Saks Fifth Avenue Reopens on Fifth Avenue With a Retail Strategy That Goes Far Beyond Hand Sanitizer

Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue is reopening to customers today in a changed New York and a changed world. On the outside, the store has replaced its boarded-up façade with windows featuring a “Welcome Back, New York” theme. Inside, you will be met by a concierge who will present you with a nonmedical mask if you’ve forgotten yours, a hand sanitizer station, and, says president Marc Metrick, “the best product assortment and the most welcoming staff in all of New York City and all of the U.S.”

Other stores up and down the avenue might be struggling with phase two of New York City’s reopening plan—Valentino, for one, is trying to get out of its lease on the thoroughfare completely—but Saks is assuming a hopeful approach. Precautions are being taken at every turn inside the store, with ultraviolet lights sanitizing escalator railings, elevators reserved for seniors and differently abled guests, and surfaces being sanitized multiple times throughout the day. In addition, a number of virtual services, including video chat shopping, allow shoppers to get the Saks experience from the comfort of their couch.

The question we’re all asking: What does this mean for retail at large? Will people venture out to shop? Is that safe? Or even necessary?

Metrick is “cautiously optimistic” about foot traffic at Saks’s NYC flagship this week. With New Yorkers fleeing the city’s summertime humidity for greener pastures, June, July, and August are typically slow months for physical sales in the Fifth Avenue store (hence, a new same-day shipping service to the Hamptons). Metrick is also encouraged by the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition to e-commerce and online communication and further incentivized marrying digital and physical experiences. The future, he says, “is going to be about how we connect our physical experience with our virtual experience. That’s going to be the real push here because there’s no better customer than the one that shops both online and in store.”

But what about the other issues concerning the fashion industry right now? In the three months since Saks closed its Midtown store, fashion has undergone reckonings on every level. Industry professionals are advocating for shifting the fashion show and delivery cycles to allow products to be sold in season, delaying markdowns to better suit marketing and sales budgets. There is the global Black Lives Matter movement, which has compelled fashion companies to interrogate how their practices have upheld systemic racism. Fashion must redefine its place and its purpose. Here, Saks’s repositioning of product and embrace of new digital technologies offers some ideas for how to move forward.

Saks, Metrick notes, had been trying to realign its seasons since before the pandemic, but the pause made possible by lockdowns and delayed shipments forced the retailer into action. “We’re opening our store [today] in New York, and it’s all seasonally appropriate product for the first time in 96 years,” he says. By delaying the on-sale dates of some spring collection orders—as well as paring back its buy—Saks is doing exactly what signatories of Dries Van Noten’s forum letter and the Rewiring Fashion petition have advocated: selling product in season and pushing back markdown cycles. “It’s really a proof of concept,” he continues. “We have to do it together as an industry, change the product flow, and continue to think about how goods are coming to the store and when they’re available for customers.”

As for addressing the racism baked into the fashion system, Metrick is hesitant to accept the 15% Pledge—an initiative started by Aurora James asking major stores to stock at least 15% of their total product from Black-owned businesses—but says Saks is working to incorporate more Black and POC-owned brands into the store. “What’s on the docket for Saks for sure is fostering, promoting, and building the fashion presence for underrepresented talent in our stores,” he says. “Rather than commit specifically [to the 15% Pledge], we are trying to figure out how we can make sure that this talent has the right level of support, that we’re engaging with it in the right way, and that we are making sure we are seeing new product and we’re bringing it in [to the store].” (It’s worth noting that the 15% Pledge offers exactly this kind of consulting and advice to its partners.)

Metrick also points to new technologies that are streamlining the buying process, allowing for merchants to spend less time catering to existing brand partners and more time discovering and supporting new talent. “We’ve really modernized our buying approach,” he says, citing the store’s partnership with the virtual showroom NuOrder as a game changer for how its buys are made. The subscription service allows for a fully digital and multi-brand approach to buying—no longer do buyers have to keep independent offline documents to track orders. What in the past would have required a series of weeklong showroom appointments with endless follow-ups and data crunching can be sorted through the NuOrder system in a single day. “Because we’re going to be saving a lot of time with our core partners on NuOrder, we can go out and start figuring out how to connect with new and emerging talent, especially with underrepresented talent we have to go after,” Metrick says. Whether this results in a more diverse array of brands within Saks is yet to be seen, but if this idea is taken seriously, it is one small step forward.

The reality is fashion cannot afford to go back to its status quo—not in the brands it supports and the voices it hears, and not in the way it sells and markets products. Whether Saks and other luxury department stores succeed moving forward will depend on how and when they address these issues. For now, it seems Saks Fifth Avenue has a lot of potential to make the positive changes the industry so desperately needs.

The CFDA and BFC Join a Chorus of Industry Voices Calling for a Reset

Last week Dries Van Noten wrote an open letter to the fashion community, signed by peers including Joseph Altuzarra, Mary Katrantzou, and Marco Zanini. It was followed days later by a Business of Fashion initiative with many of the same designer signatories. Both documents cited the need for radical change. The COVID-19 pandemic has crystallized the many challenges facing the industry, from the outmoded runway-show system to the interrelated problems of out-of-sync deliveries and profitability-eroding markdowns. Even as the lockdowns begin to lift, the crisis’s impact is reverberating—see: Neiman Marcus’s bankruptcy, the closure of Jeffrey and Opening Ceremony stores, and the 800-plus designers and companies that have applied for the CFDA and Vogue’s A Common Thread grants.

Today, it’s the Council of Fashion Designers of America and the British Fashion Council’s turn to weigh in. The two organizations have issued a joint message to their respective members. Dubbed “The Fashion Industry’s Reset,” the letter covers similar ground, calling on the community to rethink the ways in which designers and brands do business and present collections. “We are united in our steadfast belief that the fashion system must change, and it must happen at every level,” it begins. What follows is a series of recommendations, starting with slowing down. “For a long time, there have been too many deliveries and too much merchandise generated. With existing inventory stacking up, designers and retailers must also look at the collections cycle and be very strategic about their products and how and when they intend to sell them.” That means “focus[ing] on no more than two main collections a year” and shifting the delivery cadence of merchandise “closer to the season for which it is intended.”

On the subject of fashion shows, the CFDA and BFC emphasize the importance, once the pandemic is over, of showing “during the regular fashion calendar and in one of the global fashion capitals.” Doing so would “avoid the strain on buyers and journalists traveling constantly.” But today’s letter does not go as far as the Business of Fashion proposal, which strongly encourages see-now-buy-now shows “as events primarily designed to engage customers...just before deliveries arrive in stores.” (It’s worth noting that a handful of designers experimented with the see-now-buy-now formula several years ago, but it was abandoned by all but Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger.)

Sustainability, which had been fashion’s cri de coeur in the months leading up to the coronavirus crisis, is another bullet point: “Through the creation of less product, with higher levels of creativity and quality, products will be valued, and their shelf life will increase.”

The CFDA and BFC letter is the latest indication that the industry is starting to rally around the idea of change, but there are major players, especially in Europe, that have not yet joined the chorus. Perhaps that doesn’t matter. The last time the fashion-show schedule shifted in any significant and lasting way was when Helmut Lang moved his show from Paris to New York circa fall 1998. A season later, all of New York was showing ahead of Europe, breaking decades of precedent. Now is the time for action, so who is 2020’s Helmut Lang?

Jane Fonda Is Making Tracksuits for COVID-19 Relief

Like many who are in self-isolation right now, actress Jane Fonda is delving into the world of comfortable outfits. Today, she modeled a heather gray tracksuit in the corner of her living room with a fresh lacquer of red lipstick. (She was also petting a puppy.) The set featured a rainbow jersey stripe with “Fonda” printed down the sides. But it's no ordinary sweatsuit. They’re currently for sale and 100 percent of the net proceeds will go to benefit Fire Drill Friday, Fonda’s cause that urges politicians to pay attention to climate change, and One Fair Wage, which advocates for full minimum wage for workers. “Each purchase will help the fight against climate change and provide assistance to our service industry and tipped workers affected by COVID-19,” she wrote in the caption. Fonda had initially shown off the sweats a week ago, but then she referred to them as “my Jane Fonda sweats.” After a flurry of positive comments, including one that read “not to be a capitalist but......do you sell these????”, Fonda decided to make them for sale. The decision to sell the sets comes after Fonda noted in November that her red coat would be the last item of clothing she’d purchase.

This isn’t the first time Fonda has used fashion to make a political statement. She has long been wearing the aforementioned bright red coat to her Fire Drill Friday demonstrations on Capitol Hill, where she’s been arrested multiple times. She’s also Instagrammed herself in red socks with climate activist Greta Thunberg’s face, noting that people should react towards climate change the way they are reacting towards COVID-19. Speaking of the COVID-19 crisis, last month Fonda wore a red Working America bandana around her mouth and wrote: “@CDCgov @kamalaharris @speakerpelosi this is NOT personal protective equipment. Bandanas and scarves provide almost NO effective protection when #COVID19 patients are highly contagious.#ProtectNurses and save lives: strengthen PPE guidelines for frontline health care workers NOW!”

Fonda’s style has always played a part in how she approaches activism whether it is intentional or not. Back in 1970, she was arrested on her way home after an anti-Vietnam War talk in Canada after police had seized a bag of vitamins, claiming they were drugs. (She was taken to jail on drug smuggling charges.) In her mugshot, she famously sported a mullet and a raised fist. In her memoir My Life So Far, she called the ’do “My first hair epiphany.” And like each of her activist looks, her latest fashion moment speaks volumes.

Meet the Fiery Feminist Who Melted Our Hearts During Paris Fashion Week

One of the most hopeful moments during Paris Fashion Week occurred at the Xuly.Bët show on March 2, when the Malian singer and model Inna Modja appeared on designer Lamine Badian Kouyaté’s runway carrying her three-month-old daughter Valentina tightly to her chest.

Modja is no stranger to the catwalk, although her path through the fashion world has been a winding one. Born in Mali, she started writing poetry at 14 and soon after combined her words with music. As a self-described advocate of Africa, Modja sings of the continent’s beauty and its problems, creating modern music that “expresses that [Africa] can also be avant-garde.”

The new mother doesn’t play it safe when it comes to her own personal style: She mixes unexpected elements and tries to stand out. “As an African woman, a feminist, and a musician, I like to take up space. I like to be unapologetic,” she said.

Her latest project is a sustainable fashion cooperative, which will soon open in Bamako, Mali. Called Jiriso (meaning “House of Plants”), its aim is to create artisanal products while providing education and employment to young people. Modja has also recently finished filming The Great Green Wall, a documentary (directed by Fernando Meirelles of City of God and The Constant Gardener fame), in which she travels across Africa, following a line of newly planted trees, meeting different communities and recording music along the way. It is yet another case of Modja creatively combining two things she’s passionate about—music and sustainability—for the greater good.

Here, Modja speaks to Vogue about becoming a mother, the roots of her activism, and her style.

How did you come to open Lamine’s Paris fashion show?
I know Lamine from Mali; he’s really a dear friend. It means the world to me that he is back. I’m not modeling anymore, but I said, “Lamine, it would be truly an honor to walk your show.” He was so happy and he said, “I’d gladly have you, and bring Valentina with you.” For him [this show] was like being reborn in Paris and he said Valentina is a baby and it means the same thing. Lamine’s clothes are so vibrant and so full of life. In French, [the word is] débrouille; it’s how you take things that don’t cost a lot and do something that really looks cool. And Lamine is the master of rethinking clothes, [using] vintage clothes…. In Mali, vintage is really part of the culture. That’s the thing that I love with Lamine, he was sustainable before sustainability was even a thing.

Lamine’s view of “la Parisienne” is different from the stereotype. Is the ideal shifting?
It hasn’t, but it will because Paris is multicultural, Paris is vibrant, Paris is young. It’s not that super-polished blonde with the beret on a bicycle. Paris is revolutionary and there are more what they call enfants terribles than perfect little French girls. Lamine is exciting because he showed a Paris that almost scared some people. People were trying so hard to hide that Paris, but that’s the real Paris, to me. It’s young, it’s colored, it’s sexy, it’s vibrant.

How do you use fashion and beauty as forms of self-expression?
I’ve been an activist since I was 19, and I’ve always used fashion as a way to express myself, to share strong messages. Sometimes you don’t have to say much to be understood; you can make strong statements with fashion. For me, fashion is really complementary with music. Because I’m always on the go with touring or my activism, so I like to be comfortable. When it’s time to spice things up [I turn to different designers]. Since I’ve been doing music, Lamine has been part of my closet. I love Jean Paul Gaultier; his clothes are so fierce. I love also African designers who are really now starting to be noticed by the whole world. [As for beauty], well, my hair is big, as is my mouth, and as an African woman, a feminist, and a musician, I like to take up space. I like to be unapologetic, and so my makeup is vibrant. I love red lips. I love a big eyeliner. I’m from the Fulani tribe and we use a lot of dark makeup on the lips and very dark eyes. I like to mix things up depending on what I’m doing; I like to always feel—how would you say that?—warm and fiery?

Can you tell us about your activism?
I started being an activist for women and girls’ rights when I was 19, because I went through female genital mutilation when I was four years old—behind my parents’ backs. My parents are feminists and they are against [the practice]. So that was the starting point. I wanted to do something because I hated the fact that I went through that and I didn’t want any other girl to go through such a horrible thing. And so I started to be an advocate for women and girls’ rights and to fight against the abuse of women. I started to notice that there are so many different forms of violence against women. I also [saw] the way women are living in Africa, especially in the Sahel, where I come from, climate is a big part of the problem. So 10 years ago I started being an activist for the Sahel and climate change in Africa.

What does being a feminist mean to you?
For me it is really important to have a voice and to have equality: It’s as simple as that. Some women lose their life for that, you know? We’ve been saying these things forever, but now society is starting to listen. With the #MeToo movement, #TimesUp, and so many different movements around the world, people are starting to listen to women. It’s a moment where we have a voice. We have to fight for every single woman around the world. If some women are not free, no one is free, actually. The thing that we all have in common is that there is not one country where there is perfect equality between men and women. I think it’s beautiful that even young girls feel like they have a voice and they use it. That’s brilliant. The next generation, you know, they don’t take shit. They are in the streets for the climate. They are in the streets for rights. That gives me a lot of hope.

How do you feel about being a new mother?
I have more of a sense of responsibility. When I look at my daughter, I want to make sure that we are doing everything for her, [so] she will not have to [experience] the same things as we did.

What is next for you?
I’m going to release The Great Green Wall film and then some music. And I’m actually going to open a sustainable fashion cooperative in Mali. I’m working with my sister [who is a designer] on that. We want to help women and young people to learn a new métier. The idea is to create clothing, but also every year to give a scholarship. The young people in Africa need jobs; the unemployment rate is so high. I believe that we can make change with this and do something exciting, because fashion is also fun.

The Best Fashion Instagrams of the Week: Kim Kardashian, Bella Hadid, and More

On Sunday, ahead of the Critics’ Choice Awards, Billy Porter decided to show off his latest look in an unexpected fashion. The actor, who was nominated for Best Actor in a Drama Series for his role in Pose, took a moment before the ceremony to glide down a suburban sidewalk wearing a custom green strapless jumpsuit by Hogan Mclaughlin, a silver chunky choker by Lynn Ban, and platform boots by Coach. In the video, Porter wrote a caption that touched on his career trajectory and the difficulties he’s met along the way, including how his masculinity was always questioned. An important piece of wisdom to take away from the caption? “Your gift will make room for you and you must be patient.” Words we can all live by.

Fast forward to later in the week, and the men’s shows in Paris were in full swing. Unsurprisingly, the owner of Moscow concept store KM20, Olga Karput, was already out on the town. The angelic Muscovite headed to the Off-White fall 2020 show wearing, of course, pieces from the label, including a hole-punched white purse. Whoever said that fashion had to be practical?

Meanwhile, far from the bustlings of fashion week was Normani, who headed to Jamaica to soak up some rays. The entertainer took the opportunity while hanging out in the lush Caribbean scenery to slip into a very fashion-forward look. She sported a groovy turtleneck, cut-off shorts, a blue tiny purse, and matching blue heels. The accessory of choice? A fresh coconut, of course.

Finally, someone who’s certainly not feeling the January blues is Bella Hadid. The model took a selfie in a hotel bathroom wearing a sheer, glittering Burberry mini dress with a keyhole cut-out. She shouted out her friend Riccardo Tisci, creative director of Burberry, writing “24/Tisci” in the caption. Even if your wardrobe isn’t stocked with Burberry pieces straight off the runway, we can all take that upbeat energy into the week ahead.