Fashionista

On Saturday she saw J JS Lee‘s dreamy collection which was inspired by the view outside an aeroplane window.  The designer achieved the perfect balance between simple shapes and detailed tailoring, fluidity and structure and muted tones and flashes of yellow. Vogue said the collection was “a lesson in pared-down minimalism and chic tailoring“, summarising, “She’s definitely one to watch“. 

Holly Fulton‘s show was a complete contrast.  The show channelled Lady Chatterley, Stepford Wife and saucy French beatnik-brunette. It was a visually electric, featuring Holly’s signature graphic prints in hot fushia pink and aquamarine.  Her high-glamour designs will definitely brighten up next winter.  Vogue said of the collection, “with its smoldering prints and flirtatious cuts, [it] will have Fulton’s acolytes adequately dressed for a seductive season“.

Fashionista is always impressed with the quality of the collections delivered by these  young designers, knowing at first hand the limited resources available to them, which is why organisations such as the CFE and NEWGEN, (who also sponsor both J JS Lee and Holly Fulton) are so important. 

NEWGEN has been sponsored by Topshop since 2001.  In honour of Topshop’s 10th anniversary of sponsoring NEWGEN at London Fashion Week, it has produced a range of t-shirts designed by prestigious NEWGEN alumni, including Peter Pilotto, Richard Nichol, Jonathan Saunders, Marios Schwab, Gareth Pugh, Ashish, Louise Gray, Nasir Mazhar, Meadham Kirchhoff, Roksanda Ilincic, j.w. Anderson, Emma Cook, Peter Jensen, Holly Fulton, Craig Lawrence, House of Jazz, Michael van der Ham, Erdem, Mary Katrantzou and Christopher Kane, many of them CFE sponsored designers.  The t-shirts can be purchased at London Fashion Week or online.  Buy one to celebrate the Capital’s thriving young talent, and support Centrepoint, the charity supporting young homeless people, at the same time. How can you say no to that?!

Even though such university sponsorship may not be offered solely from the bottom of your Manolo Blahnik’s (you’ve got to find that next Alessandra Rich somewhere) so long as the primary purpose of the sponsorship is to advance someone’s training and education through a university degree, such student sponsorship contracts have been ruled not to be contracts of employment.

This means that if your student protégés try to assert they have a right to be employed at your Company once they are fully fledged graduates, you can confidently assert otherwise.

However, whilst this recent judgment is very favourable to employers, care still needs to be taken with how sponsorship arrangements are documented and run.

Fashionista has thought of four easy-care instructions you may wish to follow when ironing out the clauses in any student sponsorship agreements:

•  Avoid wording which refers to ‘employment’, including ‘continuous employment’, ‘employment rights’ and ‘terms and conditions of employment’.
•  Ensure the sponsorship agreement clearly states that its purpose is solely to provide training and education.
•  There should be no obligation for the sponsored student to undertake either paid or unpaid work with you during their university breaks and they should be free to work  elsewhere if they choose to do so (even with your competitors). 
•  Make any future offer of employment following the completion of the degree expressly discretionary, even if a condition of the sponsorship is for the student to offer you their paid services for a fixed period of time after the completion of the course.

However, if you do provide this type of service or functionality you need to be careful that you don’t make any statements which imply (directly or indirectly) that such reviews are “genuine”. Otherwise you run the risk of being deemed to be undertaking misleading advertising.

This advice comes on the back of a ruling this week by the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK against the well known travel site TripAdvisor. The ASA was unhappy with the claims they made on the site that reviews were from real travellers and could be trusted since this could not be verified. The ASA concluded that the claims were in breach of both misleading advertising and substantiation rules in the CAP Code. The site has been told that it can’t make any such statements again.

As reported in the Telegraph, TripAdvisor has defended user generated content as a valuable tool. “Of course, there are a small number who try to post false reviews. We target, catch and penalise those that do. But no site could guarantee that every single contribution is 100% accurate. Indeed, this would be true of any organisation, online or otherwise, verified or not, taking views from consumers. In reality, the impact of these attempts is negligible because they are drowned out by the vast majority of genuine voices that make up our community.

Aside from the benefit of strong projected rental and capital growth, this investment is also a long term measure to protect LMVH’s presence in a key market.  As the list of international retailers looking to establish flagship stores in central London continues to grow, the purchase of a shop in this location will also provide a safeguard against the increasing level of rent, which Cushman & Wakefield has predicted for prime Bond Street Zone A premises could reach £1,500 per square foot by 2013.

Fashionista expects the trend of retailers’ becoming property owners to continue in high profile markets where demand is outstripping supply and, in turn, an increasing number of cases of a retailer becoming the landlord of a competitor tenant - what Fashionista would give to be a fly on the wall during discussions when these leases are due for renewal!

The highlights Fashionista says you must know are:

- The new rules could, if adopted, come into force as early as 2015 and there are a lot of changes all businesses processing personal data will need to take before then to ensure compliance.

- The Regulation will mean a harmonised set of laws across Europe which may will make life easier for you if you have a presence in different countries in the EU. But there’s not much other good news in the proposals unfortunately.

- If you are currently based outside the EU but do target European customers, then you won’t escape the rules anymore and will need to appoint a data protection representative in one of the EU jurisdictions where such customers are located to fulfil the compliance obligations.

- The rules will mean a lot more admin for you including privacy impact assessments, maintainance of a paper trail of all processing operations, data security evaulation and measures, appointment of a data protection officer etc.

- All companies will have to make a notification in the event of a security breach and will need to have a team and processes in place to prevent breaches and handle the process correctly and promptly if issues arise.

- If you are working on data projects or systems at the moment then you need to take a pause to re-think how they will need to change to reflect the new proposals.

In short, with new fines available of up to 2% of global turnover for breaches possible, and at the same time more obligations to perform, data protection compliance will no longer be something to give just lip-service to and must become a key consideration.

According to ChinaDaily.com, by making the switch Chinese suppliers have less of a need to build in a buffer in costs to guard against currency fluctuations – particularly in longer term contracts. This means suppliers are more likely to offer up discounted deals and a greater pool of suppliers may be willing to supply in turn increasing competition.

With a tough year ahead it may be worth relooking at the payment and currency provisions in your supply arrangements again to see what additional strategies like this can be applied.

During December 2011, clothing retailer D2 Jeans and Barratts Priceless entered into administration and it is expected that they will be closely followed by lingerie chain, La Senza later this week. With 146 stores and 18 concessions across the UK, La Senza’s plight is another blow to the high street.

Experts predict that there will be minimal or no sales growth in 2012 and, with increased competition from online fashion retailers and clothing lines from the ever-expanding supermarkets, it looks to be another difficult year on the cards for high street retailers. As a consequence, many retailers are continuing to reduce costs by rationalising their property portfolios and renegotiating more competitive terms with their landlords.

In view of the current market and in the absence of any other positive news for retailers on the horizon, many commentators are looking towards the Diamond Jubilee and, particularly, the Olympic and Paralympic Games as catalysts to give a boost to the nation’s retailers during the summer of 2012. While Fashionista does not feel that this will be solution to the difficulties currently being experienced, the influx of foreign visitors may give some fashion retailers (and particularly those based in London) an increase in revenue during the third quarter as well as an opportunity to raise the profile of their brand to an international audience – but retailers should be wary of breaching LOCOG’s rights summarised here.

Fashionista was therefore excited to see a leak of the new European proposals for a new data protection Regulation in the FT last week.

Sitting rather heavily on her desk at 116 pages long, Fashionista has been through the document for you and sets out the main highlights below: -

• The rules, if approved, would need to be implemented uniformly across Europe (whereas currently the Directive has led to many national variations).
• In short the new regime looks set to be a lot less principle based and a lot more bureaucratic and prescriptive!
• Data controllers will be subject to increased paperwork and filing obligations including specific requirements to have in place data policies (which have become almost standard industry practice now anyway) as well as internal policies for example in relation to data security, assignment of responsibilities and training and mechanisms to verify the effectiveness of such policies including through external audit if proportionate. Companies with over 250 permanent employees will also need to appoint a data protection officer and privacy impact assessments need to be carried out in respect of new processing activities.
• Data protection authorities are also going to get a lot busier both checking up on this mountain of paperwork and also given that data controllers will be required to obtain prior authorisation for certain processing activities and to consult with them in relation to impact assessments where certain specific risks are identified.
• Some provisions have been included as an obvious response to the rise in social media. One such new provision concerns a “right to be forgotten” – i.e the right to require that data on you be deleted including in any public record (although how providers are able to control and effect that is unclear). The document also clarifies that if you want to use data for a new purpose, or to change terms and conditions, then you need to reobtain consent (no doubt prompted by Facebook who got into hot water with the US Federal Trade Commission and in Europe recently for failing to do that).
• The Regulation seeks to extend the ambit of protection to cover activities carried out outside of the EU but which are directed and people residing in the EU including the offer or products or services – and requires that such entities establish a representative in the EU.
• It provides a definition of a “child” as a person under 18 and states that consent below this age will only be valid if given or authorised by their parent or custodian (which is more onerous than currently in the UK where 16 is a more usual benchmark so that will be a bit of a pain for data users, as well as teenagers!).
• It requires controls be placed on third party processors who help process data on behalf of a data controller and in particular again sets out specific documentation which must be kept.
• All data controllers now have to notify the authorities if there is a data security breach and to notify data subjects where the breach is likely to adversely affect the protection of their personal data or privacy (currently this is only a legal requirement for electronic communications service providers such as ISPs and recommended for others where there is a serious breach).
• The Commission also encourages the establishment of data protection certification seals and marks so we can expect to see a whole industry borne on the back of that!
• A new European Data Protection Board will be established in particular to advise the Commission and ensure consistent application of the Regulation throughout Europe.
• Penalties will increase with minimum sanctions outlines including fines of up to 100,000 – 1,000,000 EUR or 5% of annual worldwide turnover for certain negligent or intentional breaches.

Just to be clear, there’s no need to panic – this isn’t a change in the law which applies now. It isn’t even a final approved draft yet. Fashionista will be sure to keep you posted with all the latest developments…..

As reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning, HMRC has sent cautionary letters warning that interns carrying out the duties of paid staff should be paid as employees. The taxman has confirmed that letters have been sent to the 102 fashion houses that exhibited during London Fashion Week this year.  It has been reported that HMRC plan on carrying out a series of ‘spot-checks’ in the New Year to ensure fashion houses are complying with its rules on the treatment of interns.   

The consequences of not treating interns as employees when they should be treated as such can be expensive.  An employee should be paid at least the national minimum wage (currently £4.98 per hour for 18-20 year olds and £6.08 per hour for workers ages 21 and over).  An intern would be entitled to back-pay from the date the internship began to the extent they have not been paid the minimum wage.  In addition, the employer will have to pay employer’s national insurance contributions and account for  PAYE.  Interest and penalties may also be levied by HMRC.

Reaction on blogs and web forums frequented by would-be fashionistas hoping for an internship has been mixed.  Whilst nearly all are happy their work will be financially rewarded, some have expressed concern that if internships become a cost to fashion houses, they will stop offering them.

Fashionista attended a wonderful event last Thursday organised by the networking group Women in Law. The evening was hosted by the inspiring Catherine Palmer, General Counsel of luxury fashion brand Joseph at Joe’s Cafe established by the label’s founder Joseph Ettedgui because he needed somewhere to go for lunch which was close to his shop! From his favourite table in the restaurant he could look out and survey the comings and goings of his flagship store.

Catherine’s own career story was fascinating. She explained that she’s had two previous careers, teaching and then lexicography before deciding on law. She trained at Slaughters and decided against a qualification seat in M&A (referred to as “Death Row” by the then trainees) to join Browne Jacobson’s French Team. It was there that she began advising fashion businesses, and this led to her being approached some years later to join Joseph. As well as handling all legal issues, Catherine explained that she is also responsible for a number of other non-legal functions within the business including HR and Security which can lead to unusual and interesting challenges. 

Catherine explained that she had not planned her career but rather took the opportunities that presented themselves. She was inspired by many people around her but made particular reference to her grandmother who was an intellectual despite her traditional upbringing in Beverley,Yorkshire. She studied at Somerville College, Oxford at a time when the university did not award degrees to women despite their attendance at lectures, studying hard and sitting the exams. When in later years, her grandmother received a letter from Oxford inviting her to attend a graduation and collect her degree, she politely responded declining the invitation and explaining that she had considered herself a graduate since her university days. The lesson she passed on to Catherine was that, as women, we can and should make our own decisions about what we do in life.

As this Fashionista stood, surrounded by a range of women at different stages in their career and from a wide range of backgrounds, she was struck by just how far women have come in the last century. And yet, even now that today women outnumber men in terms of the number of trainee solicitors and new qualifieds entering the profession, women remain a minority at the top of the profession whether as partners in private practice or sitting on the Board. While Lord Davies’ report  favours a quota system to reverse the gender imbalance, many of the women attending last night’s event disliked the notion that after all the years of hard work, they should not be selected on merit when achieving the highest positions of responsibility.  When there are so many amazing women in law and fashion why are women not in fashion when it comes to the top jobs? Fashionista would be interested in her readers’ views on the subject.