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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Posts tagged ‘fashion designers’
14.06.2022
Iâve had a nice resolution after reaching out to FashioNZ over their Instagram tagline and a claim made on their website. There was a delay in their response due to the site being sold to its fifth owners (I must be out of touch, as I never knew who the second and third were!), but they addressed all my points, saying that they cared about journalistic integrity, and wrote to me in as friendly a way as I did to them. The tagline has already been changed, and I understand that they’ll get on to the rest.
To be extra-careful, I had two colleagues in Auckland who knew the (outgoing) publisher read through my email to make sure I was being as collegial as possible, and they gave me the all-clear.
I contrast this to an email I received last year, from a US designer who shall remain nameless.
They had asked for an article to be removed from Lucire but did not explain why. I said I would if we had written something factually wrong, or misrepresented them.
No, it wasnât that: after some probing, they revealed that they just didnât like our photo of the designerâs work appearing so high up in Google Images. Reading between the lines, they wanted to dominate the search results and were irritated that we were messing it up.
I noted that we were contacted by their firmâs PR people (and before I made that claim, I looked back through my email archives from the 2000s to confirm thisâit was a PR firm in their own state, and yes, it was an item published that long ago), to which they countered that they had never heard of us prior to this and would not have issued us the press release. Folks, I have the email.
The whole thing was combative from the get-go, and after they suggested I was a liar, they earned their whole company a block on our email system.
What a strange way for their marketing person to try to get something they wanted, to call the person you’re asking a favour of a liar. I submit that they don’t know much about marketing. And in this country, we have such a thing as freedom of the press.
They have one of our editorsâ phone numbers so they can talk to her if they wishâthough I had suggested their boss talk directly to me since I wasnât going to deal with rude underlings. The boss never called.
I wonât name these folks since I consider the dialogue confidential, but sometimes itâs tempting to say, â**** may be a famous designer, but they have really shit people working for them.â
Thereâs a right way and a wrong way to correspond, and Iâm glad that a misspent youth, reading some of my fatherâs Pitman guides, put me on a better track.
Tags: 2009, 2022, Aotearoa, business, fashion, fashion designers, fashion magazine, Lucire, New Zealand, USA Posted in business, culture, internet, marketing, New Zealand, USA | No Comments »
16.12.2017

While I no longer live in the Southern Ward in Wellington, I know whom I would vote for if I still did. Itâs after a lot of thought, given how strong the candidates areâI count several of them as my friends. One stands out.
I have known Laurie Foon for 20 years this year and have watched her genuinely take an interest in our city. This isnât just political hype: two decades ago, she warned us about the Inner City Bypass and how it wouldnât actually solve our traffic problems; her former business, Starfish, was internationally known for its real commitment to the environment and sustainability (its Willis Street store walked the talk with its materials and lighting); and as the Sustainable Business Networkâs Wellington regional manager, sheâs advised other companies on how to be environmentally friendly (sheâs recently received a Kiwibank Local Hero Award for her efforts).
In 1997, when I interviewed Laurie for Lucireâs first feature, she had enough foresight to say yes to a web publication, at a time when few others saw that value. (This is in a pre-Google world.) Itâs important for our local politicians to be ahead of the curveâyet so many voters have opted to look firmly in a rear-view mirror when it comes to politics, fixated on re-creating the âgood old daysâ. If I vote, I vote for our future, and Laurie really can make a difference in councilâas she has been doing in our community for the past two decades and more, issue after issue. Sheâs forward-looking, and she can help make our city carbon neutral, waste-free, and socially responsible. Itâs a wholehearted endorsement for Laurie to make good things happen.
Tags: 1997, 2017, activism, Aotearoa, business, corporate social responsibility, election, environment, fashion designers, local government, Lucire, New Zealand, politics, Starfish, sustainability, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in culture, New Zealand, politics, social responsibility, Wellington | No Comments »
21.10.2010

Above The first issue of Lucire in 1997. Below right Lucireâs first iPad cover.
[Cross-posted at Lucire] An hour ago, we turned 13. Normally this wouldnât have merited much of a mention, since 13âs not the sort of number people tend to celebrate. But I happened to be up, after a long day catching up on emails post-election, while head designer Tanya Sooksombatisatian sorted through our New York Fashion Week images.
Earlier this evening, fashion editor Sopheak Seng and I attended a fashion show for Laâ Shika Bridal, held at the Museum Hotel in Wellington, and had good chats to the bridal designers and jewellery designer Victoria Taylor, sister of Rebecca.
I sat at a similar desk in 1997 when we started Lucire and uploaded the new home page, replacing a placeholder, at precisely midnight NZDT on October 21. (I even timed it.) That translated to October 20 at 6 a.m. in New York. At the time, the US market was the primary one online, so I tended to notice what the time was over on their east coast.
It was a 386 running Netscape 1-point-something that displayed Lucireâs first edition here. The monitor had a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels. We developed it on Windows 3¡1, but tested it on various Power Macs. I coded the home page by hand and did the first graphics.
Weâve gone through a lotâa print edition from 2004, a short-lived venture in Romania in 2005â6, and we now face 2011 with print in four countries and an iPad app that will go live any day. A cellphone edition has been around for a little while, though it never took off. I was in it for the long haul, but I really didnât think specifics. We had a general direction, and we seized the opportunities as they came.
There have been many times when I have publicly thanked the people who got us here, and many of those who I named in December 2008, when I celebrated 21 years in business, were responsible for getting Lucire to where it is. Since then, Andrew Matusik, Victoria Jones, Sopheak Seng, Rola Saab, Jon Moe, Seka Ojdrović-Phillips, Samantha Hannah, Joseph Ungoco, Leyla Messian, Ashleigh Berry and Sylvia Giles must be added to the list. The many Massey University graduates who have tirelessly helpedâRoanna Bell, Uma Lele and Brigitte Unger come to mindâas well as Gemma Conn from Waikato Institute of Technology.
I wonât say the journey has been easy: in fact, itâs been very tough. But Iâm very glad that Lucire has been a medium through which many people have been brought together to do something we all love. We have been a change agent in the past, and thatâs something Iâm conscious we need to continue, through being on the forefront of new media. And weâve introduced our fair share of labels, many of which have become big names. Weâve provided many people with coverage when others ignored themâdiscovering then that all they needed was that leg up to get to the next stage.
I still remember the fact that we were one of the first to interview Zac Posen and Kathryn Wilson as she graduated from university, and covered Rebecca Taylor at Gen Art. Lucire published the first series of sustainable style editorials in an international fashion magazine with Summer Rayne Oakes in the earlier part of the century.
To all our readers, thank you for being with us on this journey. I am mindful that we are merely stewards of the Lucire brand, and that it belongs to us not in law, but in spirit. Weâre going to keep engaging and we plan to be with you for many more anniversaries to come.
Tags: 1997, anniversary, Aotearoa, Apple, design, fashion, fashion designers, fashion magazine, Jack Yan, Jack Yan & Associates, JY&A Media, Lucire, magazines, Massey University, media, New Zealand, publishing, technology, web browser, web design, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara Posted in business, design, internet, media, New Zealand, publishing, technology, USA, Wellington | 2 Comments »
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