Xianyi Zeng, Annick Jehanne

• Understand the specificities of the luxury sector
• Know the main actors strategies
• Understand the structural elements of today’s fashion brand based on it’s DNA and how today’s major Artistic Directors (fashion designers) find the balance between respecting the heritage of a brand/house and expressing something that is attractive to a new generation. Knowing who is who in the major fashion brands of today and what the style and its’ meaning are in today’s fashion world also constitutes an important understanding of today’s international fashion system.
• Understand the mechanisms & systems involved in collection management process environments.
• Help fully understand today’s world of fashion design and how fashion designers and fashion houses operate to create a collection, the collection process will be explained and analyzed in detail.

1. Marketing knowledge, and the ability of doing a macro and micro analysis.
2. Read and study fashion related articles in BRITISH ELLE- AMERICAN VOGUE – NYLON and other fashion related magazines as well as Suzy Menkes’ articles in the International Herald Tribune. Visit www.style.com web site. Watch the major international fashion shows on www.vogue.com for example.

Introduction to the luxury industry:
This course will explain the development of western luxury brands, and the strategies implemented by the main international groups and brands in the fashion and leathergoods sector. Other sectors will also be presented: jewelry and watches, cosmetics, wines & spirits.

Fashion culture and design:
Fashion Brand DNA : what are the codes, values, image that result from the brands’ DNA ?
How do today’s fashion artistic directors use them whilst still making today’s trends ?
We will explore why and how it is generally accepted that the DNA content of a fashion brand in today’s market is part of a brand management strategy that is fundamental in building long term success.

• What is “brand DNA”?
• How is it materialized in a brand’s image & product?
• How do today’s Artistic Directors modernize the brand’s standards and heritage?

Who is who in today’s top fashion houses? Who are the Artistic Directors for the major international designer & couture fashion brands ?
Fashion collection management:

• Fashion trends & systems
• From the fiber to the catwalk

Lectures and workshops

Mini projects

It is advised that the students read at least one of the following books :
In English

• Michel Chevalier & Gérald Mazzalovo, Luxury brand management, 2008
• Uche Okonkwo, Luxury fashion branding : Trends, tactics, techniques, 2007
• Fifty years of fashion: new look to now, Valerie Steele Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0300071329.
• Fashion from concept to consumer – Gini- Stephens- Frings, Pearson Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-117338-3

In French

• Gilles Lipovetsky et Elyette Roux, Le luxe éternel : de l’âge du sacré au temps des marques, 2003
• Histoires de Mode –Didier Grumbach
• Christian Blanckaert, Luxe, 2007
• Olivier Assouly et Pierre Bergé, Essais sur la fabrique de l’ostentation, 2005
• Jean Castarède, Le luxe, 2007
• Stéphane Marchand, Les guerres du luxe, Fayard, 2001
• Revue Entreprises et histoire, Le Luxe, Numéro 46, Avril 2007
• Dana Thomas et Olivier Colette, Comment les marques ont tué le luxe, 2008
• Danièle Allérès et Olivier Mellerio, Luxe, Stratégies marketing, 2005
• Jean Castarède, Histoire du Luxe en France des origines à nos jours, 2006
• Comité colbert website : www.comitecolbert.com
• www.abc-luxe.com

English