Last week Altgamma published a report aiming to get a handle on the digital life of 187 luxury brands, which together have revenues of E60bn. The conclusions are pretty jaw-dropping. Read more
Pirelli – it’s not just about tyres and tastefully sexed-up calendars anymore. As of this week, it’s also about fashion, as a new 1,500 square metre store, on prime real estate off ur-shopping drag Montenapoleone, demonstrated. It features rubber! A lot of it.
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By Isabel Gorst
Our nominee for oddest moment of the just-ended New York Fashion Week came courtesy of an Uzbek.
Although the city has largely embraced foreign designers — Victoria Beckham and Preen, both British labels, show here, as do Brazilians Carlos Miele and Alexandre Herchcovitch and there was a special Korean fashion show this season — it was interesting to see IMG, the organizers of the week, buckle under pressure from human rights groups and cancel a show by the designer daughter of Islam Karimov, the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan. Read more
Clamour for British brands among emerging market consumers has been the making of luxury brands like Burberry and Mulberry. The long-established British fashion houses have seen their share prices rise 93 per cent and 500 per cent respectively in the past year as overseas revenues soar.
Now another group of British entrepreneurs is looking to cash in. Known as The Brand Cellar, the London and Hong Kong-based group is busy snapping up what is calls “much loved, but dormant” British brands.
São Paulo has just wrapped up its 30th fashion week, predictably notable for both its bikini offerings and celebrity appearances – film star Ashton Kutcher made it, but model Gisele Bundchen did not. Read more
Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, the wife-and-husband team behind Italian luxury goods group Prada, will next week throw a party in Hong Kong they have been a decade in organising.
The occasion is to mark the launch of the fifth attempt in 10 years by Prada, the group behind Prada, MiuMiu and Church’s brands, to list a minority stake. The guests are top investors in the region; the entertainment will be a private catwalk show. Read more
South Korea has a dismal reputation on animal rights. Filthy, unregulated farms where dogs are slaughtered for their meat and black bears are tapped alive for their bile are harrowing yet widely tolerated. Read more
By Carola Long, FT deputy fashion editor
Cannes is on the brink of film festival fever. The superyachts are lining up in the harbour, film posters are being slapped onto the sides of hotels and a giant pair of pirate boots have appeared on the pier outside the Carlton hotel – presumably to promote Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Read more
When French billionaire François-Henri Pinault arrives on Monday night at the fashion industry bash at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, photographers will likely be keen to take solo shots of his glamorous film star wife, Salma Hayek. Read more
LVMH has severed its last employer-employee ties with John Galliano, and fired him from the brand that bears his name, a source confirmed today. Of course, Mr Galliano still owns shares in his eponymous company (LVMH just has a majority), so they’ll have to maybe sort of work together, unless they sell it, a natural next step, and pass the tarnished-name-problem onto someone else. Not that the LVMH folks are talking.
Officially, there is “No release, comment or anything on the record” (this from a spokesperson). Read more
| About this blog | About Vanessa | Blog guide |
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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