Please!!!

Photo by FashionableThing blog 

I will do a post talking about it. Apparently there is some bloggers that still think this combination works. Sorry, but it's a fashion fact rule!

About textures:

• Feathers and Fur:Autumn is season when you start wearing those textures and the trend to use fur and feathers is on the go. THE WINNING COMBINATION is feathers or fur clutches or bags with hand crafted accessories

Photo by Handbag.yournextshoes 

Photo by Handbag.yournextshoes  

My second fashion guru is Lauren Conrad

She suggests for this fall the following:

About colors:

Camel,  Red wine , Blue-green color, two-tones (blush and black with gold hardware) and finally our classic black. Those are the color that are on trend and Lauren recommends using this season.

About styles:

• For Work or Travel: Retro inspired bags, almost like a classic one in a medium size that you can use for work or for when you travel.
• For back to school: A big canvas tote with a fun print, which is functional to carry your laptop and books.
• For a casual day: Messenger bags, shoulder bags and bags with chains
• For a relax Sunday day: Bucket bags and hobo bags

My personal trend suggestions for purses, bags and clutches for this season

The trendy Fall 2014 colors:

The classic camel color, the always hot serial killer: the black, the original green-blue color, the sexy red wine color, the ceremonial navy blue and finally and to give you a little bit of outstanding to the brown and red colors, characteristically on this season : the neon colors.

The trendy Fall 2014 styles:

• Big Bags

My favorite and always very useful for work, for school, for travel or short for a casual occasion. BIG STYLE NOTE: A petite person should not wear those types of bags. They do not look good on them and this accessory makes them look ever shorter.

Photo by Grave And Most Glorious Blog






Photo by Designer Bags And Dirty Diapers Blog 





• Neon Color Bags

Kate Spade launched this season a new collection of neon color bags to give an outstanding look during the fall. For more info about this collection visit Kate Spade website to see more of these collection

Photo by modernkiddo 

• Satchel Bags

Reptile skin, printed variants and knitted colors are on trend. The best styles aligned with these style we find phyton leather type, the new classic print of these era : animal prints type, and knitted or fabric attached in the hardware of the bag.

Photo by Bakmoda 

• Haversacks and Bucket Bags

This type of bags become popular the mid and late 90's having as an inspiration from the hippie movement. Nowadays, the luxury adaptation of them have been made by Polo Ralph Lauren, Rag&Bone, and Michael Kors. Most of the type using leather, colorful textiles materials

Photo by Ralph Lauren website 

Photo by Ralph Lauren website 

Photo by Ralph Lauren website 

I hope this help you in your shopping trip to find a new purse for this season.

Best,

TLBS

The Luxury Leather Guide

 Photo by linjer 

This week we will be emerged into the leather world. I have some customers asking me about if the bags that are about to buy are 100% leather or if they are made of other materials. And the respond is yes but sometimes they are not. Sometimes is another material or they are made of different type of leather that is not that easy to recognize due all the treatments that they were exposed.

In this week we will find out the different type of leathers that we can find in the luxury accessories as shoes, belts, purses, wallets, bags, purses and leather jackets.

Let's start with this question: How to recognize a real leather?

1. The usual leather smell

Leather has a characteristically smell when the leather is use without so much chemical treatment. Sometimes it is difficult to find this at first sight, but you have to inspect inside of the product or in a close spot from it. and you will find the odour. However, not all the real leather has this smell. Sometimes the leather came through a process in which the odour was been diminished or annulate completely. I will explain further how to recognized those ones.

2. Softness

Leather is soft at touch. For goat, calf, chamois or nappa leathers, the leather is even more smooth than the cow leather.

3. Real leather has small defects

Yes! As any natural type of material leather is not homogeneous. Some of them not only regarding the material but also the manufacture when the product is handicraft as the majority of luxury products.

4. Wrinkles

Some of the leather products has wrinkles on them. For example on shoes you can find them above the sole

3. Small defects

Real leather never looks homogeneous, but it has some textures. Imperfections, in this case, stress originality and handicraft manufacture. Especially for goat and kangaroo leathers, and for coloured hides, tint can never be uniform. So beware of too perfect products (of course, just apparently).

4. Wrinkles on the upper(the part of the shoe above the sole)

Wearing them, leather shoes fit the shape of your foot. After some days, if you don’t see any crumple or crease, well it’s very likely that they aren’t in genuine leather.

5. Certifications

The majority of the high-end brands has quality certification in the inside of their products or a stamp or a seal that certificates that this product is made of leather and in particular which kind is it. For example,  Danier certificate their products in their tags identifying the authenticity of the material and type of leather they are using in the products. Louis Vuitton does the same thing but with a certification paper inside of the product giving you the production number, which the one you can search online in the website the details of the product.

So, this is my guide to identify real leather when you want to buy a leather product.

See you soon,

TLBS

Introduction

Hi, I will like to start this blog telling you that I was thinking to do something like this for a long time. But I was not sure about what to talk about. I knew the topic and my passion, but about what? In my mind there was a voice talking to me: there are many fashion blogs around there, how could I stand out?. Finally, thanks to a post-grad school project of branding yourself I was encouraged to do it.

What I want to do in this blog is a part of bi-weekly research projects about how to become luxury shoppers into luxury goods buyer experts. During my work in a high-end / discount fashion retail company in the accessory and women department in the most exclusive areas in downtown Toronto I found that there are many customers that would like to have more information about the different qualities of materials and styles that is the right for them. My goal through this blog is to share some buyer secrets to customers that needs more information in order to take the best decision when they want to buy a luxury good, knowing the different details behind these goods to get their ultimate joy on them.

Finally, a song that doesn't need introduction to understand what I want to talk about... So, everybody is kindly welcome!