Fashion Accessories - Publications - Faculty & Research

08 Apr 2019
Sharpening Your Skills

The Life of Luxury and How to Sell It

Helena Rubinstein Used Tall Tales to Turn Cosmetics into a Luxury Brand Using guile, brilliant branding, and more than a few falsehoods, Helena Rubinstein lifted cosmetics from an accessory item for prostitutes to a great luxury product.... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Fashion; Fashion; Fashion

19 Jan 2023
Research & Ideas

What Makes Employees Trust (vs. Second-Guess) AI?

react to AI systems, the researchers worked last year with the luxury fashion retailer Tapestry Inc., whose accessory and lifestyle brands include Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman. The firm employs... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

02 Sep 2015
What Do You Think?

What's Wrong With Amazon’s Low-Retention HR Strategy?

This past month, a New York Times report on Amazon’s personnel strategies prompted several days of intense debate. A number of questions can be raised about the article itself, given the fact that much of it was based on interviews with those who had left an... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

February 2020 (Revised April 2021)
Case

StockX: The Stock Market of Things

By: Chiara Farronato, John J. Horton, Annelena Lobb and Julia Kelley

Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust... View Details

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06 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Technology Re-Emergence: Creating New Value for Old Innovations

brand of colorful Swatch watches. A portmanteau of "second watch," Swatch essentially introduced the idea of an inexpensive quartz watch as a fashion accessory. The strategy was wildly successful, with sales exceeding 50 million... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

22 May 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

A Luxury Industry Veteran Teaches the Importance of Aesthetics to Budding Business Leaders

angel investor in fashion tech; Vanessa Kay, senior vice president at Moët Hennessy USA, who heads up the Veuve Clicquot, Krug, and Ruinart champagne brands; Edda Gudmundsdottir, a fashion designer and style... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

January 2018
Case

Under Armour

By: Rory McDonald, Clayton M. Christensen, Daniel West and Jonathan E. Palmer

After 20 years of growth unprecedented in the sports apparel industry, Under Armour finds itself with a new record to beat: making the leap from $5 to $10 billion in sales—a feat only accomplished to date by competitors Nike and Adidas. At the heart of this challenge... View Details

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October 2003 (Revised January 2004)
Case

Burberry

By: Youngme E. Moon, Erika Kussmann, Emma Penick, Susan Wojewoda and Kerry Herman

In 2003, Rose Marie Bravo, Burberry's CEO, is debating how to maintain the currency and cachet of the brand across its broad customer base, while entering new product categories and expanding distribution. In the past five years, the brand has become one of the hottest... View Details

Keywords: Brands and Branding; Management Teams; Luxury; Product Launch; Distribution; Product Positioning; Advertising; Market Entry and Exit; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United Kingdom

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16 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Luxury Isn’t What It Used to Be

showcased the ongoing appeal of its more timeless products while expanding into fashionable clothing and accessories for men and women. "You can buy the classic trench coat forever. But we've introduced... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Consumer Products

July 2015 (Revised January 2020)
Case

Horst Dassler, Adidas, and the Commercialization of Sport

By: Geoffrey Jones, Michael Norris and Sophi Kim

The case focuses on the career of Horst Dassler, the son of the founder of the German-based sports shoe manufacturer Adidas. The origins of the firm were in the interwar years, and it rose to public prominence after it provided spikes for Jesse Owens, the famous... View Details

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February 2018 (Revised October 2019)
Technical Note

The Art and Science of Brand Valuation

By: Jill Avery

Brand valuation, the art and science of calculating the economic value accruing to a firm from its use of an intangible brand asset, yields frustratingly inconsistent, discrepant, and, therefore, controversial results. While it is widely accepted that brands are... View Details

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November 2022 (Revised June 2023)
Case

UGG Steps into the Metaverse

By: Shunyuan Zhang, Sharon Joseph, Sunil Gupta and Julia Kelley

In the fall of 2022, boot maker UGG and its parent company, Deckers, were working to position the brand in the nascent but fast growing metaverse. The metaverse, the online realm that individual users could navigate as digital avatars, was becoming more commercialized,... View Details

Keywords: Metaverse; Digital Marketing; Innovation and Invention; Marketing Channels; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Internet and the Web; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

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September 2013 (Revised August 2015)
Background Note

Leadership and Teaming

By: Ethan Bernstein

Small differences in the leadership of teams can have large consequences for the success of their efforts. Many initiatives fail not because of a fatal error in judgment or insufficient ideas, knowledge, motivation, or capabilities to deliver a solution. They fail... View Details

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14 May 2008
Research & Ideas

Getting Down to the Business of Creativity

of employees that can prove most difficult." It Takes An Innovative Village Creativity is doubtless a significant force in the Indian fashion business, the focus of research by HBS professor Mukti Khaire. While the View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

15 Apr 2002
Research & Ideas

In the Virtual Dressing Room Returns Are A Real Problem

in an online purchase. And since basic products are worn for "everyday" events, their purchase usually evokes little emotion. Consumers perceive more fashionable items to be more risky to purchase online: The decision is more... View Details

Keywords: by Jan Hammond & Kristin Kohler; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

09 Jun 2014
Research & Ideas

The Manager in Red Sneakers

a nonconforming person to have a heightened status and more competence, particularly when they believed the person was aware of the established norm but deliberately chose to make a fashion statement by wearing a standout style. This... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

19 Oct 2010
Working Paper Summaries

The Impact of Supply Learning on Customer Demand: Model and Estimation Methodology

Keywords: by Nathan Craig, Nicole DeHoratius & Ananth Raman; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

20 Jul 2015
Research & Ideas

Globalization Hasn’t Killed the Manufacturing Cluster

Globalization hasn't made manufacturing clusters obsolete, but the geographically concentrated pockets of industry have to be smart to ensure their survival, according to new research from Harvard Business School. Gary P. Pisano, the Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of... View Details

Keywords: by Roberta Holland; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories

06 Jun 2013
Op-Ed

How to Do Away with the Dangers of Outsourcing

The recent collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh was a red alert for every company that has embraced the "virtual organization" model and the outsourcing that goes with it. The lure of the model is obvious. Virtual corporations... View Details

Keywords: by Ranjay Gulati; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories; Apparel & Accessories