Following that old adage, “if you can’t beat them join them”, more brands should embrace this attitude. Brands NEED to collaborate. When a luxury brand starts getting wrinkles and stale and stuffy air begins to waft through the corridors of the design rooms, maybe it is time to bring in a new designer. Sometimes a brand such as this one will bring in what ends up being a revolving door of new designers without much success.
Bill Blass is a perfect example of a venerable American luxury brand, which despite efforts via hiring of many new head designers and a more modern look, capital infusions from overseas etc did not manage to reinvent itself sadly. I have knowledge of this from my days as an intern. Once upon a time, Bill Blass was perhaps the American Yves Saint Laurent but this brand has lost its relevance. No new head designer was able to infuse it with something original and authentic enoughto pull it out of its descent. Often times however, this does work, as in the case of Balenciaga, Givenchy and YSL, even Vionnet.
Other times, an old and venerable brand can be revived via a celebrity campaign or movie revival. This is how older brands sometimes can become cult brands. Luxury brands often collaborate with celebrity photographers (Annie Leibowitz), artists (Marina Abramovich) and musicians (everyone). There is nothing novel or original in that anymore.
We would like to see more originality inherent in collaborations. For instance, what if Prada collaborated with Supreme to produce an unexpected, never before seen line of sweatshirts and hoodies matched by footwear. Or, let’s take this one step further, what if Campbell’s Soup collaborated with Stella McCartney and put the famous tomato soup can on the front of all her Adidas designs. Perhaps these would not sell in giant quantities, but they would sure get lots of attention and drive brand awareness and hype. Perhaps they would sell in giant quantities and become something of a cult. What if YSL picked an elementary school in Washington DC and had kids from grade 1-5 submit designs inspired by the weird world of bees and produced a limited edition range of T-shirts with the top three designs featured. The publicity would be amazing. It would create this feeling of a humble, down to earth brand that cares about kids and yet remains ultra-cool. I have absolutely no doubt these T-shirts would sell like hotcakes.
When a few creative people put their heads together the opportunities could indeed be limitless. The key would be to put differing and seemingly disparate parties together to collaborate. It would not only produce potentially great results but also represent an incredible statement.
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