While everyone in fashion was busy looking one way and mourning Oscar de la Renta’s death, over in another direction, Marco Bizzarri, chief executive of Kering’s luxury couture and leather goods division, was busy remaking his brands. Read more…
The following is the personal statement released Tuesday by Alex Bolen, the chief executive of Oscar de la Renta and Mr. de la Renta’s son-in-law, and his wife, Eliza Bolen, who is Mr. de la Renta’s stepdaughter and the company’s executive at large.
Related: Oscar de la Renta, Who Clothed Stars and Became One, Dies at 82
This morning dawns under the long shadow of the death of the designer Oscar de la Renta, whose absence will be felt deeply in American fashion. In his memory, I thought it worth mentioning two events from Monday that Mr. de la Renta, of all people, would probably have appreciated. Read more…
Oh wait — is that a typo? Doesn’t Cannes already have a fashion festival, albeit one called “Film Festival,” but which involves so many red carpets, daywear-on-the-Croisette photo calls and style sponsorships that it provides glossy mags with enough “Get the Look” fodder to fill entire issues?
Apparently not. Read more…
Will.i.am, the Black Eyed Peas frontman, producer and impresario, has a new band.
It goes on your wrist. Read more…
The 10 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists were trying to relax at a cocktail party at the Ludlow Hotel on Tuesday night. Each of them had just presented a brand-new design to the Fashion Fund judges, the latest step in this monthslong competition. This was supposed to be the let-your-hair-down portion of the evening, but it wasn’t exactly that.
“So, did you enjoy your challenge?” Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, asked, springing up to Eva Zuckerman, a jeweler.
“I did, yeah!” Ms. Zuckerman replied quickly. “I mean, it was definitely a challenge.” Each finalist was given $20,000 for the challenge. They were assigned to incorporate a city — New York’s bright lights or Portland’s crunchiness or New Orleans’s diversity — into a piece. They could use their money on materials. They could use it for airfare. They could pocket it. Read more…
Someday, business schools will do case studies on this. Perhaps one already is. But if ever there were an example of what not to do when it comes to running a luxury brand, it would probably involve Mulberry. Read more…
Thanks to a month of rampant rumor-mongering, the final confirmation on Monday that Peter Copping had been named creative director of Oscar de la Renta felt to many in the fashion world — let’s be honest here — like something of the ultimate anticlimax. Read more…
Now that we have all recovered from ready-to-wear month, here comes a week of major fashion happenings. There will be runway looks! There will be celebrities! There will be bling! Thank goodness. I don’t know about you, but I was starting to experience withdrawal.
Tuesday: The invitation-only opening of Frieze London — or, as I like to call it, the Fifth Fashion Week. After New York, London, Milan and Paris, it’s one of the biggest designer moments of the year. Alexander McQueen is a sponsor of the main event; Gucci is sponsoring Frieze Masters; the Louis Vuitton collaborator Yayoi Kusama is in the sculpture park, and the smart money is on designers (and models) congregating in the galleries. Expect a street-style bonanza. Or a just-off-the-runway show. You get the point. (Open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday.)
Wednesday: Introduction of the new Chanel mini-movie/commercial/campaign (depending on how you want to think about it), directed by Baz “The Great Gatsby” Luhrmann and starring Gisele Bündchen. This is Mr. Luhrmann’s second big outing for the brand, after his Nicole Kidman short in 2004, and Ms. Bündchen’s follow-up to a cameo in “The Devil Wears Prada.” The pairing of the director and the star suggests all sorts of interesting big-screen possibilities for the future. So far, the model has posted a picture of herself on Instagram with a Chanel surfboard. But does she sing, too?
Wednesday: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, a.k.a. the world’s biggest luxury goods group, reports third-quarter revenue. Analysts are on the edge of their seats. Is luxury tanking? Has it suddenly ceased to be one of few recession-proof industries in the world? Is the downturn in China a permanent shift or a temporary trend? And what about all those Russian consumers? You will find the answer here.
The fact that Michelle Obama wore Oscar de la Renta on Wednesday at the cocktail party after her White House Fashion Education Workshop may not, at first, seem like a big deal. After all, Mr. de la Renta had been a bipartisan White House sartorial staple for years, most recently favored by both Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush.
But not, until now, by Mrs. O.
Indeed, for the last seven years — count ’em — Mrs. Obama had never appeared in the designer.
At first, it seemed like a choice made possibly to distinguish herself from previous administrations, as well as to do what she could to support new businesses and names (in the same way the Obama administration theoretically represented change and a new era). But gradually, as she began to incorporate bigger brands such as Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren and Carolina Herrera into her public wardrobe, it began to seem like a glaring omission.
Especially after Mr. de la Renta made some pointed comments about Mrs. O’s choosing to wear Alexander McQueen, a British label, to the Chinese state dinner in 2011.
So it was an interesting choice, at an interesting time.
After all, the first lady decided to wear the cocktail dress at an event where many of Mr. de la Renta’s peers were present. By appearing in his dress, she effectively represented the house, thus acknowledging its place in American fashion and also demonstrating directly to industry insiders that whatever they might have thought was going on there was — well, not going on any more.
You know what they say: It never rains, but it pours. Or so it goes, apparently, in Italian fashion.
Renzo Rosso’s naming John Galliano creative director of Maison Martin Margiela on Monday was just the beginning of a whole series of notable moves in the sector.
First, Prada announced it had bought Tannerie Mégisserie Hervy, near Limoges, as part of a joint venture with its industrial partner Conceria Superior SpA, thus ensuring a pipeline of all-important leather and skins.
Tanneries are increasingly must-have purchases for major fashion brands as they compete for vertical control of their supply chain, exclusivity and ever-more-special products. Read more…
In an overt acknowledgment of the growing value and profile of the fashion industry, Michelle Obama went where no first lady had gone before Wednesday and hosted a Fashion Education Workshop at the White House geared toward introducing the next generation of designers and industrialists to the delicate art of style.
It follows a similar event held last November with the film community, and is part of her Reach Higher initiative.
A group of 150 students from 12 high schools and two colleges from five states and Washington D.C., were invited to spend the day attending five seminars, where they would hear from assorted professionals, including Narciso Rodriguez, Sara Blakely of Spanx, Zac Posen, Eva Chen of Lucky and Diane von Furstenberg, about different aspects of the business, including construction, wearable technology, entrepreneurship and journalism. There is a Celebration of Design cocktail party at the White House to follow the workshops. Read more…
After Neiman Marcus announced its plans to penetrate Manhattan in the battle for the fashion consumer, after Saks declared its plans to expand into Canada and take over new territory to the north, and after Lane Crawford’s opening in Chengdu, China, comes news of yet another retail giant on the march: Galeries Lafayette.
According to an announcement from the French department store group, it is in negotiations to take over a historic building on the Champs-Élysées, which visitors to Paris may recognize as the former wrought-iron home of the Virgin Megastore, to open a new branch of the emporium bearing its name.
The 9,000-square-meter store (just under 97,000 square feet) would bring the group’s total number of stores worldwide to about 250. It also owns the French department store BHV, the watch brands Louis Pion and Royal Quartz, and the accessible jewelry line Didier Guérin.
Though most of the group’s stores are clustered in France and Europe, there is a Galeries Lafayette Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates; one in Jakarta; one in Casablanca; and one in Beijing. The group, which is privately owned, had 2013 revenues of 3.8 billion euros, or about $4.8 billion.
It says the lease is expected to be signed by year’s end. In other words, watch your backs, oh ye North American behemoths.
John Galliano is back in fashion.
On Monday morning, the former Christian Dior artistic director who was fired from that post in 2011 for making anti-Semitic remarks was named creative director of Maison Martin Margiela, the Belgian house known for its deconstructionist approach to traditional fashion tropes, from tailoring to marketing.
Announcing the appointment, Renzo Rosso, the president of Only the Brave, which bought a majority stake in Maison Martin Margiela in 2002, wrote in an email: “I couldn’t be happier. For the Maison Margiela, which deserves a new visionary leader; and for John Galliano, who is a talent beyond definition and time. I always believed in brave, unpredictable choices, and this one is no exception.”
The latter sentiment is a bit of an understatement. Read more…
Paris Fashion Week, a nine-day affair with 93 shows and presentations, may not be the most talked-about fashion week on Google, but this year, it had fashion writers, editors, bloggers and fans in a constant chatter on Twitter, attempting to document the major moments. Four designers said their goodbyes in Paris: Jean Paul Gaultier, who presented his final ready-to-wear collection; Christophe Lemaire, who sent out his last show for Hermès; Peter Copping, who is leaving Nina Ricci; and Guillaume Henry, who officially departed from Carven. In a much sadder goodbye, Gaby Aghion, the founder of the Chloé label, passed away in her home in Paris. Read more…