ACM Industries

24/06/2022

cheering up boring street signs

24/06/2022

cheering up boring streets

19/06/2018

Agnona Apartment - Ku´Damm 188/189, entrance Schlüterstrasse

10/10/2017

Ranked with magnificent baroque façades of historic townhouses, you could simply say Place Vendôme is the most prestigious address in the retail landscape of Paris. As the planet’s largest luxury behemoth, Louis Vuitton obviously has been present here for quite some time, but with a humble boutique stocking merely its jewelry and watch collections. Well, that’s a little different now. Right across the square, at the corner of rue St.-Honoré, a Louis Vuitton Maison has just opened its doors to much fanfare. It’s designated as a Maison or flagship and has resulted in a store design with plenty of bells and whistles. Occupying two 18th Century townhouses – historically known as Hôtel Baudet de Morlet and Hôtel Heuzé de Vologer – constructed by French architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the buildings have been restored with the greatest care.
Architect and longtime collaborator Peter Marino was entrusted to design fitting interiors for 1,400 sqm. of retail space across two floors. The extensive ground floor presents Louis Vuitton’s coveted assortment of bags and other leather goods, men’s ready-to-wear, shoes, travel items and jewelry pieces. One floor up, women’s apparel can be found, in addition to shoes and accessories. Customers will also come across the Louis Vuitton Guides and home objects, and last but not least, the so-called apartment, an exclusive inner sanctum of sorts where the most discerning clients can discreetly survey and try on their trophies of choice.

The luxury house commissioned no less than 21 artworks by a number of leading contemporary artists from around the planet, including Paul Nabulumo Namarinjmak, Laurent Grasso, Yan Pei Ming, Stephen Sprouse and Serge Alain Nitegeka. The remaining two floors are home to ateliers – one dedicated to crafting haute jewelry, and another focuses exclusively on creating red carpet garments for high-profile celebs. Preceding Maison’s star-studded opening party earlier this week, Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2018 women’s collection by creative director Nicolas Ghesquière was presented on site during Paris Fashion Week.
Design: Peter Marino�
Photography: Stéphane Muratet

19/09/2017

When the spot is this wondrous and the view is to die for, when the house is modest in its bones and that's a good thing when all you want is a place to gather and make pleasing family holiday remembrances then this might just be the house for you. The house is on the Costa Brava in Spain and the loving refurbishment and remodeling by Nook Architects enables the house to remain true to its traditional, Mediterranean roots while implementing a chic, modern living space.

18/09/2017

UNHAPPY RETURNS

It’s a simple error that e-commerce is naturally more effective than brick&mortar retail. The truth that very few online dominant brands profit margins exceed those of traditional retailers is one clue that this isn’t true. But a better way to understand the longer-term outlook is to look at the underlying economic drivers.

Above a basic level of scale, online retail is largely a variable cost business, whereas physical stores succeed by driving sufficient revenue to leverage their mostly fixed costs. At the risk of oversimplification, this means that to make money online gross profit/order needs to exceed the variable costs associated with that order. The reason that many eCommerce companies (or the e-commerce divisions of omnichannel retailers) don’t make money is that the marginal cost of acquiring a customer, plus the supply chain cost of fulfilling that order, exceeds the gross profit (essentially, revenue less the cost of goods).

While returns are not an issue for products that can be delivered digitally–or for many commodity items–in categories like apparel, accessories, footwear and home furnishings, where fit, coloration, fabrication and the like determine whether the consumer ultimately keeps the product, return rates between 25 and 40% are the norm. When retailers pay for free shipping & exchanges handling costs can quickly erode any chance for a profitable transaction. We must also consider that returned or exchanged product often cannot be sold at the original gross margin, either because it is shop-worn (or otherwise “defective”) or because by the time it comes back the retailer has taken seasonal markdowns.

Some analysts have taken certain retail brands to task for their failure to aggressively invest in e-commerce. Yet many dragged their feet (or were rather deliberate about how they invested) quite intentionally because they understood that aggressive online growth was detrimental to their profitability. The fact is that unless returns rates can be decreased significantly and/or the cost of handling returns can be lowered dramatically, some retailers will continue to suffer.

While outside observers may gloss over this phenomenon, brands that face this growing profitability menace are taking action. One trend flies in the face of the retail apocalypse narrative. It turns out that physical stores can be incredibly helpful in lowering both the rate of returns and supply chain costs. While it is not the only reason that formerly digital-only retailers like Bonobos, UNTUCKit! and others are opening stores, it is a key driver. Large omnichannel brands have also tried to make it easier to return online orders to their brick&mortar locations. Not only are handling costs typically lower, but driving store traffic often leads to incremental sales.

Another avenue for taming the returns monster is using new technology and processes. TrueFit is a venture-funded business that uses artificial intelligence to help consumers choose the right product during the ordering process. Happy Returns is a more recent start-up that has also pulled solid VC funding. This expanding brand concentrates on reducing consumer friction in the returns process and helping lower the cost of eCommerce returns for brands by operating “return bars” in major malls. These malls may also benefit by seeing incremental traffic.

Clearly, e-commerce will continue to grow at much faster rates than physical retail. And with Amazon and newer disruptive brands helping drive the share of apparel, accessories and home furnishings that are sold online, the impact of high returns rates will become a bigger and bigger issue for many brands. Industry analysts would be wise to dig into this more deeply. Consumers can continue to enjoy the free ride until some rationality takes hold. Retailers would be well served to not gloss over this growing problem.

04/09/2017

Fendi adds to the shock waves circling the opening of Ginza Six, Tokyo’s latest luxury playground, with a supersized flagship that is the biggest nationwide. And of the six anchor tenants, each one unmistakably executing a striking effort, the retail space of the Italian fashion house absolutely is the most iconic, thanks to a façade of arches that mimic the Palazzo Della Civiltà Italiana, its monument quarters in Rome.
The store covers over 700 sq. occupying four complete floors, each with a variation of custom-designed backgrounds dedicated to each of Fendi’s elegant product range. Adding a sophisticated unassuming feel are thoughtfully selected design pieces and art works that dot the premises, interspersed with furnishings and the luxury brand’s coveted wares.
The most striking piece arguably is a vivid fur tree by celebrated Japanese floral artist Makoto Azuma that is suspended like a luster from the ceiling near the entrance, and which is a renewed collab since the much-publicized launch of the Fendi Pop-up store one-and-a-half years ago.
Furthermore, the boutique possesses a V.I.P. room, replete with sumptuous furnishings, which will exclusively cater to the brand’s most discerning of customers. The new Fendi flagship store communicates the brand’s full range of women’s and men’s attire, shoes and small leather goods. To celebrate the opening, a special range of limited edition merchandise will be exclusively sold at the store.

23/08/2017

How much attention is adequate to sustain your business?

Global ad spending for 2017 is expected to touch €500billion. That is an increase of 7.3% on last year. We spend remarkable sums of money and superfluous amounts of time attempting to get people to notice us—frequently without being specific about the end, we have in mind.

No industry ever died from a shortage of attention. Organizations and ideas fail because of a lack of resonance with the people they seek to serve.

28/07/2017

ROME – Growing the new course of its communication strategy, Brioni has acquired another fabulous actor to front its autumn ads: Sir Anthony Hopkins.

The black-and-white portraits were taken in Los Angeles by Gregory Harris. Hopkins follows Samuel L. Jackson, who was also photographed by Harris for the brand’s spring ads.

The latest campaign will break in airport billboards in Rome, at Milan’s Malpensa, and in Beijing on Sept. 1. It will then be rolled out in business and financial newspapers in Japan, Germany, the U.S., and U.K., including The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The New York Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Nikkei Business Publications, as well as related newspaper supplements, such as T Magazine and WSJ. Magazine.

Brioni’s claim is “Tailoring Legends since 1945” – the date the company was founded in Rome – and the polished, sleek photos emphasize the house’s tailoring expertise.

24/04/2017

Berlin is having its moment now

Here's the list of the top 50 cities for millennials to live around the globe. You won't believe United States came in.

03/03/2017

DRIES VAN NOTEN - AUTUMN/WINTER 2017.18 - Age diversity is usually sadly lacking throughout fashion month, and Van Noten’s cast demonstrated why it’s so critical. Dries celebrated his 100th show at Paris Fashion Week by casting a parade of aughts-era legends who had walked in the brand’s show before, as a recognition of models from then and now. The cross-generational appeal of great design has always been evident, of course, but presenting the looks on a range of beauties hammered the idea home. If Instagram is any standard of achievement, Dries had a glorious day today — the brand’s story hit 500,000 followers directly after the show.