Alexander McQueen & Damien Hirst Scarf Collaboration

When I first heard about this collaboration, my head nearly fell off with excitement! McQueen's scarfs are iconic and anyone blind bat would be able to recognise one from a mile away so I just knew a collaboration of some sort as going to be coming soon. Damien Hirst is one of my favourite artists, and after visiting his exhibition at The Tate earlier this year, it just reaffirmed my love for his work so you can't really blame me for being over the moon when I hear he's joining with also one of my favourite british designers.

His butterfly pieces are so known and glorious in the flesh, it seems only right they do a mash of of this with the skull print. I don't think a sheep or shark in formaldehyde would make much of a good print to be honest...

With his silk chiffon skull scarves starting from £165, these could not be further from that - the starting price for these one off's is £315, going all the way to a steep £715. It definitely confirms they'll be forever on my wish list. I'm yet to visit them in the shops but they're almost sold out online after being out a mere 3 days - surprise surprise.

The advertising via Youtube is stunning and captures the image beautifully and only makes me want one more - check it out below.

The Rise in Luxury

The want for luxury goods is on the rise, surprisingly to me seeing as we're still stuck in a recession, so I decided to do some cheeky research into the topic. (In saying this, in the current Sunday Times Fashion rich List, guess who tops it? None other than the Weston family that own.. PRIMARK! Yes, I was surprised too.)

A lot of the luxury brands come under conglomerates such a PPR (newly named Kering) and LVMH. LVMH, owned by Bernard Arnault, is worth 18 billion (2013) compared to its 16 billion in 2012 and ranks 15th on the top 50 richest in the world. But why has there been such an increase in luxury goods? It seems the biggest consumers in the luxury goods market is China, as many brands are now opening up flagship stores there. One of the latest is Vera Wangs bridal boutique. She even wanted to charge a fee of 3,000 Yuan (£320) just to browse and try on dresses in the new Shanghai store which is absolutely crazy! But this shows that she's taking advantage of the spending over there, but even the Chinese didn't want to pay that. This however has now been scrapped because of the lack of store traffic as Chinese brides-to-be refuse to fork out, understandably. 

However, according to The Wall Street Journal (Feb 2013), The US has got a taste for luxury goods again as their unemployment figures have decreased and the stock market is seeing record highs, so more people are spending, and spending big by the looks of things. Hermes and LVMH, the parent brands of Louis Vuitton, Moet et Chandon champagne and the Sephora cosmetics chain, said the US was its strongest region in 2012 as sales rose by 12%, outstripping the 10% in Asia.

I think what puts Europe on the map in terms of luxury consumerism, is when Asian tourist come to visit things such as Bicester Village where they literally arrive, get a coach down there, shop, and fly home all in the same day! That's how desperate they are for their designer fix. For me, I've never been to Bicester but have heard great things.

I'm not entirely sure how this directly affects me, but in studying fashion it intrigues me to know who the main consumers are in the industry I'm venturing into, as before starting my degree, I had no clue.