Monthly Archives: November 2011

From FT.com November 18, 2011

And so the wait is over, the bated breath unbated, the quick-beating hearts slowed to normal speed. Breaking Dawn, the first half of the final instalment of the lust ’n’ longing, vamps-as-metaphor series Twilight has hit movie screens, and the third-most anticipated wedding dress of the year has been revealed. Yes, after the Kates, Middleton and Moss, we have … Kristen! Well, OK, Bella. Read more

Posted in Fashion, Hollywood |

Luxury conquers its CSR fear

November 18, 2011 5:19 pm by Vanessa Friedman

An interesting policy shift is creeping through the luxury industry: from being terrified of talking about their environmental/CSR initiatives except in the most covert whispers, slowly a number of voices are being raised.
Following PPR’s announcement that they were creating an “environmental profit & loss account” for Puma, today Tiffany & Co unveiled a new web site dedicated to their CSR policies. Read more

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Posted in Luxury goods |

Moda Operandi’s fast-growing modus operandi

November 17, 2011 4:30 pm by Vanessa Friedman

Moda Operandi, the new e-commerce site that allows consumers to order whatever they want from a designer’s collection straight from the runway, full price, for delivery months in the future, is upscaling yet again: they have just lured away Net-a-Porter’s US head of marketing and sales, Ashley Bryan, to become their chief marketing officer. That’s a doubling of senior staff in a week. And, as the Once-ler says in “The Lorax,” MO plans to go on “biggering and biggering and biggering.”

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Posted in Fashion, Internet, Luxury goods, Shows |

Versace, couture and a radical re-think

November 16, 2011 4:18 pm by Vanessa Friedman

The Chambre Syndicale, French fashion’s governing body, has just announced Versace is returning to the couture schedule eight years after leaving it due to cutbacks. Is this good news? Or rather, is it enough good news?
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Posted in Couture, Fashion, Shows |

Samantha Cameron’s dressmaker says less (retail) is more

November 15, 2011 3:49 pm by Vanessa Friedman

Yesterday Emilia Wickstead, the woman who has been one of the more consistent, and under-the-radar crafters of Samantha Cameron’s image as British First Lady, turned up in my office. She was in town to meet Bergdorf Goodman, with an eye toward breaking the market overseas. So far, so typical for any UK designer with ambitions to extend her association with global power players. But interestingly she had some atypical ideas for how to do it.
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Posted in Fashion, Luxury goods, Politics, Womenswear |

Private ownership vs private equity, or the lessons of Jimmy Choo

November 14, 2011 4:42 pm by Vanessa Friedman

Not so long ago I spoke to Tamara Mellon about Labelux, the German luxury group that is privately owned by the reclusive Reimann family, and the fact they had bought her company, Jimmy Choo, from TowerBrook private equity. She was thrilled. And yet, here we are, a mere half year later, and Ms Mellon and her CEO, Josh Schulman, have both resigned. What happened?

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Posted in Fashion, Luxury goods |
From FT.com November 11, 2011

One of the prime complaints about the ever-burgeoning Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement that has gripped cities worldwide from London to Ljubljana and Reykjavik to Rio since it started in the summer in New York, has been the diversity of its protest. Yes, it’s about that whole 1 per cent versus 99 per cent thing, and bankers and bonuses, but also education, healthcare, taxes, public transport – you name the cause, it seems to be in there. Non-sympathisers, unclear about the overall aim of the movement, whine that they are confused. Read more

Posted in Fashion, Politics |

Marc Quinn goes from art to commerce via clothes

November 11, 2011 4:34 pm by Vanessa Friedman

Art and fashion have had a notoriously long affair, with the former attracted to the glamour and glitz of the latter, and the latter attracted to the former for the creative legitimacy it can bestow on an essentially commercial endeavor, but rarely has one actually crossed over into the territory of the other. As of this Christmas season, however, Marc Quinn — he of Saatchi Young British Artists, “blood head”, and Traflager Square plinth/disabled marble bust fame – is breaking the rules.

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Posted in Fashion |

James Murdoch fights back in army green

November 10, 2011 1:31 pm by Vanessa Friedman

OK, I know he’s in the line of fire on the whole News Corp hacking scandal, but isn’t this a bit obvious? Today, as he testified for the second time before Parliament, James Murdoch, deputy COO of News Corp, accessorized his traditional navy suit, white shirt, and poppy with…an army green tie. The first army green tie I think I have ever seen in the halls of Westminster.

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Posted in Menswear, Politics |

The Hollywood fur-ore over ethics vs economics

November 9, 2011 4:06 pm by Vanessa Friedman

Things are heating up in a funny old corner of the world: West Hollywood, where the anti-fur movement and retailers are going to war. Yesterday the City Council, or three out of its five members, voted in favor of making it the first city in The Whole United States to ban the sale of fur. They are PETA superheroes!

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Posted in Fashion, Luxury goods, Politics, Recession |
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