At the end of last year, during Super Sale Season 08, we were wondering what would happen after everyone got used to even the big stores discounting deeper than we thought was possible. And here’s what:

Believe it or not, some brands are reportedly dropping their prices. According to WWD, both Oscar de la Renta and Alberta Ferretti will be available for less this season (for example, a formerly $900 blouse from Oscar might now be $795 - not exactly earth shattering, but a couple days’ pay for most). Also, Zac Posen and J Mendel are both offering more at lesser price points, with dresses starting at nearly half the price as compared to past seasons at J Mendel.

Of course, some brands refuse to budge: Versace, Givenchy, Chanel and Prada have all made it clear that they truly believe their price tags are fair and worth the money the customer hands over in exchange.

So which way will this go? Will brands like J Mendel regret their price slashing, and never be able to sell on their higher tier again? Or will labels like Chanel and Versace simply lose their aspirational customers altogether, meaning less Chanel wallets but more Chanel evening wear?

Last week on South Audley Street in Mayfair, London’s Rick Owen’s store opened alongside its pretty cool neighbours, Marc Jacobs, Dover Street Market (DSM) and the pap-favourite Scotts restaurant. Thursday, Lanvin is to open its doors in the same hood.

On a “go-see”, DSM and Rick Owens were completely empty. Going west, a smidge past Notting Hill, the much talked about Westfield, Europe’s largest (over a million square feet) and expensive (it cost nearly two billion pounds to build) mall is practically a desert. In its chandelier-laden “Luxury Village”, with shops like Burberry, Prada, Tiffany, Miu Miu Twenty8Twelve, etc, the atmosphere is tense. According to reports, sales are dramatically down. Foot traffic has fallen and about half a dozen stores have shut - barely six months in. One store hadn’t made a sale in six days. Pretty dire stuff.

So, how do retailers feel these days? Said one, sipping water at a recent opening, who naturally did not want to be named: “If we hadn’t signed the lease over eighteen months ago, and planned it for four years, I would have cancelled. Now, I am just [redacted due to un-polite language, so let’s just say the word “clenched” was involved].”

Let’s hope Lanvin knows what they’re doing.

—CHARLEY B

Parties? They’re still happening, but opposed to the good old days (last year), where it was three or four fashion events/private views/store openings/dinners/etc per week. This year, it’s just one(ish) - and its always a bun-fight*.

At a recent soiree, there was a strict one tipple** per guest rule. Call it the the English Revolution - Let Them Drink Water, and tap water at that. Sadder still, VIP guests were passed secret cards and shuffled to back rooms, where the hosts meted out drinks at one per hour. Oy.

A fed up guest, now inured to the “New Deal,” had a mickey of vodka in his breast pocket with a straw ingeniously threaded through his lapel, just to be able to maintain a buzz. In London, one of the cities hardest hit by the global financial crisis, financial pundits tell us the dire conditions are going to last another eighteen months. Better stock up on straws.

—CHARLEY B

*Bun-fight: British-English for “a very crowded party where people jostle around”.

**Tipple: British-English for “a drink”.

The Wall Street Journal just reported that Claudio Scajola, Italy’s minister of economic development, has made good on his promise to pump some money back into the ailing fashion industry in his home country.

He’s meeting with fashion industry leaders tonight in Rome at 7pm local time to present them with a plan that should immediately save 700,000 jobs, though industry members are reportedly hoping for the addition of “tax breaks for female workers, a reduction in energy bills and government subsidies” and for the government to “pay the wages of laid off workers on behalf of companies temporarily”.

Whether this money will have any long-term effects on the industry remains to be seen,
but since net profits of the Italian fashion industry fell 4% in 2008, and IT Holdings (parent company of Gianfranco Ferre) filed for bankruptcy protection (on top of an ever-growing list of more bad news), it’s clear that something like what the government did for the Italian auto industry needs to happen for fashion, too.

Needless to say, many Marni lovers wait in suspense for tonight’s meeting.

Is Hachette gearing up for another magazine?

There’s someone going around Paris taking street style photos on behalf of “a new French magazine that’s coming out in September, as part of the ELLE group”.

We’re not sure how this fits in with Hachette’s recent cost-cutting measures, but isn’t it interesting that France and the UK seem to be going ahead with new magazines while America’s shut down one by one?

Hopefully, more information tres soon.

Last year, Conde Nast announced a company-wide 5% budget cut and cancelled their usual holiday party at the Four Seasons, and a lot of people hoped that would be the end of it.

But on top of yesterday’s memo from Conde’s CEO Chuck Townsend sent out to employees to politely remind them to watch their spending (ie, Please don’t send your intern to Starbucks four times a day), comes word from WWD that the company’s publishers have all been asked to draw up reports on how they could potentially cut another 10% from their budgets for 2009.

Furthermore, the Post claims that Hachette, publisher of ELLE, is looking to move their offices to the Financial District, the older, downtown area of Manhattan with tons of empty commercial space and much cheaper rent, indicating that the company is looking to pull way back, too.

So what does it mean if some of the publishing world’s biggest names are planning major pullbacks before the first quarter is even through? …

When we told you that Blake Lively would be Vogue’s February cover girl, most people flipped out and claimed that this was just the worst of many recent examples of the economy informing the magazine’s cover choices (as in, going more mainstream to up those single copy newsstand sale numbers).

A lot of fans bemoaned the death of Vogue and advised that critics would be happier reading Vogue Italia or Vogue Paris because neither would ever do such a thing.

But now it’s come out that Pixie Geldof, sister to Peaches and poser for Agent Provocateur and Pringle of Scotland, is on the February cover of the beloved Vogue Italia, and appears inside the issue in a 14-page spread with fellow spawn of fame, Daisy Lowe.

So does that mean that the recession has finally hit Vogue Italia, too, and they desperately needed to get some press to follow up the madness of last July? Or was Steven Meisel really so taken with the socialite that he convinced EIC Franca Sozzani to agree in a very public way?

We’ll probably never know, but you can guess which side we’re on.

WWD just reported that the month of January saw 600,000 jobs cut from the American economy, 8,600 of which were from department stores.

This news comes right on the heels of yesterday’s department store news, that the S&P’s Ratings Services has placed six department stores - Dillard’s, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, J.C. Penney and Sears - on credit watch, which means any or all of those companies could have their credit ratings lowered, and we all know what that means.

In fact, Bon-Ton, Kohl’s and Saks have all recently had their credit ratings lowered from “stable” to “negative”.

Our advice? If you’ve been holding on to some gift cards from any of those stores, use them.

Just In: Macy’s has cut 7,000 jobs, and their stock dropped 13% within ten minutes of the announcement on Bloomberg.

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: FadeIn@Italy.com

Looks like Dolce & Gabbana are goin’ down. It appears Neiman Marcus is pulling D&G from all of its stores. The troubled company has been on a downward spiral for months now, very quietly. No more fancy showroom on 5th Ave - now unremarkable digs downtown. No more Director of Operations for the NY/US office, with no replacement. Now it looks like they’re getting pulled, and not just at Neiman, but other major/specialty stores in the US. Watch and wait.

xo FC

Um, we’re not totally sure about the above, but if you are, you know what to do. On a side note, is this why they’re launching a controversial ad campaign and $36 eyeshadow? Stay tuned…

“There is no creative evolution if you don’t have dramatic moments like this. Bling is over. Red carpety [sic] covered with rhinestones is out. I call it ‘the new modesty.’ ” - Karl Lagerfeld, on the economy, and (we think) his Fall 09 collection, in the New York Times.

Those of you still worried about what will happen with Lynn Yaeger’s career, take comfort - She’s been hired by New York magazine to blog Fall 09 Fashion Week.

Which means:

1. More of Lynn’s spot-on reactions (all day long!)

2. Mickey can stop looking for a front row buddy

But Lynn seems pretty neutral about the gig, wondering, “Do you think my seat will get better or worse?”

Hm.

Remember back in May when Purple quietly started opening their New York office?

Well, just as quietly it seems, the office closed.

The stateside outpost of the beloved French magazine closed back in November, no doubt due to the crappy economic conditions.

Hopefully, this doesn’t necessarily mean Purple itself is in danger of closing.

Stay tuned…

UPDATE: A Purple spokeswoman says their New York office is still “up and running,” and that Purple “is not closing”…

To: tips@fashionista.com

From: fashionapocalypse@now.com

Hi guys,

Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news but Searle, the fancy New York-based retailer and manufacturer, just filed for Chapter 11.

The owners are still trying to sell the company but things aren’t looking so good.

Who’s next? Scoop? Intermix? This is bad.

xo,
A Sad Friend

“Our regular client was not queuing on January 3 - 4 in Milan or Rome but was on the slopes in St Moritz or on a boat in the Caribbean. We want to offer a real luxury and not to open our doors to the consumption of young girls who can put the designer handbag of their dreams on their arm with less than 300 Euros. We are not interested in that.” - Giancarlo Di Risio, Versace’s CEO, to Il Sole 24 Ore via Vogue UK.

Both online and in stores.

A good thing? Or…

Remember back in November when we declared Macy’s status as somewhere around “screwed”?

That’s why it, sadly, comes as no surprise that Macy’s just announced the closure of eleven locations nationwide, including the one at the Ernst & Young Plaza in Los Angeles, which has been in operation since 1986.

Each store (except for the Hawaii location) will host huge, blow-out sales to clear the inventory, then hopefully, Macy’s will be able to dust itself off and recover enough to drudge through 2009.

In the meantime, even their site’s having a clearance sale, though there’s lots of clicking involved for shopping that one…

(Full list of closing locations, after the jump.)

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: LittleJ@seemail.com

Regardless of what Condé Nast is saying about Men’s Vogue continuing to publish, I received a post card offering to transfer my subscription to Condé Nast’s Portfolio or to receive a refund on issues remaining in my subscription.

I just called to request the refund and was told I’d receive a check for $15 in 3 - 4 weeks.

Hm…

To: Tips@Fashionista.com

From: Gossip@Whirl.com

From what I hear (and you didn’t hear this from me), Men’s Vogue was saying it was going to go down to a few issues a year, but from what I hear, it’s going to be done in about 3 - 4 issues.

Yikes!

So basically, no one will know whether the magazine’s done for another year and half or so, officially making this the most drawn out rumor ever…

Yesterday, the Times dissected the state of Conde Nast’s ad sales, concluding that only magazines that “cast a wider net” in terms of who they allow to advertise in their publication are doing well right now, but that Conde’s long-standing position of never negotiating their prices with advertisers may turn out to be a good long-term plan and “a fair approach to pricing”.

Meanwhile, the International Herald Tribune reports that Conde Nast has been diversifying (and thereby reinforcing) their advertiser base by actually creating campaigns themselves, like the ones they did for LG, Lexus, Grey Goose and Dillard’s, via “in-store events, parties and television programs,” during 2008.

By creating these ad campaigns, Conde’s masterminded a few things:

1. They demand that all campaigns created in-house, are also only published in-house. So, In Style, owned by Time Inc, will never have one of the ads created by Conde Nast Media Group - unlike Vogue, Lucky or Allure, all published by Conde.

2. Since they’re already guaranteeing ad space in their magazine and website real estate for these advertisers by making their campaigns, they also create the campaigns at relatively low costs, which is appealing to both the advertisers and to Conde Nast - basically, they’ve invented a system in which they spend a little (in making the campaigns,) yet guarantee a lot (the ad revenue, exclusivity, the luxury of not having to go “down-market” with their advertiser base) in return.

This, in addition to recent news that Conde would be making many more dollars through more online video content, makes us think that Conde may not be faring as badly as people think, despite recent issues - After all, the chief marketing officer of LG did say, “At the end of 2009, we potentially will have spent more with Conde Nast versus a year ago.”

Which, in this environment, is pretty impressive, no?