We propose you a selection of amazing paintings by Russian street artist Nikita Nomerz, making derelict buildings come alive by adding big eyes and glasses!
Nikita Nomerz‘s work ranges from water towers painted to look like they’re laughing to dilapidated buildings with broken window frames for eyes. Nomerz, from the western Russian city of Nizhniy Novgorod, travels around various cities in his homeland to carry out his art.
Thank you Nikita, we do like your work!
The So Soon team
Analyst Insight by May Ling Tham, Head of Personal Accessories and Eyewear Research, Euromonitor International
Eyewear in Latin America posted a value CAGR of 3.5% over 2007-2012, slightly ahead of the industry’s global CAGR of 2.8%. As mature markets continue to inch towards saturation, eyewear manufacturers are eyeing emerging markets such as Latin America and Asia. Euromonitor International takes a look at some expansion activities in Latin America.
Brazil takes the lead
Within Latin America, Brazil registered the strongest performance in eyewear over the 2007-2012 review period. Brazil is the largest economy in South America in terms of real GDP, with a growing middle-class and enjoying higher than average GDP per capita. Thanks to a combination of the country’s ageing population, rising demand for prescription glasses and increased usage of eyewear as a fashion accessory, Euromonitor International expects to see continued strong demand for eye care and related services in Brazil over the forecast period.
Eyewear Market Value Size in Key Latin American Countries
Strengthening retail reach
To tap into the growth potential in Brazil, global eyewear manufacturer Luxottica has invested heavily in building its retail presence in Latin America. Prior to 2011, the eyewear giant reported less than 10 bricks-and-mortar outlets in Central and South America. In 2011, the company’s aggressive expansion plan was realised, with its presence increasing dramatically to 1,050 outlets through retail expansion and acquisition.
Apart from the aggressive growth of its existing retail arm, Sunglass Hut, Luxottica also made a few strategic acquisitions, including those of the leading Brazilian eyewear company Grupo Tecnol Ltda and Multiopticas Internacional. Grupo Tecnol Ltda consists of a production plant, a portfolio of house and licensed brands, a strong wholesale distribution network, a laboratory and an optical retail chain, while Multiopticas Internacional owns the Opticas GMO, Econopticas and Sun Planet retail brands. These two acquisitions gave Luxottica an additional 560 stores across Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
This lucrative market has also attracted international investors, with 3i Group at the start of 2013 acquiring one of Brazil’s largest optical chains, Óticas Carol. Currently with 490 stores, Óticas Carol has doubled its store numbers over the past three years and has plans to continue expanding to 1,000 stores by 2014. While the company has been focusing its efforts on São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul, it has indicated its interest in expanding into a wider number of cities, including the northeast region of Brazil. With new capital backing from 3i Group, combined with its aggressive expansion plans, the company looks set to grow at a rapid pace.
Creativity the key to standing out
Latin America is one of the regions that has a good mix of both international and local players. Of the top 20 eyewear companies in the region in 2011, half were companies of local origin. These players, including Augen Opticos SA de CV (Mexico) and Chilli Beans Comércio de Produtos Nacionais e Importados Ltda (Brazil), have been enjoying tremendous success on their home ground and beyond.
To achieve differentiation, local eyewear start-ups are becoming more creative in their approach, one example being new Brazilian online firm Lema21. Founded by two Brazilian entrepreneurs, this eyewear company aims to cut out the middleman in Latin America. It uses a transparent business model that allows customers to purchase prescriptive frames and lenses online for a flat rate of R$267 (approximately US$120). In addition, Lema21 also provides creative services such as a virtual mirror and home trial.
With aggressive expansion plans from the big players and the strong positioning of local and regional players, the competitive environment in Latin America is set to intensify. It will thus be essential to be seen and heard above the clutter in order to succeed in this profitable market.
Source: Euromonitor International
Ever noticed how our daily routine is characterized by an overload of boxes? Cans, tins, cases, jars, bottles, containers, pots, cardboards, envelops, and whatever has the function of ‘containing’? We give a great care to the boxes. Boxes everywhere. Cases for wrapped pastries. Containers of pallets carrying wrapped cartons containing wrapped cases with cellophaned cover cases for cell phones. Packaging as a behind-the-scenes, camouflaged permanent guest of our homes, our cars, our offices. Boxes as the supreme sign of an unescapable pattern of life that has made our every day existance struggling with the attitude to envelop the artificial, with the basic instinct to protect the ‘temporary’, wathever the cost. Pretty ironic at firsth glance, in the age of downsizing and eco-sustainability. It’s only design, baby!
The boxes affair deserves a moment of reflection. Let’s clarify any doubts: we could not live without boxes. They’re one of the many bricks that build the advanced civilization. A well designed case plays a key role in our daily well-being, whatever it is the case of our 700-bucks new pair of eyeglasses, the marketing packaging of our own company’s best-seller, the wrapping of our sterilized plaster, or the gift box for our beloved. We ourselves at So Soon plan a dedicated project when designing a new packaging for the eyewear, allocating enormous resources. And, yes: many boxes are definitely… beautiful, sometimes more than the thing contained in it. You bet we have collected a valuable archive of packagings over the years.
But let’s for a second take into account not solely all the can’t-live-without and nonessential packagings stored in our Buried-Alive-style houses and offices – this could yet be bearable for many people, though. There is a deeper, hard to grasp aspect to be considered. Box is not just a physical thing to be handled, but the symbol of a more general – and less tangible but not for this less significant – attitude to replace the message with the carrier, a tendence to pay more attention to the form than the meaning. It’s a ‘shapeshift’ trick of our present age to overcome the true meaning with a boisterous presentation, to disguise a sneaky intention with beautiful words. In a nutshell, to overthrow the container with the content. The everyday teather of politics has much to teach about this undeniable relity.
Well, we could venture on a (too) long and turbulent flight into this matter of which we barely can figure out the end, touching down the busy airports of ethics and colleccionism – we’d probably crash this last one, though! But for now we’re confining ourselves to report an interesting artwork of the young French designer Elise Hauville: the Manège boite, a box that opens a multitude of boxes, like a flower. It may not be helpful to the eco-sustainability cause. But it’s definitely… beautiful. And full of many sociological and symbolic values.
Elise, would definitely love to add Manège to our boxes collections! 
The So Soon team
Our team is back from the thrilling seasonal marathon of optical fairs MIDO in Milan and Vision Expo East in NY…
Thank you all for your time, your support and for the fruitful meetings! We will keep in touch!
The So Soon team
When you think of fashion week, you think of the Big Four – Paris, Milan, New York and London. But more that 100 fashion weeks take place each year around the globe: Poznan Fashion Fair in Poznan, Poland; Omaha Fashion Week in Omaha, Nebraska; iD Dunedin Fashion Week in Dunedin, New Zealand; Island of The World Fashion Showcase in Nassau, Bahamas, just to name a few… There is always a fashion week somewhere which you can schedule.
Week rising up
What started out as trade-only events that were open to manufacturers, buyers and retailers, over the years have become glamorous media events, attracting celebrities to their hallowed front rows. New York Fashion Week is the oldest, having been inaugurated in 1943 by fashion publicist Elenor Lamber who wanted to give American designers a chance to showcase their works and to draw attention away from fashion-stalwart Paris. The Big Four, of which the newest is London, are now huge festivals containing more than 100 events, including runway shows, charity events, competitions, gala dinners and accessory showcases. They’re no longer an industry event solely, they’re a social event to all effects. And the love for the spectacle of a fashion show has given rise to a lot of new local fashion weeks around the globe.
Opportunity – next exit
First and foremost: we at So Soon are leery about the idea that anyone can be a critic, passing destructive judgment after seeing a show on the internet from the front only and in distorted color. Personally, we don’t feel we can judge. Sure, there is a genuine difference between the stylish and the showoffs, between the Fashion Market and what respected fashion critic Suzy Menkes has recently called the Circus of Fashion. And it’s not entirely wrong to talk about dreaming-New-York recitals when describing some fashion fests around the globe. Some of the local fashion weeks could eventually be naif, light years away from the glamour of exclusive invitation-only affairs such as New York or Paris platforms. And yet, it’s not so hard to step into events turned into a zoo by outside-fashion-shows showoff people whose unique scope is to catch the paparazzi attention.
But you must not put in the same pot the fuss around the shows and what goes on inside the tents, whether you talk about the Fashion Week of either New York, Little Rock or Kuala Lumpur. We at So Soon prefere to leave stirs and preeners parades to the gossip journalism and mantain a constructive take on the whole matter: we believe that most of the proliferating off-the-beaten-track fashion weeks, before any other consideration, are a great chance for all of those aspiring stylists and emerging talents who are eager to get visibility into the fashion arena, especially whether they happen to come from out-of-the-spotlight regions and can’t afford all the necessary investments for the pilgrimage to the fashion Capitals. Smaller fashion week events are not just an opportunity to showcase local designers and retailers, or a chance for talent scouts to visit places they might not otherwise get to see: those fests make new fashion communities burgeon, they are an inspiration for people in the area who have an interest in fashion but who wouldn’t necessarily have the chance to participate in it, if not for the local shows. And they allow operators to reach out and touch local trends in foreign markets to the final benefit of their businesses.
Different takes on the matter
Someone among those in the business, like the renowned fashion journalist Maya Singer on a recent article for Style.com, seems however to be taking the matter from another angle. “In the past decade there’s been a synchronous advance of the idea of fashion week not as a venue for work but as a form of entertainment” Singer writes, “that’s led to the proliferation of a new kind of fashion week, one in which the spectacle of catwalk shows is treated largely as an end in itself”. It may look like a snobbish statement at first glance, but Maya Singer has highlighted a point worthy of reflection: how much real content does many of those fashion weeks actually carry in terms of both design and business?
The question is right in itself, but we believe that each case must be carefully taken on its own without generalizing. Events as Aurora Fashion Week give a pretty exhaustive overview on the trends, the codes and the cultural transformations of a Country, Russia, which is now among the main actors of the global economy. On the other side, some of the local fashion weeks may not be pure business trade events nor a meeting point for major buyers and International personalities, and may not be carrying noteworthy style contents. Some of them may have been custom built around a single local designer. Or, as the audience for fashion has grown more global, they may have been made just for the sake of the people who love the spectacle of a fashion show in the comfort of their own neighborhood. The same people who, like almost all of us humans do, want to be part of something exclusive, want to experience that magic feeling of reaching the unreachable and feel part of the VIP stage for at least the fleeting moment of a step in the catwalk.
Could Andy Wharol ever be more prophetical when stating that everyone would have been world famous for fifteen minutes? Probably not… But even though the community-driven fashion weeks are much smaller in scale and influence than what we can see in Milan or New York, is true as well that they’re all striving to that standard. And as Misty Lister – director of marketing at Charleston Fashion Week – adds in the same Singer’s article, “they attracts visitors and brings money into the local economy. And for the designers who are competing, it’s an amazing learning opportunity”. In short, they all have their raison d’être somehow.
A never ending story?
Symphatizing or not with the spread of the fashion weeks phenomenon it’s up to one’s own conception of fashion business. Are they just would-but-can’t initiatives, or rather an expression of the behaviour of the new generations? Do they look like tenderness-evoking efforts to build homemade parades, or perhaps technical tests of a new incoming standard? Are they autopoietic, clumsy attempts to achieve “The Dream” by those not invited to the party, or the sign that there are new protagonists provided with tools and possibilities who are going to establishing? Do you believe they are try-and-fail passing phenomena, or rather the effect of the global redistribution of wealth on a field – the fashion – which has always made of “desire” its ultimate fuel?
The dispute is open. Its waves may eventually lap the shores of some adages, as the jealousy of the old age towards the advent of the “new”, and might move more than an ego within the established fashion world. But in the era of globalization, democratization of luxury and mass-communication, the proliferation of fashion weeks phenomenon is indisputably a sign of the time.
The So Soon team
After Fall’s more-is-more opulence, the industry reversed itself for Spring. And the antidote to all that gilt brocade and bejeweled embellishment? It doesn’t get any more back-to-basics than black and white, which quickly emerged as one of the season’s big themes. But it wasn’t all so cut-and-dried. The other trends you’ll be buying into in the coming months: peekaboo veiling, couture ruffles, and new riffs on the kimono.
Click here for the whole report
Source: Style.com
Pantone LLC, the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® Fashion Color Report Fall 2013, a comprehensive overview of designers’ use of color in their upcoming collections. Released on the first day of New York Fashion Week, the PANTONE Fashion Color Report features the top 10 colors for women’s and men’s fashion for fall 2013. Download the full report here
Spotlights are shining on the 2013 edition of VICENZAORO Winter. Starts today, Saturday 19, the firsth appointment of the year of the International Exhibition of Goldsmith, Jewelry, Silverware and Watches at the Fiera di Vicenza, Italy which opens its door to 1,300 exhibitors from leading Italian gold districts and 31 foreign countries.
Matteo and Paolo are attending the event.
Spring Summer 2013 is grounded in a renewed sense of the importance of what’s real, what’s now and its potential.
It’s a season that invites you to consider different realities and explore contemporary cultures, lifestyles, science and technology to create new visual forms.
How do you make this real? How do you make this desirable?
How do you even answer the question “what is desirable”?
WonderLab creates a pathway through the jungle of modern science and technology. It lets us into a secret visual world that once was fantasy but is now real, and gives us practical options for changing lifestyles.
The Story of Now looks at everything that makes reality today: the new and the not so new, the jarringly ugly and the achingly beautiful. It fuses them together in new ways to create a visual context for the season.
Idiomatic celebrates the uniqueness of regional cultures and of the communities that shape them. It revels in the stylistic and behavioural norms that sum up these cultures today and shares them with a world seeking a visual aesthetic that is more real and in tune with modern lives.
Keywords: OPEN LABORATORY; THE SCIENCE OF LUXURY; BODY-SHOCK; BIO-PSYCHEDELIC
Science (the good one) is cool. Honestly it really, really is cool.
Take a sci-tech approach, the visual richness of biochemistry and the excitement of what’s to come as the inspiration for a new desirable aesthetic.
Expect the world to be transformed in ways we are only starting to imagine.
A new world of apps, consumer electronics and digital tools – plus the artists and science celebrities who bring it all to life – open a world of visuals that we can appropriate for a new interpretation of democratic luxury.
Apps, blogs, art festivals and sci-tech celebrities are opening a new world of accessible science, both to consumers and designers. Science is the new frontier for luxury, both as inspiration and as a product development tool. Our bodies become a new territory for exploration by designers. Medical science allows us to see beauty where it’s least expected. Combine science and creativity to generate a new desirable aesthetic.
Keywords: HYSTORY OF TODAY; DISRUPTED NARRATIVES; DOCUMENTING REALITY; UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Look at the now from a different perspective and analyse reality in a new way.
Set aside your preconceptions about the present and the recent past, and replace them with a fresh way of looking at the world. Be real, non-linear, and see beauty in the seemingly undesirable.
By archiving our digital past, we have discovered a new appreciation of that which we previously coveted, used and cast aside.
This has opened up a new source of inspiration, one that values reality.
Archive and analyse our digital revolution. Be inspired by the blend of technology, text and backlit visuals. Reality is no longer a single narrative; nothing is as it seems, as the past and present, real and fake come together to forge a new visual landscape. Look at a different form of reality – one that is often undervalued, unexpected and at times unwelcome. Shapes and symbols emerge as a universal language to tell the story of now.
Keywords: CELEBRATING THE LOCAL; DIALECTS KEEP MOVING; COMMUNITIES INSPIRE; IN-JOKES
Idiomatic explores contemporary regional idiosyncrasies with a global appeal.
It looks at each area’s own qualities – the customs, symbols and hidden eccentricities – and magnifies them in a way that is progressive rather than sentimental.
Preserving and gathering local knowledge, the emergence of co-creation within communities, evolving ritual and the cultural stability to laugh at oneself are all key.
Globalisation is no longer the enemy – it now allows the local to flourish and inspire.
In a reaction to globalisation we feel the need to conserve and enjoy the local. This is not an attempt to exclude, but to celebrate community and culture, and to invite the rest of the word to share in the experience. Local traditions and styles don’t stand still. In the creative universe both insiders and outsiders recast them in a modern image. The key is to respect and pay homage to the traditional, while moving forward. The recent focus on the celebrity and the individual-as-star is being replaced by a new emphasis on the community, the group. The symbols, customs and achievements of these communities also influence and drive creativity forward. Even inward-looking, local humour has a universal appeal. Celebrate the idiosyncrasies of a culture or a community in a fun, light-hearted way and let it influence your visual style.
Source: WGSN