Comme des Garcons has announced the closure of the Tao Comme des Garcons label, the young brand launched in 2005, shown in Paris, and designed by Tao Kurihara under the CdG umbrella. It’s unclear whether the decision is personal or financial. Read more
Which companies will get a business bounce from last night’s Golden Globes? The pictures have been sent round the world, and will play out not just today, or throughout the week in various newspapers and weekly gossip mags, but for months as other glossies re-visit celebrity looks of the year. Read more
For the last few days I’ve been exploring Post, the new iPad-only fashion mag and the first of a host of such publications to appear. It beats, in other words, the much-discussed Rupert Murdoch iPad-only newspaper, a Virgin project, and another lifestyle mag that is so under wraps, if I told you who was behind it, I’d have to kill you (just kidding). In some ways, this is good – the first product to define a space can sometimes own a space (can you say “Apple”?) but it’s also risky: you work out your kinks in public. And I have to say, at this stage, I think the Post folks, and anyone else planning something for this space, have a few things to consider. Read more
WWD has launched an attack on the dumbing down of fashion. “In the zeal to court and clad the proletariat, is it becoming no longer PC, or even of interest, to celebrate the levels of research, of design, of intricacy, of detail, of materials (all fabrics are not created equal) that go into high-end fashion?” writes Executive Editor Bridget Foley. And that’s just the tip of the whiny iceberg. Read more
After the much-publicised sell-out success of their pre-xmas collaboration with Lanvin, high street megalith H&M has announced their next partner: Elin Kling, a Swedish fashion blogger and stylist.
Yup. The bloggers have moved from commentators to creators.
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International has finally named a new editor for French Vogue after former editor Carine Roitfeld resigned pre-xmas. Emmanuelle Alt, Ms Roitfeld’s tall, skinny, jeans-and-stiletto-wearing, not-so-mini-me fashion director has gotten her ex-boss’s job. Read more
So eBay has gotten itself a creative director, in the form of ex-Lucky mag staffer Andrea Linett, to gloss-up its fashion offerings. At least we know they can recognize a trend when they see one.
Today the AMF, the French securities regulator, approved the defensive plan of a group of Hermes family shareholders to pool their stock to create a holding company for over 50% of the company equity without having to make a public tendor offer for other minority shareholdings. Given that the holding company has been engineered solely to make it impossible for LVMH, which before Christmas announced they owned over 20% of Hermes shares, to acquire a majority of the heritage brand, this seems to me to imply the belief that 1) the AMF accepts Hermes’ position that LVMH does not have the best interests of the brand at heart, but just Wants To Make Money (horrors!); and 2) Hermes has somehow transcended product status to become synonymous with France, or a certain French heritage/craftsmanship, and the regulators think this deserves protection like any monument.
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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.
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