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From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Spring 2010

Last year Silvio Berlusconi claimed, via his newspaper Il Giornale, that “made in Italy” was the world’s leading fashion label, while Britain could only manage the dusty “bazaar” of Savile Row. In matters of taste, Berlusconi isn’t best placed to fling insults—let him who has never worn a printed bandana cast the first stone. But his comment was another graphic indication of the constant jostling for fashion’s pole position between Milan, Paris and London.

All three have a claim. Italy can boast that it is the global centre for beautiful knitwear. France has a couple of centuries of haute couture under its cinched-in belt. And when it comes to the high street, ask any teenager in Topshop and they’ll tell you that British fashion is both cheap and consistently inventive.

Judging fashion is nothing if not subjective, yet comparing brands is an interesting exercise. To that end, we ask an analyst to identify nine French, Italian and British labels—three big-gun luxury names, three independents and three high-street brands—that sell particularly well off their home turf (given certain selection criteria outlined below). Then I went on a series of exhausting, if not exhaustive, shopping trips.

Under the hawk-eyed gaze of sales assistants, I ferreted in linings, looking for the labels that show where clothes are manufactured. I tried to ignore the signage, scented candles and shop fittings—all the brouhaha that makes up a brand package—and instead thought about how the clothes would look lined up in an empty room. I considered their quality, the creativity of the design, their timelessness, and their desirability: which would a fashionable person think of as a label to flaunt? And which were recognisably from their country of origin? Working from these, admittedly arbitrary, categories, I then awarded each brand marks out of ten.

It turns out that the world’s leading label is, at least in terms of manufacturing popularity, “made in Turkey”. This reminded me of a dealer I met last time I was in Istanbul’s famous market, who flogs so-called designer bags and shoes for hundreds of pounds. “You can’t charge that for a copy of a Jimmy Choo,” I protested. A broad grin spread across his face. “OK,” he said. “Let’s call it a Mustapha Choo.”

SELECTION CRITERIA

Fashion by numbers

To find the brands in each category that were most successful overseas, we used a series of different criteria. Luxury brands were chosen on the basis of how well they were known by consumers globally; high-street brands on the basis of how many stores they had outside their own country; and independent labels by the percentage of their sales that were made overseas. (Analysis by Luca Solca and Andrea Rosso at Sanford Bernstein.)
Luxury

Luxury: *Percentage worldwide respondents pointing to this brand in answer to the question “Which of the following brands’ products would you prefer to buy, if money was no object?” (Source: Nielsen “Consumer and Designer Brands April 2008”)

High Street: *Number of outlets outside home territory, including own-brand shops and department-store outlets

Independent: *as a percentage of overall sales
**estimated

LUXURY LABELS

ITALY: Gucci
In his 14 years at Gucci, the American designer Tom Ford stamped the label with an unmistakable, sharp and sexy signature, but since he left in 2004, its image has become harder to navigate. Something of Ford’s lean, mean silhouette remains, but with the edge blunted. Instead, the clothes I saw at the Bond Street store sparkled and shimmered with a kind of generic Euro-flash—sequins, lamé and silk-satin everywhere. Glitter is on-trend right now, but in my imaginary line-up, would I spot these as Italian clothes? Perhaps. Italians have a magpie fascination with anything shiny, and the quality of the leather jackets, men’s as well as women’s, was second to none. But the clothes were more about showmanship than the quiet, luxurious tailoring you expect from Italians. To Gucci’s nationalistic credit, 100% of the goods I saw had a “made in Italy” label—but creatively it has slipped a notch or two, and since Ford’s departure, is no longer among the first rank. Marks out of ten: 7

BRITAIN: Burberry
The trenchcoat is a quintessential emblem of Britishness, and Burberry excels at them. But there’s far more to the brand: as well as the familiar beige canvas mac, the flagship store in Knightsbridge sells quilted jackets for the country rambler alongside delicate ruffled silk dresses. Though these days its much copied tan-and-brown check is often discreetly hidden in linings, or reinvented in shades of purple and violet, Burberry knows its export market well enough not entirely to forgo the original: in Knightsbridge, I watched a flock of Japanese women flutter excitedly around a display of classic checked canvas and leather handbags.

The clothes from its most expensive collection, Prorsum (designed by an Englishman, Christopher Bailey), get top marks for creativity: a taffeta version of the trenchcoat is a typically effortless confection of fashion caught in a light embrace by the Burberry legacy. It earned extra marks for timelessness, too, as the trench is an undying classic. But here’s the shocker. According to the labels I checked, just one basic trenchcoat was made in Britain. The rest came from Bosnia, Tunisia, Italy, Turkey, China, Romania, Poland…At which point I gave up counting. Marks: 8

FRANCE: Louis Vuitton
The American designer Marc Jacobs has been artistic director of Vuitton for more than a decade now, during which time he’s transformed this traditional French luggage brand into a fashion juggernaut. At the Bond Street store, the only remnant of the much-faked, tan-and-brown monogram is the occasional “LV” stamped in a subtle black-on-black on a leather coat, or woven in gold through a cashmere vest. The clothes are exuberant, luxurious, with the finest possible finish, and are redolent of Jacobs’s frivolous wit: he adds jewels to leggings, a pie-crust frill collar to a canary-yellow sweater, and a quilted appliqué ruffle to a sharp-shouldered scarlet coat. Most of the labels say “made in France”—but are these clothes distinctively French? No: Jacobs’s Vuitton is a global brand. Still, it is a creative chameleon that gets top marks for desirability. Marks: 9

INDEPENDENTS

BRITAIN: Paul Smith
The phrase “classic with a twist” has been applied to this label ever since it started getting noticed back in the early 1980s—and it’s still a neat summary of the way its tailoring is punched up with witty details: at Paul Smith, every suit has a stripey lining. And it’s very British: the black jacket embroidered with pearl buttons that I saw in the Notting Hill store was a clever spin on the tradition of pearly kings and queens, and couldn’t come from anywhere but Britain. Creatively, the label gets high marks for maintaining its identity so consistently. In terms of fashion, the message is muted; but then Smith was never one for shouting about trends, and that gives the brand a subtle, timeless appeal. The provenance is a bit of a mishmash: British cloth is made into suits in Italy, Italian cloth is made into coats in India, silk and cashmere pieces are made in China. But the quality is impeccable throughout. Marks: 8

FRANCE: Chanel
Chanel’s store on Bond Street is the essence of French chic: wafting with expensive scent and hung with luxurious fabrics stitched in Parisian ateliers (the tailoring is firmly “made in France”, the knitwear “made in Italy”). The clothes, too, are unmistakably French: seek, and you soon find the Breton navy-and-white stripes, Matelot influences and camellias that Coco Chanel loved. The quality is immaculate, the creativity undeniable—the signature edge-to-edge jacket reinvented as a collarless coat that from a distance looks camel-coloured, but up close is knitted from multiple shades of silk tweed. When it comes to timelessness, there can be no argument: the distinctive double-C logo is there, but it whispers rather than shouts, making a few discreet appearances on a button or a silk lining. By the end of my visit I was purring with desire. Marks: 10

ITALY: Armani
In the early 1980s, I would have sold my soul to wear Armani—or at least half my body weight in order to achieve the flat-chested, sharp-pelvised silhouette necessary for his androgynous designs. But these days the man who pioneered superbly tailored jackets with a low-set collar and lapel (to make your neck look longer) and an elegant, slightly above-the-wrist cuff (to do the same for your arms) seems to be playing safe. A camel cashmere coat in Armani’s Bond Street store could be any other cashmere coat, albeit of the highest quality. And a black trouser suit was too boxy and corporate to say, or even mutter, “Italian fashion”. Even the signature Armani greige—which once was so chic and new—is now, well, just beige. Armani has become the uniform of mid-level executive America: its identity is now more transatlantic than Italian. Quality is assured, as is timelessness—I still wear an Armani suit from 1978—but when it comes to creativity and fashionableness, the brand itself has gone a little greige. Marks: 6

HIGH STREET

FRANCE: Kookai
As a 54-year-old who is a size 14, the high street is no longer really my territory, so for this section I took my 17-year-old daughter along as critic. After a few cursory glances round Kookai’s new London flagship, she walked out—but to be fair, Kookai is probably aimed at women in their 20s who want their fashion mid-price and undemanding. Creatively, there was nothing wrong with the clothes, but nothing much right either. The cable-knit coats could have come from anywhere, the black trousers were standard fare, and the quality was merely average. Does Kookai have a French identity? At a stretch I’d say yes, because it deals in the sort of safe, unthreatening bon chic, bon genre look that certain young French women like so much, and because there were a couple of Chanel-style jackets made in France; the rest of the line hails from Turkey or China. As for being a label to flaunt, as my daughter put it, “Are you kidding?”
Marks: 6

ITALY: Diesel
Diesel’s boutique in Carnaby Street was empty. This was a bad start. So was the franchise in Selfridges—and it was bang next door to the British label All Saints, which was heaving with people. Does it have an Italian identity? According to my teenager, no. “You can’t call jeans [its mainstay] Italian.” What did she think of the label in terms of image? “Boring.” Creativity? “What’s creative about jeans that cost £150?” How about it being fashionable? “None of my mates would wear it, but I’m trying to be kind so I’ll give it a five.” A boy might have seen things differently: Diesel is a largely male brand. After all, it’s named after something you put in your car.

The pieces were more likely to be made in Tunisia, China, Turkey or Morocco than Italy. Quality was average and personally I would baulk at paying a hefty price for jeans made in Morocco. But our stylist did find some good sunglasses.
Marks: 4

BRITAIN: Topshop
You can tell Topshop is a British brand the moment you step through its doors at Oxford Circus. The rails are full of the mixed-up, off-beat style Britain is famous for: a leather jacket slung over a sprigged floral dress, or a cropped cardigan worn with a short pleated skirt and a pair of striped leggings. My daughter went through the place like a dose of salts, arms piled with clothes, staggering under the weight of desirability. The place was buzzing with excitable Italian and French teenagers, who obviously can’t do this at home. Creatively, it scored well for nailing trends and offering so much variation that, as my daughter said, “you can play with it and make it your own”. The quality is reasonable, but rises to fantastic when set against the price. The cons, according to my daughter, are that the clothes are designed for “tall skinny girls, so it may alienate the older, larger shopper”. Thanks, darling. However, Topshop is so trend-led that it scores zero for timelessness, and in terms of provenance it’s a mongrel, with clothes made in India, China, Turkey, Vietnam et al.

Is it a label to flaunt? Undoubtedly. My daughter went to a party wearing a grey knit dress studded with bronze she’d bought that day and was surrounded by friends demanding to know where she got it. “Topshop,” she said. “Well, of course,” came the reply. Marks: 9

So to the final tally...

Britain scores 25 out of a possible 30, France 24, and Italy only 17. But before the British start spraying the Champagne, they should bear two things in mind. One is that, as our tables on the previous page show, the French and Italian labels still sell far more clothes. The other is that when I was editing British Elle in the 1980s, Gucci and Louis Vuitton were dusty old luggage manufacturers, Burberry and Chanel were the preserve of the bourgeois middle-aged, Paul Smith was a small firm from Nottingham, and Giorgio Armani was God. As they say in fashion, all change.

Pictured above, and representing their country ...

Italy (left): sunglasses, £119, by Diesel; trenchcoat, £675, by Armani Collezioni; bag, £1,610, and shoes, £550, both by Gucci.

Britain (centre): blazer, £755, polo T-shirt, £185, waistcoat, £249, shorts, £235, and tie (not in production), all by Paul Smith; cardigan, £35, belt, £15, socks, £3.50, and brogues, £32, all by Topshop; bag, £995, by Burberry.

France (right): tweed suit jacket, £2,775, tweed skirt, £960, and platform clogs, £485, all by Chanel; gold belt, £35, by Kookai; bag, £1,590, and foxtail, £655, both by Louis Vuitton.

(Sally Brampton is a former Editor of Elle. She now writes an advice column for the Sunday Times.)

Photography: Diver Aquilar; Stylist: Olivia Pomp (Hair: Deborah Brider; Make-up: Attracta Courtney; Models (from left): Jemima, Steph, Phoebe Griffiths, all at Select)