Diane von Furstenberg

This is shaping up to be a trend. Yesterday the Duchess of Cambridge wore a DVF coat – double rows of buttons, epaulets – to the Remembrance Day ceremonies, which was the VERY SAME DVF coat she wore last year. Seems to me this is a statement not unlike that of Mrs O’s wearing an old Michael Kors dress at her husband’s electoral victory moment last week. Read more

My favourite fashion week moment so far, three days into the start of the New York collections, has to be Diane von Furstenberg pulling Sergey Brin out of his front-row seat and onto her catwalk to take her victory bow with her and her creative director, Yvan Mispelaere at the end of her show. And all three of them were wearing Google glass in different colours! I feel a new accessory category coming on. Read more

The electorate in general may be voicing ambivalence about the current administration (though it’s unclear who the alternative will be, or what they will think of him), and Wall Street may be swinging toward Mitt Romney, but one sector, at least, is standing by the current President: Fashion. In this election, as in the last, a number of America’s highest profile designers have stood up to lend their names and creative skills to fund-raising for their candidate. Today Runway to Win, a web site created by the DNC and the Obama re-election committee, is “previewing” products from 23 designers, all working under their own names, not their brand names, whose proceeds will go toward the melee to come.
 Read more

Here is a Christmas wish, courtesy of Diane von Furstenberg, who issued it during a conversation last friday: Bernard Arnault should take his place as the elder statesman of fashion (after all, he pretty much invented it as an industry) and solve the fashion week date problem once and for all. Read more

In response to DVF’s “open letter to the fashion community” on Monday about the 2012 September fashion week dates comes a response letter today from Mario Boselli, in which he explains his side of the story. This is getting personal!

 Read more

It may have been sunny outside for the last week, but behind the fashion scenes it’s been seriously stormy, as Steven Kolb, president of the CFDA, and his counterpart in Milan, Maro Boselli, president of the Camera Nazionale, battle via email over when next year’s fashion weeks would take place. Now Diane von Furstenberg has stepped in to calm everyone down via an “open letter to the fashion community.” The essence: fashion is global (big), so let’s stop acting local (small). But is this true? The events of the last week seems to put this into question.

 Read more

Who knew lawyers could get so poetic about IP protection? Not me, which is why I wanted to share the following email message, from Susan Scafidi, academic director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham Law School in New York. She is writing about new legislation, being discussed in the US House of Representatives, that would help to protect fashion designers from the jaw-droppingly fast ability of high street shops to pay immediate “homage” to their hit designs the day after said designs are shown on the runway/worn by an influential celeb. Read more

According to the NY Post, Aerin Lauder, the current family standard bearer of the Lauder cosmetic empire (so much so that she actually was the face of the relaunch of her grandmother Estee’s favourite fragrance, Youth Dew), as well as an SVP, is Leaving the Company to Start her Own Brand. This is a big deal. Read more

Fashion isn’t known for being good at mea culpas (generally denial and escapism are what might come to mind in free-association), but today Diane von Furstenberg, designer/CFDA president, has put herself out there in an attempt to change all that. Here it is in her words:

Dear Colleagues and Designers,

I hope you are all resting from NY Fashion Week and that you are having great results from buyers and press.

As you remember, I sent you all a letter prior to the shows, emphasizing healthy models and diversity, and reminding you of our Health Guidelines.

One of the guidelines, as you know, is not to hire models under 16 in addition to making sure that all of them are properly fed.

 Read more