For anyone interested in the progress of American IP law, I highly recommend the fashionapparellawblog, run by US law firm Sheppard Mullin, who specialise in IP rights and have become one of the luxury industry’s go-to groups of attorneys in this highly fuzzy area. Read more
The 2010 British Fashion Awards just took place, and guess who won? Well, Burberry, for Digital Innovation; Mulberry, for Designer Brand; and — drumroll please — for Designer of the Year: Phoebe Philo for Celine. Oh, and Alexander McQueen, with that Lifetime Achievement thing. In other words, a large chunk of the major international brands that can be linked to the UK (and that advertise globally). Read more
Well, they said it was coming. You know those teasers Coty CEO Bernd Beetz kept dropping last week about plans for a purchasing trifecta before year end? He came through, and yesterday announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Tjoy, the Chinese skincare company, thus completing the third leg of a Philosophy-OPI trinity. Read more
At least that seems a natural assumption given the collection he showed today — and the descriptions of the clothes involved. Consider:”Pink lame and tulle embroidered dress, dyed slate stripe fox coat”
“Gold foil printed merino wool cable knit sweater, gold lame pleated pant” Read more
The canonization of Lee Alexander McQueen continues apace. Tomorrow is the actual British Fashion Awards, aka the Oscars of the UK fashion industry, but perhaps to get the buzz going the BFC has announced they are bestowing a gong for Outstanding Achievement in Fashion design on Alexander McQueen. Read more
Diego Della Valle, chairman of the Tods Group, holder of 19.05% of Saks Fifth Avenue, owner of Fiorentino FC, and BFF of Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, possible Berlusconi rival, is stepping up his efforts to become the saviour of the Made in Italy brand, broadly defined. Defined, in fact, to include any cultural institution that is, or has been, Made in Italy Read more
Tell me this: if you were a filmmaker casting, say, a James Bond film, and there was a role for a “shadowy whistle-blower” whom governments think is terribly dangerous but who is smooth enough to talk (and slip) his way out of almost any jam, who is a sort of popular hero just elegant enough to be threatening, would he or would he not ressemble Julian Assange?
Clothes issues can make common cause for us all. How else to interpret The Economist’s sudden interest in (and defense of) the Scottish Fair Isle sweater? The mag has taken up the cause of the Shetland knitters, whose signature snowflake designs have been co-opted — horrors! — by the high fashion industry without proper accreditation. Read more
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Vanessa has been the FT’s fashion editor since 2003, and is based in New York, though she lived in London for 12 years.
