Social Media Measures & Hugo Boss’s Grand Plan

Measuring Fashion Designers impact via Social Media
Social media intelligence and research firm Shareablee has measured the social media engagement of consumers with designer brands in the wake of the Spring/Summer 2015 collections in New York, London, Milan and Paris. The data reflects the consumers’ feedback actions - hits, likes, comments, shares - and the individual percentage of actions on the three biggest social media hubs of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Shareablee found the designer with the strongest engagement was Topshop Unique (2,916,077), followed by Michael Kors (2,387,769), and Louis Vuitton (2,292,515), with Valentino, Burberry, Victoria Beckham, and Ralph Lauren trailing after the top three.

Hugo Boss’s Strategy
German fashion power-house Hugo Boss has unveiled its plans for an ambitious growth scheme that will run until 2020, at the Investor Day event in Paris. The plans predicts its sales growth will accelerate and its margins increase in the next couple of years as Hugo Boss strengthens its position in the luxury goods sector by solely offering the goods in a mono-brand environment. Alongside a takeover of franchisors, the plan will see it take control of all its e-commerce, integrating it with in-store activities. Additionally the plan calls for a comprehensive development of its presence in markets where it is not so established, with bold expansions planned for Asian and Eastern European markets.

Protests at Jean Paul Gaultier
In the wake of the decision by Jean Paul Gaultier to terminate the production of his ready-to-wear collections, employees of the brand have staged a protest over the proposed redundancies, which saw demonstrators - many dressed in the label’s signature Breton-stripe T-shirts - carrying handmade banners to protest outside the headquarters of Puig, the brands majority stakeholder. The brands’ work council has claimed the restructure will result in 42 redundancies, the majority of which relate to closure of retail spaces in Paris.