DAILY EDITION 29 AUGUST 2016 1

Fashion. Beauty. Business.

Credit, CheckSycamore receives favorable ruling against Aéropostale. PAGE 3

There’s nothing like a sleek metallic surface to shine at night. Evening bags in crisp metal box shapes with gold and silver finishes are the latest to light up evenings on the town. Edie Parker (top) accentuates her style with a multitude of plastic shards, giving her version an Eighties vibe, while Giuseppe Zanotti pairs his metal box with a shiny gold patent leather that requires a second look to see it isn’t metal. For more on the trend, see pages 4 and 5.

CONTINUED ON PG. 9

● The retailer has been successful selling Madewell and is bringing the brand to more doors.

BY DAVID MOIN

Nordstrom likes Madewell and is ready to give J. Crew a chance.

"We have had a really very positive expe-rience with Madewell, both from a business and relationship point of view," Pete Nord-strom, copresident of Nordstrom Inc., told WWD.

So it's a natural progression, Nordstrom added, to start selling the J. Crew brand, which, like Madewell, is a division of the J. Crew Group.

Yet unlike Madewell, it's not selling as well. "That's true," agreed Nordstrom. "But I will say our customers have an awareness and affinity for the J. Crew brand. If you were to survey our customers about what brands they like, J. Crew would be right up on top. We probably share more customers with J. Crew than any other department store."

RETAIL

Sister Act: J. Crew to Join Madewell At Nordstrom

● His New York store is on the corner of Howard and Crosby Streets.

BY JESSICA IREDALE

Rick Owens has added a sprawling retail shrine to his poetically gothic vision in SoHo. The new Rick Owens store opened Satur-day at 30 Howard Street on the corner of Crosby Street in the space formerly occupied by Jil Sander. Owens and his wife Michelle Lamy did a complete interior overhaul of the 8,000-square-foot space, pouring new concrete floors, installing a massive site-cast concrete staircase between the first and second floors and working with mirror, steel and painted Sheetrock for the rest of the design elements.

“Before I took the space over it was a totally different store,” said Owens. “To really make it mine I had to go in a completely different direction. That’s why we decided on that grand staircase that’s ultra-theatrical but fun and really takes control of the space.”

Speaking of control, Owens handed it

RETAIL

Rick Owens’ ConcreteSoHo Castle

CONTINUED ON PG. 10

Beauty IPO a GoE.l.f. Cosmetics files for a public listing. PAGE 3

ACCESSORIES

Metal Urge

Bridget Foley's DiaryLola Rykiel remembers her grandmother, Sonia. PAGE 13

Phot

ogra

ph b

y Jo

shua

Sco

tt

PREVIEWISSUE: 09.07 AD CLOSE: 08.24 MATERIALS: 08.29

An Advertising Opportunity

NYFW

Front Row Fashion Kicked Into High Gear

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT PAMELA FIRESTONE, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER AT 212 256 8103 OR PFIRESTONE@WWD.COM

29 AUGUST 2016 3

● In multiunit doors, E.l.f. is churning out double-digit sales gains in almost all of its categories, according to IRI.

BY ALLISON COLLINS WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM FAYE BROOKMAN

Consumers will soon be able to pick up both shares and makeup from E.l.f. Cosmetics.

The mass-market makeup and skin-care company filed an S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday to list its shares on the public market.

The business, which stands for eyes, lips, face, was founded by Alan and Joseph Shamah in 2004, who saw a fast-fashion opportunity in cosmetics “where the traditional beauty model of high prices, long product cycles and traditional advertising was out of touch with changing consumer behavior,” according to the filing.

The business makes cosmetics for eyes, lips and face, but has also branched into skin-care and beauty tools. E.l.f. Cosmetics products range from $1 for brightening eyeliner to about $30 for brush sets.

The business has been majority-owned by private equity firm TPG Growth, the mid-dle-market investment arm of TPG, since 2014. Before that, private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners invested in 2011. TSG no longer owns a stake in the business, according to a source.

E.l.f. listed $96.8 million in sales for the first half of the year, up from $75.2 million in the prior-year period. The business has $191.4 mil-lion in sales for 2015, up from $144.9 million in sales for 2014 and $135.1 million for 2014, the documents show. Sales at Target Corp. accounted for 28 percent of E.l.f.’s net sales for 2015, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sales brought in 23 percent of the total.

For the first half of the year, the company posted a $1.1 million net income, compared to $2.7 million for the prior-year period. For the first half of the year, E.l.f. had earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortiza-tion of $14.8 million, compared to almost $16 million in the prior-year period. The 2016

numbers were impacted in part from costs associated with preparing for the initial public offering.

The business is planning to use proceeds from the offering to repay existing debt, and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

The business is led by chairman and chief executive officer Tarang P. Amin, who joined in 2014. John Bailey is president and chief financial officer.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stan-ley, Piper Jaffray and Wells Fargo Securities are among the book runners for the move, according to the SEC filing. William Blair, Cowen & Co., BMO Capital Markets, Stifel and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey are also listed.

Industry sources said the valuation E.l.f. could get from the public markets is likely higher than it would have gotten from another type of transaction.

“There is a double benefit here,” said Martin Okner, managing director at SHM Cor-porate Navigators. “They file for the IPO, that signals to the market they are looking at doing a public offering and public offerings tend to be valued a bit more favorably assuming the market conditions hold. We’ve seen a rally in the past four months in the market.”

“I think it would be a very, very short float on the shares because what would happen, at least in my view…it would be something simi-lar to what happened with Annie’s Organic. It would IPO, it would sit in the public markets for a year, 18 months, two years max[imum] — then you’d have a strategic [buyer] come in and buy the company,” Okner said.

“I think TPG is likely to retain a healthy percentage of the ownership and then get two bites of the apple,” Okner said.

According to the filing, E.l.f.’s growth strategy includes attracting new customers, using innovation to drive sales and margin, expanding into relevant adjacent categories, expanding brand penetration by gaining space in its existing national retail doors, growing its direct-to-consumer business online and through more retail outposts in high-traffic areas and expanding internationally. For 2015, international sales made up 7 percent of E.l.f.’s

total net sales.“They ventured into retail doors and

they’ve done a beautiful job,” Okner said. “You almost feel like you’re walking into a MAC store when you’re walking into an E.l.f. store.”

At their current distribution points, E.l.f. is selling well.

According to IRI data for the 52-week period ended May 15, in multiunit doors, E.l.f. is churning out double-digit sales gains in almost all of its categories where it competes.

Blush sales rose 24.5 percent, outstripping the growth of giants such as Procter & Gam-ble, Maybelline and Revlon. E.l.f.’s bronzer business skyrocketed almost 50 percent in a category that actually declined 2 percent. Then there’s the foundation category, where E.l.f. chalked up 85 percent increases and powder where gains clocked in at 100 percent. Lip treatment expanded about 35 percent and lipstick 57.4 percent.

E.l.f. posted a 4 percent quarter-over-quar-ter increase in earned media value for the second quarter of 2016, according to data from Tribe Dynamics.

Retailers acknowledged that some of the soaring sales are attributed to added distri-bution as the brand gets into more stores. However, they expressed concern about the business going public, maintaining that E.l.f. is growing at a breakneck clip because customers appreciate the value and other major brands have been quiet. Coty Inc., for example, is in the middle of transitioning the P&G brands, while Revlon assimilates Eliza-beth Arden.

Mergers and acquisitions have been the primary driver of deal activity in the beauty space in recent years. Some companies, including the Estée Lauder Cos. Inc., and more recently Coty Inc., have gone on acquisition sprees following their public offerings. IT Cosmetics, which a handful of industry sources said ran a dual-track process, considering an M&A transaction and public offering, wound up selling to L’Oréal for $1.2 billion. Jessica Alba’s The Honest Co. has also been said to be in the middle of a dual-track process, industry sources have said.

Aside from L’Oréal’s deal for IT Cosmetics, the company also inked deals for Société des Thermes de Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, the license to use the San-Gervais Mont-Blanc beauty brand and Atelier Cologne. Shiseido has also been making acquisitions lately, adding Laura Mercier, ReVive and the Dolce & Gabbana fragrance license.

BEAUTY

E.l.f. Cosmetics Files for IPO, Plans Expansion

● An auction of the retailer's assets is set for today.

BY VICKI M. YOUNG

Manhattan bankruptcy court judge Sean Lane issued his opinion on Friday afternoon and it clears the way for Sycamore Partners to credit bid on Aéropostale's assets in today's auction.

In so ruling, the judge denied all of Aéropostale's claims, including its request that Sycamore's secured claims be placed lower on the creditor totem pole.

The judge wrote: "Given the extensive trial record and the applicable law, the court must deny the debtors' motion. The court con-cludes that there is not a basis to equitably subordinate the term lenders' claim, limit their ability to credit bid or recharacterize their loans."

In judge Lane's opinion, he further con-cluded that MGF, an affiliate of Sycamore's that provided merchandise to the retailer, did not breach the parties' sourcing agreement. He also shot down Aéropostale's claim that Sycamore's overall conduct was part of a

secret and improper plan to buy the retailer at a discount. And judge Lane said he found no evidence to support Aéropostale's allega-tion that Sycamore improperly traded stock while in possession of the retailer's material nonpublic information.

The judge also determined from trial testimony and related document submissions that members of the management team didn't even know a liquidity provision had been triggered. More specifically, executives from the c-suite — the chief financial, chief operating and chief executive officers — either didn't know that the liquidity provision was in place, or if they knew, were only "vaguely" aware of it. Further, due to miscalculations on the part of management, the company had "systematically overstated" their own liquidity under the sourcing agreement "by between $34 to $40 million, depending on the month forecasted," according to the judge's opinion.

The updated timeline has an auction scheduled for today on Aéropostale's assets. Sycamore is expected to submit a credit bid. The private equity firm, also the teen retailer's one time pre-petition lender at

$150 million, declined comment. It wasn't immediately clear whether Versa Capital, a private equity firm that was in negotiations to become the stalking horse, would submit a bid. Versa had sought $500,000 in reim-bursement expenses because of concerns that Sycamore would credit bid, and had passed the Aug. 11 deadline to execute an agreement. Given that Sycamore can now credit bid, Versa likely won't be bidding for the assets. Other parties likely to be circling the wagon are liquidation firms hoping to buy the inventory and store assets so they can conduct going-out-of-business sales.

A bankruptcy court judge will evaluate what offers are made and determine what is best for the company, its 10,000-plus employees and the creditor pool.

A spokeswoman for Aéropostale said: "Aéropostale is disappointed with the Bank-ruptcy Court’s decision in its litigation against Sycamore Partners and Aéropostale stands by the accuracy and truthfulness of every-thing said and documented by it during the proceedings. The company is now focused on moving forward as planned with an auc-tion on Monday, August 29."

RETAIL

Aéropostale Loses on Sycamore Claims

Dior’s Peter Philips Takes A Hands-On Approach ● Dior’s Peter Philips is hands-on, designing cutting-edge runway looks, creating cool new makeup and keeping his fans in the loop via Snapchat.

● E.l.f. Cosmetics Files for IPO

● Rick Owens’ Concrete Castle in SoHo

● France Court Rules Against Burkini Ban

● Givenchy Set to Launch ‘Essentials’ Collection At Isetan

TOP 5TRENDINGON WWD.COM

NEWSMAKERSTHIS WEEK'S MOST TALKED-ABOUT NAMES IN OUR INDUSTRY

RICK OWENS

SARAH JESSICA PARKER

SERENA WILLIAMS

LEANDRA MEDINE

Dio

r pho

togr

aph

by G

er G

er

4 29 AUGUST 2016

● Chic evening bags add sparkle to any occasion.BY ROXANNE ROBINSON

ACCESSORIES

Clutch Hit

Phot

ogra

phs

by J

oshu

a S

cott

Narciso Rodriguez

Little Liffner Chanel

Jill Haber Hayward

29 AUGUST 2016 5

Clutch Hit CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

Phot

ogra

phs

by J

oshu

a S

cott

Oscar de la Renta Alexander McQueen

Rochas

Marchesa No. 21

6 29 AUGUST 2016

● The decision could set a precedent and topple other beach bans.

BY MILES SOCHA WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM RITU UPADHYAY

PARIS — As beach vacations come to an end in France, so too ebbs the hysteria around the burkini.

On Friday, France’s highest adminis-trative court ruled against a ban of the full-body swimsuit in Villeneuve-Loubet, one of more than 30 seaside towns that have imposed such decrees under the guise of protecting secularism and pub-lic order as France reels from a wave of terror attacks linked to Islamic State.

The Conseil d'État’s three judges said the ban “illegally breached fundamental freedoms.”

Michel Tubiana, honorary president of France's Human Rights League, called it a victory, with the court coming down on the side of individual freedom and religious freedom.

He said the decision could set a prec-edent and topple other beach bans that

have caused an international furor.“Besides the ridiculous debate that

has made France the laughingstock of the world, what is at stake here is the division of the nation by origin and religion of men and women who live in France,” the league said in a statement. “We reject this vision of France and we call women and men of this country to reject it.”

The rights league and an anti-Islam-ophobia association brought the case to the Conseil d'État, or Council of State, which is the final arbiter of cases relat-ing to executive power, local authorities and any other agency invested with public authority.

Amnesty International applauded the decision.

“By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fueled by and is fueling prejudice and intolerance, today’s decision has drawn an important line in the sand,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Europe director. “French authorities must now drop the pretense that these measures do anything to protect the rights of women. Rather, invasive and discrimi-natory measures such as these restrict

women’s choices and are an assault on their freedoms of expression, religion and right to nondiscrimination.

“These bans do nothing to increase public safety, but do a lot to promote public humiliation. Not only are they in themselves discriminatory, but as we have seen, the enforcement of these bans leads to abuses and the degrading treatment of Muslim women and girls,” he added, referring to news images of women disrobing on beaches in front of uniformed officers.

Rabia Zargarpur, a Dubai-based designer who markets modest fashions online, applauded the about-face on the burkini.

“I am thrilled. That is more like a country that stands for fundamental freedom,” she said. “I really hope that France starts treating its Muslim popu-lation as equal citizens. Just as everyone else in France is allowed to wear what they like in the name of fashion and freedom, they should allow women to dress modestly and wear the burkini or hijab if that is what they choose.”

The burkini ban has dominated newspapers amid the August doldrums,

roiled and divided senior members of the Socialist government and become a political football as the country gears up for elections next year.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls backed the mayors, calling the burkini a symbol of the "enslavement of women.” On Friday, he said the debate — which encompasses questions of assimilation, secularism and French identity amid rising Muslim immigration — would con-tinue, and he insisted the ban did not undermine individual freedoms.

According to an Ifop survey com-missioned by Le Figaro newspaper, 64 percent of French people are in favor of the bans while another 30 percent are indifferent.

France has been grappling with dwindling tourism, especially in Paris, as terror fears, wet weather and a spate of strikes dented visitor numbers. The capital’s tourism body estimates it could lose $1.5 billion in revenues this year.

Some local authorities dubbed a bur-kini ban a necessity after a Bastille Day attack in which a truck driver plowed into crowds gathered on waterfront of Nice, leaving 86 dead.

FASHION

French Court Rules Against Burkini Ban

● The 400-square-foot store offers the largest assortment of the label's product in America.

BY JEAN E. PALMIERI

Drake’s has planted its flag on U.S. soil.

On Friday afternoon, the Lon-don-based furnishings and clothing label opened the doors to its first store outside of the U.K., a 400-square-foot boutique at 120 Prince Street in the heart of SoHo.

The only other full-price unit is located on Clifford Street in London and there is an outlet store at its factory on the aptly named Haberdasher Street.

“We could have done more in Lon-don,” said Michael Hill, creative director, who owns Drake’s along with a partner, Mark Cho. “But we looked at our online orders and saw that New York was equal to London. That doesn’t mean we’ll succeed here, but we saw where we’re strong so we think we might have a chance.”

Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman also carry the brand’s furnish-ings and J. Crew offers an assortment of women’s printed ready-to-wear and accessories that sport the brand’s neck-wear prints in pajamas, shirts and pants. “Drake’s is not about the tie for us, but a look and a feeling,” he said.

Hill said because the full assortment was not available anywhere in the States, “we haven’t connected through to the customer. We were selling only accesso-ries and wanted the opportunity to flesh it out properly.”

Hill said that by opening its own store, customers can see the full breadth of the assortment created by the company. “We started with ties, scarves, handker-chiefs and foulard squares,” Hill said of the brand that was founded by Michael Drake in 1977. But since opening its store on Clifford Street five years ago, Drake’s has expanded into shirts, knitwear, sport coats and outerwear. Suits will be added in the future, Hill said.

While the furnishings, which are all produced in the U.K., are quite English in feeling, the tailored clothing is manufac-tured in Italy and has a different sensibil-ity. “They’re soft, unlined, comfortable and casual,” he said. “That’s where we diverge from our Englishness.”

Hill said that with men today wearing fewer ties, it made sense for Drake’s to

expand into other categories. Neckwear had accounted for 75 percent of sales five years ago and is now 40 percent.

The store will serve to introduce the brand’s selvage denim as well as dress trousers, and all told offers the largest selection of Drake’s merchandise pre-sented in America. The only third-party brand offered is Alden shoes, which Hill said “works with the aesthetic of what we do.”

Prices are not inexpensive, but the merchandise is hand-crafted and the pat-terns and prints are unique. Ties retail for $165, dress shirts are $175 to $215 and sport coats are $1,295.

While the finishing touches and final mix were not complete when the store opened on Friday, it will eventually feature photographs by Kevin Davies that will tell the brand’s story. A curated selection of art from the Hales Gallery, including works by Sebastiaan Bremer and Martin Wilner, will also be added.

Hill, whose father worked with Michael Drake in the early years of the business, was involved in the company for as long as he can recall. “I grew up in the factory,” he said. “I drove around in a car with bales of silk.” Before purchasing the brand six years ago, Hill worked at weaving and printing mills and also for Savile Row tailor Richard James.

Hill is hopeful that the store will do well and attract existing and new cus-tomers. “Our guy can look good in any major city of the world,” he said. “So we hope we have a customer in the city. I’ll tell you in six weeks.

“We have a history manufacturing and wholesaling, but we always had people knocking on our factory door to buy our ties in London,” he said. “So we felt like we had to start retailing.”

Beyond this, Hill said Drake’s will work with its Japanese joint venture partner to open a store in Ginza next. Beyond that, there are no plans to add other retail stores at this time.

“There are no concrete plans, but maybe in a year or so,” he said. “You have to walk before you can run.”

MEN'S

Drake's Opens First U.S. Store in SoHo

Inside Drake's SoHo store.

Michael Hill at Drake’s N.Y. location. Ph

otog

raph

s by

Tho

mas

Iann

acco

ne

29 AUGUST 2016 7

● Revenues dropped 15 percent, despite the "first signs of improving trends in mainland China.”

BY GORDON SORLINI

MILAN — Italian luxury goods maker Prada SpA reported a 25 percent drop in net profit in the first half of the year on lower sales and vowed to continue with an aggressive cost-cutting program to protect margins as it seeks to return to a path of "sustainable sales and profits growth."

That goal, Prada Group chairman Carlo Mazzi said on a conference call, should be reachable "from as early as 2017."

Prada reported that revenues dropped 15 percent in the period (13 percent at constant exchange rates), to 1.554 billion euros amidst a challenging economic climate especially in the group's key markets of China and Asia-Pa-cific. Net profit in the six months to end-June dropped to 141.9 million euros compared to 188.6 million euros in the year-earlier period.

During the conference call, chief financial officer Alessandra Cozzani said that "sales continued to be impacted by tough trading conditions" in all markets. But she pointed out that despite the slide in sales, the company managed to maintain a stable gross margin, following success in implementing industrial efficiencies.

Sales in Europe, which accounts for some 35 percent of group sales, dropped 21 percent in the period. In Americas (13 percent of

revenues) they were down 17 percent. But it was the Far East, which includes Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau) and represents some 36 percent of sales that impacted the topline most. In Japan (13 percent of revenues) sales slid two per-cent, while in the Middle East (three percent of total sales) they were essentially flat.

Cozzani said that the Far East "remains challenging," although she pointed out that in Hong Kong and Macau the downward trend stabilized compared to the same period last year. She said that mainland China has demonstrated "encouraging improvements" thanks to repatriation of domestic consump-tion to the Chinese market." She said that already since the beginning of the year, the trend was still negative but no longer deteri-orating, "so a kind of stabilization has been seen over the past six months." She added that over July and August, there had been a "real sign of improvement" in China, Hong Kong and Macau.

Europe was hit by a sharp decline in tourist flows, which has continued since late last year following security concerns. But domestic consumption was strong, she said. She added that the U.K. "has recently turned positive," while Russia was "good" and — in more general geographic terms — Mexico and Brazil were "very good." The Middle East was "most resilient," with sales driven by local consumption, Cozzani said, adding that wholesale e-commerce initiatives with sites Net-a-porter.com and mytheresa.com were very successful.

Cozzani also pointed out that the company

has been taking many actions to reduce costs, and that "strong progress on cost savings allowed us to deliver stable operating margins in [the first half]." She said that operating expenses were down 12 percent year-on-year as the company has been "very rigorous to create a leaner, more flexible organization." She pointed out that the company has, for example, reduced labor costs by freezing hiring and that by systematically meeting landlords the company has already managed to get better rent deals "across Asia-Pacific." Thanks to these and other initiatives, the company said that the earnings before inter-est and taxes margin increased to 14 percent of sales, up from 12 percent of sales in the second half of 2015.

Still, improving results in the second half of the year seems unlikely. Answering an analyst's question on prospects for the rest of 2016, Cozzani said attaining growth in sales and earnings to year-end would be "quite challenging. It's early. We have seen some signs of improvement. We are expecting a bet-ter [second half] but it's difficult to think that the second half of the year will have a positive trend." She pointed out, though, that the com-pany's second quarter was better than the first quarter and that "August is trading close to what we have seen in the second quarter."

Further savings in operating expenses will come from the continued "optimization" of the retail network to "be leaner and more in line with customers' needs," Stefano Cantino, group strategic marketing director, said. He said the group would continue to focus on refurbishing better-performing locations and that so far this year 16 such refurbishments have been carried out. The company is target-ing 20 new store openings and 25 closings for all of 2016, he said.

Cantino said the company was pushing on its e-commerce and web presence — efforts that he had earlier said would lead to a

rebalancing of the group's advertising budget away from traditional media in favor of digital media. "We have a strong platform to progres-sively grow thanks to two key initiatives which show strong signs of progress," Cantino said, referring to the group's partnerships with Net-a-porter.com and mytheresa.com. He said the company also plans to roll out its e-commerce platform to all major markets over the next two years, something that will represent "a major milestone that will reinforce our pres-ence in strategic countries" and would first hit China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

A focus on product will be another driver of improving sales and margins. Cantino said that novelties — at times like embellishments on existing lines — are important. In terms of new products, he said the Esplanade — a new two-handle bag in three sizes — is performing "really well" and can already be considered an "'It' bag." He said that "ideally" the company would have a consistent flow [of new prod-ucts], every two months. "

Answering an analyst's questions on price points, Cantino said: "The key point is we have to cover all price ranges. There are lots of opportunities at each price range, at the highest one and at the entry one. What is key is to have novelties for each price range and even on the iconic bag to have embellish-ments, new additions, new materials and, of course, [something] that gives to the product a new flavor and new image."

Cantino also highlighted the importance of the group's licensing business. He said that licensing "continues to show good momen-tum." New fragrances for Miu Miu and Prada have been received well, especially La Femme and L'Homme, Prada's new fragrances for women and men, launched together for the first time. Eyewear is also a promising licens-ing channel, with the company's new MOD and Miu Miu Scenique collections having "overperformed the market."

BUSINESS

Prada Profits Slump 25% In First Half as Sales Falter

● The tennis star also discusses her fashion sense.

BY JEAN E. PALMIERI

Serena Williams bristled when asked if she feels like she needs to redeem herself after her surprise losses in the Olympics. “I don’t have anything to prove — ever,” she said with a laugh.

With a tennis career that is unparalleled, that’s probably true. The 34-year-old, who is currently ranked number one in women’s singles and considered by many to be the greatest female player of all time, has a total of 22 Grand Slam titles on her own and 14 with her sister Venus. She’s won four Olympic medals and was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated last year.

But on this day, Williams was at Macy’s helping her favorite sports bra manufacture, the Australia-based Berlei, make its U.S. debut. Dressed in a striking Alice & Olivia two-piece white suit — untied to better show off her pink Berlei sports bra and six-pack abs — Williams posed for photos and signed autographs for her adoring fans as she geared up for her appearance at next week’s U.S. Open. Williams took some time out to visit with WWD before the appearance.

WWD: How long have you been involved with Berlei?

Serena Williams: I’ve been involved with Berlei for almost my whole career. I actually discovered them well over 10 years ago, prob-ably 2002 at least. My mom introduced me. She said, “Listen, you should try these bras.” And I was like, “Really?” So I tried it and since

then I’ve never worn another bra. That says a lot about the product and the quality. I’m a big supporter of this product for women. And [my relationship with the brand] was so organic. I would go to the store and buy 40 or 50 bras every year because I could only get them in Australia at the time. And then eventually they heard that I would come and take all the stock.

WWD: Are you involved with the

design of the product too now?S.W.: I got involved in the design process

a long time ago. I’ve been working with their main designer for a while. It’s been really fun all around.

WWD: What do you feel you’ve brought to the brand?

S.W.: I think the better question would be: what they brought to me. I feel like they’ve brought me so much for my career. In the locker rooms, I’m always suggesting, “You need Berlei.” Because it’s the best brand for women and for me. I’m a high-performance athlete: I’m running, I’m sprinting, I’m sliding, I’m doing pretty much everything and the last thing I want to worry about is my chest. I want to just worry about playing the sport at the highest level that I can.

WWD: You have your own collection on HSN but you don’t do sports bras. Why not?

S.W.: We do more ready-to-wear and ath-leisure, things you would wear everyday. I never close my mind to anything and eventu-ally want to branch out. But for now, tennis is still number one for me.

WWD: Will you be at New York Fashion Week?

S.W.: Yes, we’re showing and I’m really excited about that.

WWD: Your sister also has a fashion collection. So whose line is better, yours or Venus’?

S.W.: Venus has an amazing line; I love her collection. I’m always at her office. She has an interior design company and her EleVen company. They have a wonderful office space and I’m always there for the interior part and

get to see what she’s doing with EleVen. I love it, I think it’s really amazing what she’s doing with that.

WWD: So no competition between you two?

S.W.: We’re in different categories. She does sports, I do more of the fashion side.

WWD: You’re known for your fashion sense, both on and off the court. What do you like to wear and how do you describe your style?

S.W.: I like to wear classic silhouettes and add a punch to it. I’ll wear a high-waist legging and a super-crop top or a see-through top with a nice bra underneath. And I just always try to mix it up with heels or something.

WWD: Are you looking forward to the U.S. Open?

S.W.: I am. I haven’t played much since Wimbledon but I’m looking forward.

WWD: After your loss in the Olympics, do you feel like you have more drive or something to prove?

S.W.: I don’t have anything to prove ever, ever in my life. If I have something to prove, what does that mean for everyone else? And I think everyone should have that attitude. You just have to prove to yourself that you can go out there and be the best that you can be and not prove anything to anyone.

WWD: How do you think you’ll fare in Flushing?

S.W.: I don’t go there thinking I’m going to lose. I never go into a tournament thinking that. I’ll do the best that I can. I need to be at my peak and my best is holding up the tro-phy. Anything less I wouldn’t be really excited about. So that’s all I can focus on.

EYE

Serena Williams Makes No Excuses for Olympics Loss

Serena Williams at the Berlei sports bras launch at Macy’s.

Phot

ogra

ph b

y C

lint S

paul

ding

● Legislation aimed at overhauling the FDA's authority over cosmetics is pending in Congress.

BY KRISTI ELLIS

WASHINGTON — An overhaul of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of cosmetics has been a long time in the making and efforts to reach a compromise on legisla-tion appear to be slowly moving forward.

The FDA’s regulatory authority over cos-metics is contained in a two-page section of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, and all stakeholders involved, including the personal-care products industry, argue it needs to be expanded and updated.

Experts argue the FDA’s authority has not kept pace with the growth of the estimated $60 billion personal-care products industry that has launched thousands of products containing scores of new ingredients over the past several decades.

The need for reform has been amplified by at least two high-profile cases of products adversely affecting consumers in the past five years that have grabbed headlines, scared consumers and raised the ante in the debate over how safe the ingredients in cosmetics are.

In one case, the FDA is investigating Wen hair-care products after it received 127 complaints from consumers and found that Chaz Dean Inc. and Guthy-Renker LLC, the companies that market and manufacture the products, had received 21,000 complaints from consumers about a cleansing condi-tioner that has allegedly caused significant hair loss, visible bald spots and other adverse side effects.

The current statute does not require com-panies to share their safety information with the FDA, nor does the law require mandatory reporting of “adverse events.”

In another case, hair strengthening treat-ments known as the Brazilian Blowout or keratin smoothing formula, were put in the spotlight five years ago after a lab in Oregon found the formulas contained formaldehyde,

which is known to cause allegoric reactions like hives, blisters and asthma.

The tests were conducted after stylists at two Portland-based salons complained of eye irritation, nose burning and other symptoms, and submitted samples of the product from their salons to the center.

Groups from opposite ends of the debate over cosmetics regulatory reform have been working together to provide input on cosmetics reform legislation with the FDA and lawmakers for the better part of a decade. While their efforts have led to the introduc-tion of several legislative proposals over the years, no final legislative compromise has been reached.

Many stakeholders believe a compromise between competing Senate and House bills could gain traction, although it is not likely to happen until next year when Congress begins a new two-year session.

“It’s been over 70 years since there’s been significant reform in the area of cosmetics regulation and frankly we haven’t kept pace with other jurisdictions overseas [that] have started to regulate cosmetics in a more robust fashion, so it time and the industry agrees with that,” said John Hurson, executive vice

president of government affairs at the Per-sonal Care Products Council, a 600-member organization that includes some of the biggest players in the industry.

“There has been a lot of work done in this Congress and previous Congresses to get to a point where we have a lot of agreement from industry stakeholders, environmental groups, health-care groups and business groups, who believe that it is time to make some changes in the way cosmetics are regulated,” he added.

One bill introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) is considered to have support from many companies in the industry, as well as consumer and health groups. A separate bill in the House, introduced by Rep. Pete Ses-sions (R., Tex.) has the support from another segment of the industry.

“There is increasing evidence that certain ingredients in personal care products are linked to a variety of health concerns. For example, formaldehyde, which is used in Brazilian blowouts, has been associated with cancer,” Feinstein said in an e-mail. “Despite this, FDA has virtually no authority to review the ingredients in these products. The Per-sonal Care Products Safety Act would change that by requiring the agency to review at least five ingredients per year.”

Feinstein noted that the European Union and Canada have had ingredient review in place for decades, and prohibit or restrict the use of 1,500 and 800 ingredients, respec-tively. The U.S. prohibits just 11.

“It’s long past time for the United Sates to ensure consumer safety and reform its 80-year-old personal-care products safety laws,” Feinstein said.

The Feinstein-Collins would give the FDA authority to issue mandatory recalls, require companies to report “serious health events” to the FDA within 15 days, require the FDA to test ingredients used in cosmetics and require companies to register with the FDA and provide information about a product’s ingredients.

The bill would also allow the FDA to collect a user fee from manufacturers that the lawmakers have estimated will raise $20 million to pay for the ingredients review and

set up a new regulatory system. One of the five ingredients on tap to be reviewed in the bill in the first year is a form of formaldehyde found in the controversial hair-straightening treatments, Brazilian blowout.

In the House, Sessions introduced the “Cosmetic Modernization Amendments Act” last November.

The Sessions bill would establish new pro-cedures and requirements for the registration of cosmetic manufacturing and distributing establishments as well as ingredient state-ments. It would also require manufacturers, packers and distributors of cosmetics to report serious adverse events. The agency must also establish a program to evaluate the safety of cosmetics and ingredients.

The bill does not give the FDA mandatory authority to recall unsafe products, nor does it impose user fees on companies to pay for the overhaul.

"This legislation reforms and improves the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to streamline and strengthen consumer safety requirements without strangling small busi-nesses in the cosmetic industry with onerous, antiquated regulations,” Sessions said in an e-mail.

The Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors, which represents small companies and entrepreneurs, has said it supports the Sessions bill.

“The [Feinstein bill] would basically give FDA the set of modern regulatory tools that the average person probably thinks they already have, and that they have for other products that they regulate like food and drugs,” said Tina Sigurdson, assistant general counsel for the Environmental Working Group.

Sigurdson said women use 12 products a day on average, while men use six and teen-age girls use 15.

Officials are hopeful that the process is moving forward toward an eventual compromise.

“I know that stakeholders have been working together for some time to make this happen and that’s why I am optimistic that we will see a change soon,” Sigurdson said.

Hurson said he believes 90 percent of the work has been done to reach a final piece of legislation.

“That being the fact, it is really just a matter of getting Congress the momentum to pick up the pen. You get to a point where all of the interest groups know where they are and it is time for Congress to say they’ve got option a, option b and option c. At some point Con-gress is going to have to make a decision and we’re very close to that point.”

BUSINESS

Cosmetics Regulatory Reform Efforts Move Forward

● Smartphones have eclipsed desktops and laptops as the most popular devices used for online shopping in the country. Meanwhile, WeChat Pay and Alipay are the norm.

BY NYIMA PRATTEN

The percentage of online shoppers who use mobile payment apps in China has increased from 96 percent last year to 99 percent this year, according to new research from Nielsen.

Mobile phones have eclipsed desktops and laptops as the most popular devices used for online shopping in the country, according to the survey of over 5,000 people across China. Eighty-one percent of online shoppers claimed that they use the handheld device for shopping, compared to 59 percent and 57 percent for desktops and laptops respectively.

Ease of use was a big motivator for consumers to switch to their smartphones when shopping, with 71 percent stating that this method was more convenient. Mobile payment facilities were also a big driver, with 52 percent of consumers stating that they preferred this method due to the convenience

of mobile payments, according to Nielsen. Tencent’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba’s Alipay dominate much of the mobile payment mar-ket in China.

Since the end of 2014, the percentage of Chinese Internet users who use online pay-ment methods increased from 46.9 percent to 60.5 percent, according to the report, with mobile payment usage soaring rapidly in 2015. The number of users reached 358 million, an increase rate of 64.5 percent.

Earlier this month, Alibaba said mobile gross merchandise value accounted for 75 percent of its total GMV of $126 billion for the first quarter ending June 30. It also said that mobile monetization is overtaking the value of PC for the first time.

Meanwhile, the numbers of price-sensitive shoppers seems to be on the rise in China. The report said the percentage of price-sen-sitive shoppers as part of the total consumer market increased from 15 percent to 19 percent year-on-year. According to Nielsen, price-sensitive shoppers are typically over 35 years old with comparatively less education and lower incomes than other consumers in China.

The introduction and growing popularity of e-commerce platforms’ shopping festivals, such as Singles’ Day, have gained huge trac-tion in the country over the past few years. Sixty-eight percent of respondents claimed that they now go shopping online when there is a sale, with the percentage of customers visiting participating stores during the online shopping festivals up to a staggering 95 percent, according to the report. This has led to intense price wars amongst competing platforms.

Another Nielsen survey of 5,000 consum-ers shows that traditional hypermarkets and supermarkets are increasingly losing the bat-tle against online retailers on the Mainland. The report found that a significant reason for this shift in consumer behavior was the lure of cheaper goods online, with 61 percent of those surveyed saying that they choose to buy things online due to cheaper prices, a significant rise from 42 percent last year. Price transparency was also a key factor, with 56 percent of respondents suggesting that they prefer online shopping platforms due to it being “easier to compare prices,” which was up 15 percent from last year’s figure.

RETAIL

Mobile Payments, Shopping Dominate E-commerce in China

8 29 AUGUST 2016

Cosmetics are at the center of efforts to reform the FDA.

Phot

ogra

ph b

y N

icho

las

Cal

cott

29 AUGUST 2016 9

over to Lamy for the first floor, where she staged an installation, or “ritual” as Owens called it, of site-specific furniture made from concrete, plaster, foam and rock crys-tal, some of the forms upholstered in camel fur. Typically Owens designs his stores on his own, but “Michelle is going to give it a chaos that is very attractive when she does it, and not quite as convincing when I do it,” said Owens during an interview from Paris (he will not be in town for the store’s opening). “I’m not a chaotic type, but I think we needed that kind of warmth.”

Approximately 275,000 pounds of concrete was used in the store design and the floors had to be double-reinforced to accommodate one of the large-scale rock crystal furniture pieces, which is not for sale. “I avoid selling the furniture in the stores because then it seems like fashion accessories,” said Owens, adding that the furniture in the Howard Street store is purely experimental and not part of the Owens collection. In December, he and Lamy will have a furniture and film exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. For those interested in buying into the Owens lifestyle beyond the ready-to-wear (housed on the second floor), the SoHo store will carry an exclusive collection of table and flatware, including ox bone plates and flatware, white clay tableware from Morocco and rock crystal chalices made in Pakistan. “We’ve done vases and ashtrays and urns and plates, but we’ve never done tableware with flatware,” said Owens. “It’s not something that’s going to be in big distribution.” Don’t add it to the wedding registry just yet.

Howard Street is Owens’ second store in New York. The first opened in 2008 on the edge of SoHo and TriBeCa at 250 Hudson Street and is closing as the SoHo store opens. “We were looking to move because we realized that the allure of being on the edge of town [faded]. It would make more sense to be a little bit more available to

people,” said Owens. “Also, the [Hudson Street neighborhood] changed. Some stores closed and it wasn’t really what it was when I first moved there. We had a great time but we outgrew it, too.” With the new neigh-borhood comes new design and fashion neighbors, including Opening Ceremony and De Vera. Owens’ New York offices and showroom were already located in 30 How-ard Street, giving him dibs on the Jil Sander space when it came up.

On the subject of the convenience of showroom and store being in the same building, Owens segued into the fact that after 15 years of manufacturing under a license with Olmar & Mirta, in 2015 he merged his production into Owenscorp, which houses all of labels including Rick Owens Lilies, Drkshadow and Hun Rick Owens. “We’ve done a lot of consolidating this year,” he said. “It’s a great step.” Asked what made it possible to set up his own ver-tical manufacturing, Owens said, “I don’t know, I guess we just had enough money.” If things are going well, he credits it to remaining outside the mainstream. “I’m not going to gloat, but my particular niche has never really been part of the general fashion story,” he said. “People ask me about straight-from-the-runway shows and that’s a whole different world. I’m not overexposed in a way. Some people might argue that, but I’m not exposed in that way where people get fatigued by me.…We’re just quieter so a lot of those fashion rules don’t apply to us.”

The SoHo store is Owens’ ninth. He has freestanding stores in Paris, London, Milan, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul. He wants a quiet opening for New York. Store parties aren’t his thing. “If I were to go to New York, I would have to do some kind of little party and any coverage I would get would be at the bottom of the list because I wouldn’t have any celebrities,” he said. He’ll stay in Paris, working on the spring women’s show, for which he said there are no runway acrobatics planned — no sorority dance teams, no women harnessed together, carrying each other, as he did last spring. “I don’t know if I’ve become Mr. Showbiz or something,” said Owens. “I didn’t mean to. I really mean to do things that I would want to see…I have an opportunity to put out my idea of beauty in as many ways as possible.…People get physical with women by putting them in sky-high shoes and I’m getting physical with women in different ways, but I think that’s our positive energy. I’m trying to say nice things when I do a show.”

Rick Owens’ Concrete SoHo Castle CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Exterior of the Rick Owens store in SoHo.

Here and above: Inside Rick Owen’s SoHo store.

Phot

ogra

phs

by C

lint S

paul

ding

10 29 AUGUST 2016

● The third annual event aimed at helping women and girls was held at Facebook's headquarters.

BY MAGHAN MCDOWELL

Over the weekend, a cast of seem-ingly unlikely figures from the worlds of fashion, tech and social activism convened in Silicon Valley with a shared goal of working to solve a problem that has received increasing attention on the global stage.

The mission was to build tech-enabled solutions to report and end violence against women. The players included Gucci, Facebook, nonprofit organiza-tion Global Citizen and investment firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, and the venue was Chimehack 3 at Face-book’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters.

While hackathons such as this one might not be immediately associated with Gucci, Gucci America president and chief executive officer Susan Chok-achi said the cause for women and chil-dren was something the brand had been working with for more than a decade, and parent company Kering and its ceo, François-Henri Pinault, is a champion for girls' and women's rights, both in and out of the workplace.

She also emphasized the power of recognizable names and brands to raise

awareness. Cofounders of Gucci's Chime for Change organization, for example, are Beyoncé Knowles and Salma Hayek Pinault.

“We’re a brand of influence, [Face-book] is a brand of influence — everyone has a contribution that they can make,” Chokachi said, emphasizing in particu-lar the global footprint of Facebook that is some one billion users strong. She said the idea for the organization was the result of a philanthropic music and film event in London that Gucci hosted three years ago, at which Knowles was a performer.

Yasmeen Hassan, who is global director of Equality Now, commended Gucci’s role in supporting the cause of violence against women, and said that when she began asking companies to support the organization, most were hesitant to address issues such as sex trafficking.

“That has changed, and Gucci was first. Brands said that it wasn’t positive, but it is positive, change is positive,” Hassan said. “Now, I find more and more of the fashion industry is coming into it. They all want in now.”

Before the participants began building concepts, Facebook’s Naomi Gleit, who is vice president of product manage-ment, hosted a panel discussion with Hassan, in addition to Global Citizen chief operating officer Liza Lambert Henshaw and End Rape on Campus

managing director Anna Voremberg.Each shared insights into the issues

surrounding violence against women and what is being done — and what is lacking — to provide solutions. Hassan, whose work included international cases such as child marriage, female genital mutilation and sex traffick-ing, discussed the barriers to report-ing cases of violence against women internationally.

The third annual hackathon is part of Gucci’s three-year-old Chime for Change foundation, which is a campaign to raise funds and awareness for girls’ and women’s issues around the world. Teams of young hackers are given less than 48 hours to develop something to be presented to the judges, with awards including mentorship, scholarship and incubator space — and the environment in which to create something that poten-tially goes into development.

In introductory remarks, Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer

said hackathons, which are typically intense brainstorming sessions for engineers, are a long tradition at Facebook, while Gleit added that tools such as Facebook’s Safety Check, which updates contacts in times of disaster, and fund-raising on Facebook through initiatives such as the ALS ice bucket challenge, are examples of products cre-ated through hackathons by Facebook’s social good team.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers senior partner Juliet de Baubigny, who an advisory board member for Chime for Change, said the current climate represented a “tipping point for women and girls,” and as a proponent of women in tech, she was encouraged by the number of young women who were participating in the hackathon. “I constantly see technology advance-ments with the power to change lives,” she said, “and every woman and girl deserves the right to reach their full potential.”

FASHION

Gucci Holds Chime for Change Hackathon

Guc

ci p

hoto

grap

h by

Get

ty Im

ages

for G

ucci

The J. Crew and Madewell deals recall Topshop’s agreement with the Seattle-based Nordstrom department store chain. Bringing Madewell, J. Crew and Topshop to its doors and web site reflects Nordstrom’s efforts to broaden its base of customers and its image through new and sometimes exclusive arrangements with brands. It's also a sign of the times underscoring the industry impera-tive to be multichannel and global; the blur-ring lines between retail and wholesale, and the challenging, often treacherous specialty retail sector.

Another possibility for Nordstrom is with Uniqlo, the Japanese vertical retailer, which about 11 years ago, starting opening stores in the U.S. and has had uneven success with the expansion. "Of course, we would be open to having a conversation with them," Nordstrom said. "But it's a pretty different thing. It would be an unusual fit in our full-line stores." Hiro-shi Taki, group senior vice president and chief executive officer of Uniqlo USA, concurred he is also open to discussions with Nordstrom.

Already, Nordstrom has begun selling some J. Crew Ludlow men's suits at four of its stores. The real launch of the partnership happens Sept. 12 when J. Crew starts selling inside 16 Nordstrom locations, in 500-square-foot set-tings in the Point of View section. Nordstrom.com will also sell J. Crew.

"I wouldn't say this is a test. It's more of a pilot," Nordstrom noted. "We need to start somewhere so we understand the business.

We'll spread it around to different-size stores and regional locations. Madewell has kind of worked everywhere."

“This was an easy decision," said Millard "Mickey" Drexler, chairman and ceo of the J. Crew Group. "Nordstrom is the perfect partner because we both share the same high standards of customer service and store experience. We're doing this exclusively with Nordstrom. This is excellent exposure for us."

Drexler said Nordstrom will sell an edited assortment of the J. Crew collection, including

classics such as the Regent and Rhodes blazers, Italian cashmere, outerwear and the Martie pants, to name a few. The pieces will be merchandised and presented in the “signature” J. Crew way — pattern mixing, quirky styling, bright colors, mixing prints and stripes along with accessories.

Nordstrom will also sell J. Crew petites online only, and on the men's side of J. Crew, Nordstrom has focused on J. Crew's Ludlow suits in Italian worsted wool and Loro Piana fabrics in black, charcoal and navy. In addi-tion to the four Nordstrom stores selling the men's wear, another seven will be added in October.

Aside from their own stores, J. Crew and Madewell are sold on Net-a-porter, and J. Crew is sold at Bon Marché in Europe. Crew-cuts, the J. Crew children's division, is sold at Harrods in London. At one time, J. Crew was sold at Lane Crawford in Asia, though it's no longer there.

Asked if the arrangement with Nordstrom suggests that the J. Crew Group is moving into a wholesale business model, Drexler replied, "This is an exception for us. It doesn't at all suggest wholesaling."

The idea of collaborating with the J. Crew Group occurred to Nordstrom while he was traveling. "I've spent a lot of time traveling in the last couple of years," he said. "We did see J. Crew in select stores in Europe and Asia. This whole thing started with J. Crew in mind," though the initial conversations revolved around Madewell.

With J. Crew, Nordstrom said his buyers focused on iconic styles, newness and what's selling. "J. Crew gave us a lot of latitude to do this. We are going to learn about what type of things do best in our environment. We've done that with Madewell....We try to establish relationships with great brands that allow us to focus on regular-priced selling, newness

and fashion. It's not exclusivity for exclusivity sake."

J. Crew Group's success with Madewell was underscored recently when Nordstrom dis-closed that its distribution of Madewell would increase with an additional 20 stores this fall. It was the third distribution expansion since the initial launch of the partnership in March 2015 and will result in Nordstrom carrying Madewell in 76 locations in the U.S. and Can-ada, as well as on nordstrom.com.

Nordstrom said there has been no discus-sion regarding his company investing in the J. Crew Group, which is owned by the TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners private equity firms.

Outside of Madewell stores, Nordstrom is the only brick-and-mortar retailer to sell Madewell merchandise. Madewell is also sold on madewell.com, Net-a-porter and Shopbop.com. In 2015, when the deal to sell Madewell merchandise to Nordstrom was disclosed, Drexler told WWD, "This, for us, is really a new beginning. I wouldn’t call it necessarily a wholesale distribution. I would just call it distribution that makes sense from a customer point of view, from a brand point of view, from a Nordstrom and Net-a-porter point of view."

The 16 Nordstrom stores set to carry J. Crew are in downtown Seattle; Bellevue Square, Wash.; Washington Square in Tigard, Ore.; Michigan Avenue in Chicago; Oakbrook Center in Oak Brook, Ill.; Somerset Collection in Troy, Mich.; Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, Ariz.; NorthPark Center in Dallas; Houston Galleria in Houston; Barton Creek Square and Domain Northside, both in Austin, Tex.; King of Prussia Mall, Pa.; Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Va.; South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif.; The Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey, and The Mall at Green Hills in Nashville.

Sister Act: J. Crew To Join Madewell At Nordstrom CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

J. Crew will soon be carried at Nordstrom.

Gucci America president and ceo Susan Chokachi at

Gucci's Chimehack 3.

29 AUGUST 2016 11

LONDON — Nearly 40 years after William Styron published his novel “Sophie’s Choice,” about a Polish Catholic forced to decide the fate of her two small children at Auschwitz, the British writer Anne Sebba has embraced a similar theme for her latest book that deals with the everyday heartache French women — and others — faced as they tried to survive and protect their families in Nazi-occupied Paris.

“Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died in 1940s,” (Orion Books) is the story of the famous and glamor-ous: Coco Chanel, jewelry designer Suzanne Belperron, novelist Irène Némirovsky, actress Simone Signoret and the daughters of the Dior, Van Cleef & Arpels, and de Rothschild families.

The book, which will be pub-lished in mid-October in the U.S. also features a cast of ordinary women — Ravensbrück survivors, Resistance fighters and collabora-tors — doing their best to muddle through, keep up their physical appearances and their famous French allure during the country’s darkest of days.

Sebba, who argues her book is all about the choices, large and small, said that women had to make until the moment they died, said the essence of the Parisienne was the woman who, instead of eating the ounce or so of fat she was given as part of the daily rationing, “massaged it into her hands after concluding that these

needed preserving more than her stomach.”

The book, hard to put down, yet difficult to read in parts, is also the story of a city at its most vulnera-ble, and intriguing insight into the importance of fashion to national self-esteem – from the legions of haute couture seamstresses who worked throughout the war, to the role of fine jewelry as a morale-booster, to the clever ways women kept up their looks despite all the poverty and deprivation - and the way they sometimes work their appearances to obtain favors.

Quick-thinking French designers rapidly transformed skirts into roomy culottes to accommodate all the females on bicycles (petrol was diverted to the occupying German forces); while women used leg paint to simulate seamed stockings, and hid their unwashed hair in turbans. For the rich, Jeanne Lanvin invented a new accessory — an elegant cylindrical box with a strap for holding a gas mask in the days before the German invasion.

Sebba writes: “Fashion was, for the French, even after four years of occupation, anything but trivial. For them, remaining stylish provided a beacon of hope for the future. It was a matter of pride to dress from old curtains if they could, or to adapt a man’s suit if the man wasn’t coming home.”

In the book, she quotes a letter to American Vogue from Lucien Lelong, the couturier who was then president of the Chambre Syndicale, defending the extrava-

gance of the first fashion shows post-Liberation. In it, he calls haute couture “a Parisian industry of prime importance,” and “a means of avoiding unemployment for workers and consequent forced labor in Germany.”

In an interview with WWD, Sebba argued that Lelong was keen to fly the Paris haute couture flag as extravagantly as possible in those post-war years. “He wasn’t going to let the comfortable, casual American designers stake a claim to being world leaders in fashion.”

While the Americans accused the Parisians of frivolity and others saw their focus on fashion as outright collusion with the Ger-mans, Sebba believes that looking good for a Parisian was all about maintaining self-esteem.

“It was a measure of resisting, as they weren’t going to be down-trodden or humiliated. It is fasci-nating to see how they decided fashion was a measure of survival,” she said.

Sebba, a Londoner whose husband Mark Sebba was the longtime chief executive officer of Net-a-porter before its merger with Yoox Group, drew a striking contrast with English women.

“The attitude would be, if the men are suffering, the women must suffer too. ‘I must wear dowdy clothes and khaki because it’s not right if my husband or boyfriend is at the front suffering and I’m leading a life of luxury.’ But French women thought quite the reverse.”

In the book, Sebba also

addresses the importance of fine jewelry in wartime. “The couture houses depended on the jewelry, and the film industry helped the couture industry. They all fed on each other,” she said, adding that

jewelry always had an edge on art.“It’s transportable, small and can

be altered. Art can’t be altered; you can steal a painting but then what do you do with it?” (In the case of the Nazis in Paris, pick the Jewish

art galleries and dealers clean, catalogue the work, and send it back to Germany). “Jewelry, you can’t trace,” said Sebba.

She also described women gathering up their bits and pieces of silver tableware and cutlery and asking the folks at Boucheron to melt it down into evening bags.

“They were really modern, up to the minute, the latest sort of clutch bags — and quite shocking. They had separate compartments for lipstick, cigarettes and powder in them. For a woman to makeup in public was still actually a little bit shocking,” said Sebba.

Sebba, who began her career as a Reuters foreign correspon-dent, has written a number of books — most recently biographies of Jennie Churchill, Winston’s American mother, and Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor — but this particular one had been brewing for a while.

She’d studied France in the Thirties while at university, and was more recently intrigued by the fate of Rachel Van Cleef of Van Cleef & Arpels, “the Jewish rival to Cartier” in the pre-World War II years.

She later visited the Holocaust museum in Paris, “and I saw a name on the wall — Anna Rubin-stein — it could have been me, and I asked myself if my grandparents had ended up in Paris instead of London, how would I have survived?” she said, adding that women’s voices during that period in Paris had not been well-heard.

Researching the book was a challenge: “It has to be said you can’t find collaborators. Anyone who works in this field — professors, historians — will tell you the same. You won’t find anyone who will tell you ‘Actually my family worked for the Germans because they thought they’d win.’ Of course no-body is going to admit to that, and many of them were executed.”

Some women talked for the first time. “There was a sense that if they were now telling their story, it was like a dam being unleashed. It was a question of not dying and taking their story to the grave.” — SAMANTHA CONTI

Anne Sebba Listens to the Women of Occupied ParisThe author looks at the approach to fashion during WWII.

Cunningham CornerModern Luxury's September issue will have a personal touch weaved through its pages. When Bill Cunning-ham passed away in June, James Aguiar, the regional magazine publish-er's national fashion director, felt he had to honor his old friend's legacy.

Aguiar met Cunningham the way most people did — on the street — about 20 years ago. “I met Bill when I was doing the windows at Bergdorf’s. He was such a fan of those windows. Linda Fargo and I created those win-dows together — she was the visual director and I was her assistant [at the time]...and Bill was always there snapping the progress," he said.

Cunningham snapped Aguiar's photo and included his image in the pages of The New York Times in 1997, and from there, a deeper friendship between the two started. "Our rela-tionship developed through fashion and style — the importance of it, the understanding of it," Aguiar said. "Bill always kept a professional distance, but we developed a camaraderie and a personal correspondence. He would write to me and send me photographs, or tell me about an exhibition that I may like. Those letters have proven to

be so heartfelt and I treasure them."When conceiving the location for

Modern Luxury's fall fashion editorial — a velvet trend story featuring looks by Dries Van Noten, Fendi, Miu Miu and more — Aguiar decided upon 57th Street and Fifth Avenue, right outside Bergdorf Goodman. "He understood trends better than everybody, and I thought, let’s do a trend story in the place where he stood," Aguiar said.

The editorial, shot by Caroline Knopf and featuring model Martyna Frankow at Elite, features subtle nods to Cunningham on every page — a bi-cycle, the late photographer's favorite way to get around Manhattan; a blue Windbreaker, Cunningham's signature look; and, of course, a camera.

"The idea is that he’s there. The truth is he’s not," Aguiar said. "We’ll never see that blue jacket on the corner of 57th and Fifth again, but I wanted to keep it there for prosperity. It speaks to the power of Bill, his lega-cy, what he gave fashion and ultimate-ly what he gave me. I look at fashion in a completely different way because of that man, because of the conversa-tions we’ve had through the years....He changed my eye forever." — KRISTI GARCED

Memo Pad

The cover of "Les Parisiennes" by Anne Sebba.

A look at the fashion editorial in Modern Luxury’s September issue, an homage to Bill Cunningham.

Cun

ning

ham

pho

togr

aphs

by

Car

olin

e Kn

opf

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

ATTEND: PREIDY@WWD.COM, 646.356.4724 SPONSOR: ACOYLE@WWD.COM, 646.356.4719

summits.wwd.com

DIGITAL FORUM NEW YORKSEPTEMBER 21 - 22 • NEW YORK CITY

EVENT SPONSORS

PRESENTING SPONSOR AMERICAN EXPRESS

Charlie ColeTUMI

Laura ElkinsMAC COSMETICS

Mark Lippmann DEBORAH LIPPMANN

Jeff RaiderHARRY’S INC.

29 AUGUST 2016 13

● Lola Rykiel reminisces about growing up with her Mamie Sonia.

To the fashion world, Sonia Rykiel was a groundbreaking designer with a gentle spirit. To Lola Rykiel, she was Mamie Sonia, Grandma. Lola, the Sonia Rykiel brand’s director of public relations for North America, is the third generation of Rykiel women to work in the company; her mother, Nathalie is a consultant.

Lola returned to New York only a few days ago from a trip to France, during which she spent a great deal of time vis-iting Sonia. In a conversation on Thurs-day, she was emotional as she prepared to return to Paris for the funeral. She took time to reminisce with WWD.

"It was very intense,” Lola said of her recent trip. “My grandmother was very sick. But at the same time, it was — I don’t know if beautiful is a good word. It was our last moment together, so it was precious.”

Sonia called Lola by the pet name “Louloute.” “She was amazing,” the granddaughter reminisced. “She was very present. My mother and she were always together, so we would spend a lot of time at her house or going to the city after school and see her doing all the fittings. At the offices, we were running around and we were making a mess, trying on the shoes that were too big, just having fun.”

Lola characterized Sonia as “the matriarch” and “the boss,” but quickly corrected herself, lest the B-word sound too bossy. “No, really more the queen than the boss, but in a really good way. In a fair and wonderful way.”

Lola is the only one of Nathalie’s three daughters involved in the business. The oldest, Tatiana, is a yoga instruc-tor; Salome, the youngest, a student. Despite a natural affinity for fashion that revealed itself early on, Lola at first resisted a career in the business, opting to study dance at the Martha Graham School. “I was trying to find my own person,” she said. That discovery came via the Rykiel collaboration with H&M in 2009. As a student, she dressed mostly in those two brands, “because it was what was available for me, you know? And I was just fascinated to see the whole concept coming into place, and the excitement, and how I felt very close to it.” She asked if she could start work-ing in the company, much to the delight of her mother and grandmother.

Lola grew up proud of Sonia and recognized early on that she was a “big deal.” She recalled walking with Sonia in Paris and people coming up and asking for her autograph. “They would say things of admiration, and my sister and I were just looking, and we were, like, ‘Ahh!’”

As teenagers, Lola’s friends found Sonia’s gentleness disarming. First-time visitors would arrive feeling tense and intimidated, to have their anxiety expunged on the spot. “Once they said hello and she smiled and gave them a kiss, they were, like, ‘Oh my God, she’s so nice, she’s so sweet!’ She was really the sweetest person and the nicest per-son and the most generous person.”

Yet Mamie's indulgence had its limits. When Lola and Tatiana would visit the studio as children, Sonia sometimes asked them to sketch looks they’d like to see made. A Disney Princess kind of girl, Lola once drew a dress of that genre, all big-skirted, fluffy and pink. “Can you do this, please?” she asked. A follow-up visit unveiled the hard truth: Sonia had distilled the theme into a big sweater with “princess” written across the front. “'That’s not what I wanted!’” Lola

protested. “I wanted to have this pink, disgusting girly thing. I was so upset.”

Though Sonia made her initial splash in fashion two decades or so before Lola was born, she is very aware of the powerful way in which the design-er’s aesthetic spoke to that moment, particularly women’s lib. Asked what she expects Sonia’s legacy to be, Lola referenced neither a specific look nor overall sartorial ease. “She really talked to women,” the granddaughter said.

“I think for me, the most important thing she was saying was ‘know your-self.’ She was very particular [about style] but basically, she was saying, ‘Think about what is the best and the worst [of yourself ] and make the most out of it.' I think that by being herself and being exactly her own charac-ter, she was inspiring people to find themselves.”

FASHION

A Granddaughter Remembers Sonia Rykiel

Sonia Rykiel with Lola Rykiel.

Ryk

iel p

hoto

grap

h by

Sté

phan

ie F

ugèr

e; W

u by

Jus

tice

App

le; H

olt R

enfr

ew b

y Je

nna

Mar

ie W

akan

i

Cook to ExitMario Grauso is already making his presence known at Holt Ren-frew, and he’s not even coming on board until next month.

Last week, the Canada-based retailer confirmed a market report that Steven Cook, the company’s chief merchant and senior vice president of buying and merchan-dising, will leave the company.

Julija Hunter, divisional vice president of public relations and communications, confirmed Cook’s departure, saying: “After five years with Holt Renfrew, Steven Cook…has decided to step down effective Aug. 26. Steven’s responsibilities as Holt’s chief mer-chant will be assumed by incoming president, Mario Grauso, who will be taking over leadership of the company in September.”

Sources said a new women’s fashion director from the U.S. is expected to be named shortly. Hunter did not comment further. — JEAN E. PALMIERI

Woolmark and WuJason Wu has signed on as an ambassador for the Woolmark Company. Part of the gig included judging the Australian and American portions of this year’s

Woolmark Prize, and Wu also has to find ways to incorporate Australian merino wool, which is what the trade group represents, into his own work. There are a few certified Woolmark pieces in Wu’s fall collection, but for spring, he’s working with the idea of cool wool.

“We did this trip to Australia to see how the wool is harvested and the different things they can do,” Wu said. "Michelle [Lee, Woolmark’s head of Americas] took me with her and said she felt that wool had been pegged as fall and winter. People don’t see wool as a lighter material for spring.” So for his spring collection, Wu is increasing the number of light-weight, second skin merino wool

pieces in his collection, working in bright colors, as well as wovens, including an open gauze and lace and embroidery techniques for pieces that are seasonless. “I think that’s where fashion really is right now,” he said.

“He worked with wool in ways you probably wouldn’t see in a spring collection when it comes to wool because there's that preconceived idea that you don't see wool a lot in the spring [and] summer season,” Lee said. “We really want to tell the story of the fact that wool can be lightweight.” — JESSICA IREDALE

Givenchy Basics Hit IsetanRiccardo Tisci is launching a new line of basics for Givenchy, and the collection will first be available exclusively at the iconic Isetan department store in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district.

From Sept. 7 through 13, Givenchy Essentials will be sold at both the main Isetan store and the neighboring men’s building. In the main building, the red-tiled event space will form the background for the women’s Essentials collection,

the key colors of which will be black, white and pastel pink. The pop-up will carry various sizes and colors of Givenchy’s new Horizon series of bags and wallets (62,640 to 248,400 yen, or about $557 to $2,208) for a total of over 30 variations, including a pink series that won’t be available anywhere else in the world.

Several men’s items will also be exclusive to Isetan, such as a floral print backpack (153,360 yen, or $1,363) and a black leather pouch emblazoned with “I feel love Japan” in bright red (102,600 yen, or $912). Black accessories adorned with red stars round out the men’s leather goods selection.

Clothing options offered by Givenchy Essentials will include straight-leg trousers, shirts and blouses, jackets, and skirts for women and shorts for men. Prices will range from 64,800 yen, or $576, for a pair of black men’s leggings, to 421,200 yen, or about $3,745, for a printed women’s jacket. — KELLY WETHERILLE

Pop Goes The PerfumeAlthough it boasts one of the big-gest store networks in the luxury sector, Louis Vuitton is also plotting five pop-up units to showcase its return to the perfume business.

The first is slated to debut Saturday at the Printemps flagship

store in Paris on Boulevard Haussmann, and remain until Oct. 22. Additional installations are to be unveiled in the following days at Le Bon Marché in Paris; the Black Hall Perfumery at Harrods in London; a wall at Shinsegae Gangnam in Seoul, and the grand atrium of the Dubai Mall.

As reported, Vuitton is set to introduce Les Parfums, a collection of seven women’s scents starting Sept. 1 in some 200 of its stores.

Flowers take center stage in the line of eaux de parfums, developed by in-house master perfumer Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud. Sources estimate the scents will generate 60 million euros, or $67.2 million at current exchange, in retail sales during its first year. — MILES SOCHA

Smells Like Teen Spirit?Could perfume be the next new frontier for rising fashion star Gosha Rubchinskiy?

Word has it the Russian designer is developing a scent with Comme des Garçons, which backs his men’s wear line. Sources said the exclusive could be ready to hit the market as soon as October. — M.S.

Jewelry WinnerResults of the inaugural jewelry design competition run by Ylang

23 and TrendSeeder have been decided. The event, held today at Manhattan’s Ace Hotel, saw Re-trouvaí, a brand designed by Kirsty Stone, take home top honors.

The competition — judged by Melissa Joy Manning; Steven Alan; The New School's Parsons School of Design dean Burak Cakmak; fashion editor Will Kahn; Ylang 23’s Joanne Teichman, and TrendSeed-er’s Avani Patel — assessed 70 designer finalists. More than 100 applications had been filed.

In winning the competition, Stone receives 20 hours of mentoring from Joy Manning and Teichman, the opportunity to sell on Ylang 23, a membership to TrendSeeder, and a meeting with Steven Alan buyers for a chance to sell at the chain’s stores.

Retrouvaí, based in California, looks to heirloom hallmarks as design inspiration.

"Judging the competition was an incredible experience,” Joy Man-ning said. "The energy and talent of the designers were inspiring. They reminded me why I love what I do and how blessed we are to be part of our industry. I'm super excited to mentor the winner and look forward to seeing the work develop."

Ylang 23 says it will offer a select group of finalists the oppor-tunity to sell on its web site as well.. — MISTY WHITE SIDELL

Fashion Scoops

Jason Wu

The Holt Renfrew store in Mississauga, Ontario.