FASHION INDUSTRY NEWS – THURSDAY

Good morning designers!  The Thursday edition of the StylePortfolios.com Daily Fix is up and ready for your reading pleasure.  What are you waiting for?  Get a coffee, sit-down and get your day started-off right with the The Daily Fix…

AMAZON QUIETLY LAUNCHED 7 FASHION BRANDS WHILE RAMPING UP HIRING FOR ITS OWN CLOTHING LINE – Yahoo!
“Amazon already owns 7 private label fashion brands, and it’s probably going to expand it even further, according to KeyBanc Capital’s Ed Yruma. According to a note published by Yruma, Amazon has at least 7 of its own trademarked brands that are already selling through the e-commerce site, including: Franklin & Freeman, Franklin Tailored, James & Erin, Lark & Ro, North Eleven, Scout + Ro, and Society New York.”

PUMA CELEBRATES EASTER WITH A BRAND NEW PACK – Hypebeast
“Easter is just around the corner and PUMA is welcoming the spring festival with a special sneaker pack with three tastefully updated silhouettes. The classic “Roma” is dressed in a multicolor paint splattered-upper across a beige base, while the “Suede” is outfitted in a bright green upper with geometric patterns and a “GV Special” features shiny black construction with white accents.”

JCPENNEY JUST MADE ITS MOST DESPERATE MOVE IN HISTORY TO WIN BACK CUSTOMERS – Business Insider
“It looks like JCPenney is resorting to desperate measures to hook customers. A new marketing scheme called “Get Your Penney’s worth” promotes heavy discounts, going as low as one literal penny, The Dallas Morning News reports.”

KANYE WEST WANTS TO POACH BALENCIAGA DESIGNER FOR YEEZY – RetailingToday
“Keeping up with Kanye West’s Twitter feed is, in itself, a full-time job.  In addition to the constant barrage of tweets about everything from the Grammys to a summer album release to ‘Ye’s one true love(himself), West also revealed some plans for Yeezy’s future. “I’m going to steal Demna from Balenciaga,” West tweeted, referring to the recently appointedBalenciaga creative director Demna Gvasalia, who took over the reigns at the fashion house last October following Alexander Wang’s departure. ”

INSIDE THE INCREDIBLE WORLD OF L.A.’S GLAM-ROCK SHOEMAKER – Vogue
“We talk, often enough, about clothes that blur the line between art and fashion. Think of Rei Kawakubo or Gareth Pugh. But what of shoes that do the same? Enter Chris Francis, the Los Angeles–based cobbler and true footwear artist whose goods do not blur, but exuberantly obliterate that line. “I don’t separate [those worlds],” he told Vogue.com on a recent call. “I see fashion as art, and oftentimes it has the same expressive motives as a painting or anything else.” After hopping freight trains for the better part of five years  (“I used to spray-paint shoes on the side of trains,” he recalls), Francis’s work focused on art and carpentry, and ultimately creating rock ’n’ roll leather ready-to-wear.”