After a quietly cheerful first six months on the job, Christopher Bailey, the Burberry chief executive, revealed his first five-point plan for the brand on Wednesday during its presentation of its first-half results.
Here’s what he has cooking. Read more…
But wait, you say upon reading this headline. Doesn’t Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook chief executive, wear a gray T-shirt every day, while President Obama wears a dark gray or blue suit?
Well, yes, but conceptually, it turns out the two are on the same page. Read more…
Global leaders attending an economic summit meeting in Beijing on Tuesday wore their usual uniforms — dark suits, white shirts, subdued ties — for meetings and trade announcements, but the opening photos of the event that went around the world showed them in more unconventional garb: amethyst tunics with Mandarin collars. Read more…
In one of the more extreme, but socially revealing, games of Twitter telephone I have witnessed, the social media platform “exploded” on Sunday (HLNtv’s words, not mine, though they are not inaccurate) over a Calvin Klein ad that is part of the brand’s “Perfectly Fit” underwear campaign and features a not-entirely-plus-size model named Myla Dalbesio. Read more…
There’s another job opening in the fashion world.
On Friday, Schiaparelli, the French house reintroduced last year by Diego Della Valle, chairman of Tod’s, announced it was parting ways with the designer Marco Zanini after a mere two couture collections, apparently because of disagreements about the aesthetic direction of the house.
Or that’s what it sounded like, anyway, reading between the seams. Read more…
The world went a bit nuts on Thursday over the debut of the Alexander Wang x H&M collection. The website crashed. On Twitter, the hashtag #alexanderwangxhm was trending. Consumers waiting to buy Mr. Wang’s funky sports bras and leggings were handed color-coded tags with time slots. Desperate buyers were advised to go on eBay, where merchandise was already for sale, albeit at reportedly crazy prices. It was a case study in creating anticipation. Read more…
What is it with fashion and film this week? Two fashion TV premieres, a move behind the camera for a designer and now this: Kering, a.k.a. the parent company of Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, McQueen and McCartney, among others, has announced a five-year stint as an “official partner” of the Cannes Film Festival. Read more…
Renaissance men or control freaks?
This is what I kept wondering when I got the news that Christopher Bailey had stepped behind the camera to direct Burberry’s holiday mini movie. Because, you know, he does not have enough to do already what with being both the chief executive and chief creative officer of Burberry, a FTSE 500 fashion company. Read more…
“It was the toughest decision we’ve had to make,” Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, said at the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award dinner on Monday night.
She was speaking of choosing a winner among the 10 finalists — a milliner, a jeweler, a shoemaker, and the designers of a men’s wear line, a knit line, two women’s wear lines, a handbag line, a sunglasses line and a denim line. And while the implication was clear that the difficulty was due to the level of talent, it was hard not to wonder how you even begin to compare such disparate businesses. Read more…
There’s something a little surprising on Tom Ford’s website, and it reads kind of like… honesty.
Unlike most designers colonizing the web, who focus on e-commerce adventures and aggregated marketing moments, with some tips and feel-good truisms thrown in, perhaps with photos of the designer demonstrating his “lifestyle” approach, Mr. Ford has a blog post that explains the genesis of his spring collection — otherwise known as the “pastie collection” — along with a gallery of mood board images. Read more…
Valentino has some big plans for its couture shows, and the changes don’t have that much to do with the traditional fashion schedule.
In December, the fashion house is heading to New York City with an entirely new couture collection — its third this year, after the usual shows in January and July — to celebrate the opening of its Fifth Avenue store. Read more…
On Wednesday, almost exactly a year after she retired from the label that bears her name and the entire fashion scene, Ann Demeulemeester, the 54-year-old Belgian designer much beloved of black-trouser-suit-collecting cerebral romantics everywhere, made a reappearance of sorts to sign copies of her new 1,010-page book at Barneys New York.
She seemed quite chipper about it.
She was wearing a black jacket, black sweater, black trousers, a black hat and red lipstick, and was accompanied by her longtime collaborator Patti Smith, who wrote the introduction to the book and was also wearing black (jacket, sweater), over a big white shirt. Both women sat behind a big table autographing their tome for a long line of equally black-clad acolytes who were hopping from foot to foot and whispering in glee at the sight of the designer. Read more…
It’s a big day for Green Fashion on both sides of the Atlantic!
In London, Kering is unveiling a five-year partnership with the Center for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion, which will involve a series of talks — starting Wednesday with François-Henri Pinault, Kering’s chief executive — about the importance of building a sustainable fashion business, a sustainable fashion award (money and an internship) for two students every year, and the development of academic courses on the subject. In New York, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Lexus are also unveiling the winners of its $75,000 first prize and two $5,000 second prizes for the C.F.D.A./Lexus Eco-Fashion challenge, now in its fifth year.
Drum roll, please. Read more…
There’s another fashion heritage name on the auction block.
Luvanis, an investment company based in Luxembourg that specializes in identifying and buying the trademarks of major fashion names gone dormant, announced on Tuesday that it would sell the Paul Poiret brand. Read more…
Activewear? Athleticwear? Sportswear? Does anyone else think we need a better word for the gym-to-street sector that has suddenly become the hottest thing to cover two legs — at least if the latest entrant to the field is any indication?
I am speaking of Beyoncé, of course, who is entering a joint venture with Philip Green of Topshop, according to British Vogue. Read more…