Daily EDition december 28, 2016 1

Fashion. Beauty. Business.

Tapping TwoPresident-elect Donald Trump names a pair of advisers to team.

Page 10

Sights And SoundsExhibit examines Marc Chagall’s love of music.

Page 11

Happy Days Here Again?Holiday sales gain seen as best since 2005.

Page 3

● The homegrown upstarts are making news at Shanghai Fashion Week and occupying racks at multibrand boutiques.

by Casey Hall

SHANGHAI – A group of young Chinese designers known as the “Gang of Six” ventured abroad to study before return-ing to their homeland to start their own fashion brands. Today they are consid-ered some of the country’s most promis-ing design talents.

Angel Chen, Daniel Xuzhi Chen, Momo Wang of Museum of Friendship, Mush-room Song of WMWM, Xiao Li, and design duo Liushu “Shu Shu” Lei and Yutong “Tong Tong” Jiang of Shushu/Tong, make up this cadre of 20-something design tal-ents. Their names are becoming increas-ingly familiar to Chinese fashion watchers, whether they are scanning the schedule at Shanghai Fashion Week or flicking through the racks at multibrand boutiques in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Chengdu.

“It’s a new group of talented Chinese

● Even with streetwear references from the Nineties and early Aughts trending at retail, most streetwear brands have yet to capitalize on the moment.

by aria HugHes

Don’t call it a comeback.Before there was streetwear, there was

urban streetwear, which consisted of brands that were a direct product of hip-hop culture.

Walk into any retailer today, whether it’s a big-box chain or a luxury department store, and there are traces, reinterpre-tations and sometimes replicas of urban streetwear pieces from brands such as

fashion

China’s ‘Gang of Six’ DesignersOn the Rise

men’s

Can UrbanStreetwearBrandsResurge?

continued on page 6

continued on page 8

Jewelry-wise, turquoise and gold are a go-to pairing that pops. Make the combination even more bold by coordinating earrings, a bracelet and a ring for a modern interpretation of the classic suite or French parure. Here, Ippolita’s earrings in 18-karat gold, diamond

pavé and turquoise; Seaman Schepps’ bracelet in 18-karat gold, ebony, pearl and carved turquoise, and Cadar’s 18-karat gold and diamond ring.

For more on jewelry, see pages 4 and 5.

Mix and Matchy-Matchy

photograph by george CHinsee

Men’s Fashion WeeksMen’s Paris FW

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

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The Fashion Calendar Gets A Makeover● The site has been redesigned for easy navigation and personalization.

● Debbie Harry and Shepard Fairey Launching Collaboration For Obey Label

● Retail Report Card: Last-Minute Shopping, Gift Cards, Post-Christmas Promotions Lifting Holiday Season

● Dennis Basso Speaks Out About Christmas Eve Robbery at Madison Avenue Store

● Pinterest Predicts: The Top Style Trends of 2017

Top 5TrendinGOn WWD.COM

nEWSMAKERSThis Week’s Most Talked About names In Our Industry

Dennis Basso

J.J. Martin

Debbie Harry

Sienna Miller

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● Strong turnout at stores and consumer confidence levels are elevating expectations for fourth-quarter sales.by DaviD Moin with contributions from MagHan MCDowell and viCki M. young

As the numbers continue to be crunched, it looks like holiday 2016 at retail could turn out far better than expected.

That’s according to Customer Growth Partners, a retail research firm which has an 18-member field team conducting research in more than 90 major shopping venues nationwide.

“Consumers are driving the best year-over-year growth in holiday retail sales in over a decade, reaching a record $637 bil-lion for the November-December holiday season,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners.

Based on monthly sales through Dec. 26, which was a federal holiday and a very busy day at stores across America, and the 5.1 percent year-over-year increase reported by the Department of Commerce for November, CGP estimates that total holiday sales will rise 4.9 percent. That’s the best growth since 2005’s 6.1 percent increase and a sharp jump over consensus views of 3.5 percent growth, said Johnson.

“After a slow start the first 10 days of November, holiday 2016 has turned into the best season in many years, exceeding our already above-consensus 4.1 percent growth forecast,” said Johnson. A ‘perfect storm’ of positive factors have combined to drive stellar growth, including rising real incomes, low gasoline prices, food deflation — and now record stock prices.”

Customer Growth Partners said the retail business has been paced by online sales, up 14.9 percent; health/beauty stores, up 7.7 percent; and home improve-ment, up 7.5 percent.

CGP pointed out, however, that general merchandise sales are down about 1 percent due to weak traffic at department stores and widespread food deflation, trimming top-line sales at mass merchants such as Wal-mart and Costco. Apparel stores are up barely 1.9 percent in Novem-ber as strong unit volume growth of almost 5 percent in clothing was offset by apparel price deflation of some 3 percent.

CGP’s list of hot items include over-the-knee boots, wraps, long/oversize sweat-ers, Hatchimals toy pets, Lego products, drones, virtual reality gear, soundbars and headphones, TVs, fashion and statement

jewelry, and small leather goods.In its annual list of bestsellers on

Amazon.com, the e-commerce behemoth reported that Levi’s men’s 501 Original Fit Jean, Fossil’s Emma large zip wallet and Kate Spade New York’s Cedar Street cami convertible cross-body bag were among the most popular.

Both of the bags are small, wallet-style totes. The Fossil bag, in eight colors and ranging from $60 to $85, was on Oprah’s “favorite things” list, which for the second year in a row was featured in a separate web destination on Amazon.com. The bag is made with a lining that is designed to protect the radio frequency identification chips in credit and debit cards from being scanned by scammers.

The Kate Spade bag is similar, albeit less tech-focused, and appears on Amazon.com for $107 to $148 in at least seven colors.

Men’s jeans, and Levi’s, are consistently popular items on Amazon, as customers typically turn to the site for replenishment and basics items. The Levi’s 501 jeans on Amazon come in as many as 38 colors and cost $25 to $74.

Also popular this year were “ugly” Christmas sweaters, running shoes, watches, diamonds and luggage. Among wearable tech items, the most popular were the Garmin Vivofit fitness band, the Garmin Vivoactive HR GPS smartwatch and Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headset.

And in what has become a key trend across retailers this holiday, more than 72 percent of Amazon customers worldwide shopped using a mobile device, with shop-ping on the Amazon app up 56 percent this year.

“American consumers are once again proving many of the pundits wrong, as shoppers flock both to web sites and stores and not just for returns. Consumers are buying. They are still shopping close-to-need and focus relentlessly on value — but they are shopping at a rate not seen since the mid-2000s,” Johnson said.

While retail transactions are rising, margins may be shrinking due to all the

discounting and extended promotions whether for Black Friday, Super Saturday or some other occasion.

Still, Johnson’s bullishness is supported by The Conference Board, which on Tuesday reported that consumer confi-dence, after increasing in November, rose again in December.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index is now at 113.7, up from 109.4 last month. Consumers were more optimistic about the future than the pres-ent. The Expectations Index, one compo-nent of the Consumer Confidence Index, jumped to 105.5 from 94.4. The Present Situation Index, the other part of the Consumer Confidence Index, fell to 126.1 in December from 132 in November.

Lynn Franco, director of economic indicators at The Conference Board, said, “Consumer confidence improved further in December, due solely to increasing expectations, which hit a 13-year high.” The last time the Expectations Index was at a similar level was in December 2003 when it was at 107.4.

“The post-election surge in optimism for the economy, jobs and income prospects, as well as for stock prices, which reached a 13-year high, was most pronounced among older consumers,” Franco said. She said sustained consumer confidence next year “will depend on whether or not their expectations are realized.”

Chris G. Christopher Jr., director of consumer economics at IHS Global Insight, said, “Americans became significantly more upbeat about the future of the economy after the November presidential election.” He noted that a stronger dollar helped make many “imported consumer retail goods cheaper; good news for con-sumers, not the best thing for exporters.”

As for current conditions, those who said business conditions were “good” fell to 29.2 percent in December from 29.7 percent last November. But for the six-month outlook, those who said business conditions would improve rose to 23.6 percent from 16.4 percent. Their outlook for the labor front also improved, with those expecting more jobs increasing to 21 percent from 16.1 percent.

Further, the percentage of consumers who expect their incomes to increase over the next few months rose to 21 percent from 17.4 percent.

The monthly Consumer Confidence survey is conducted for The Conference Board by global information and analytics firm Nielsen. The cutoff date for prelimi-nary results was Dec. 15.

According to data compiled by Nielsen for the December consumer confidence survey, the average inflation rate is 4.5 percent. Of those consumers who were surveyed, the majority had household income over $50,000, including many over $125,000.

business

Holiday Retail Outlook, Consumer Attitudes Brighten

Late holiday shopping has improved the outlook for retailers.

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The benefits of these big, gold statement bracelets are undeniable. They’re more than a slap on the wrist in the best way.

Golden Handcuffsby roxanne robinson

photograph by george CHinsee

TrendsJewelry

Verdura’s cuff in 18-karat gold and enamel with emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, rubies, diamonds, peridots and tourmalines; David Webb’s cuff in 18-karat gold with ebony, diamonds and turquoise pyramids, and Belperron’s

18-karat yellow gold cuff with detachable brooch with emeralds, rubies and black lacquer.

december 28, 2016 5

TrendsJewelry

Pippa Small’s 18-karat yellow

gold bracelet.

Vhernier’s 18-karat rose

gold bracelet.

Temple St. Clair’s 18-karat yellow gold bracelet with diamonds.

Gumuchian’s 18-karat yellow gold bracelet.

Roberto Coin’s 18-karat gold bracelet.

6 december 28, 2016

continued on page 7

designers, it’s like people used to look at Antwerp. It started with the consumers and the retail and e-commerce boom and then the creative side also comes up. Now Chinese designers are in a market and a position where they can really push the boundaries,” said Angel Chen, who studied at Central Saint Martins before moving to Shanghai to launch her eponymous brand.

These emerging designers aren’t simply lumped together because of their age group and education at prestigious schools like Central Saint Martins and the Lon-don College of Fashion. They often show together at showrooms both in China and abroad, and in many cases, help each other out — literally as they each chart a path to creative and commercial success.

“Take my show at Shanghai Fashion Week, Shu Shu [Lei, of Shushu/Tong] was my receptionist, Angel [Chen] was helping me with sewing. I don’t have a studio in Shanghai so I was using them to finish the whole collection,” explained Daniel Xuzhi Chen, whose brand, Xu Zhi, has won acclaim for its clever textural elements. “We are in the same industry, facing the same challenges, with the same opportu-nities and threats and we are all aware that we need to help each other.”

The question of whether there is a sense of competition among these young designers splits the group, though all agree that even when they do get competitive, it’s a positive impetus to push themselves to achieve more.

“We are really good friends, we always show in Paris and in Shanghai together, we have dinner, and even buy and wear each other’s clothes,” said Yutong Jiang, one half of the design duo behind the Shushu/Tong brand. “Of course there is competition, but it’s competition in a good way. When you see others doing something good, it will push you to do something better.”

One thing these young designers are in agreement about is the importance of their international experience and fashion educa-tion in London and venturing out of China.

“I wanted to go to London because the feeling there is different. In China they don’t have the same culture of art and fashion exhibitions and they don’t really have a culture of fashion. In places like London and Paris, I can discover things that are unique and different,” explained Mushroom Song of WMWM.

For designer Xiao Li, her years spent studying in London were important for two fundamental reasons: one was to develop an identity independent from her family in China and the other was to gain an international insight into creativity.

“When I was in China, my parents took care of everything for me, but when you go overseas you become more indepen-dent; when I went to London I had to take care of myself,” Xiao Li said. “In London, designers are encouraged to have a more creative mind. A designer in China has a more business mind. It’s a different focus.”

This international experience obviously has many benefits, but it also leads to questions about each brand’s identity as a “Chinese” versus “international” label.

“I’m fine with people thinking about me as a Chinese brand, partly because I really want to support Chinese culture; you can see on my clothes, there are lots of refer-ences to Chinese culture and history in my clothes,” Angel Chen said. “I feel like this is part of my responsibility. I want to make Chinese culture more contemporary and acceptable for international audiences.”

Shushu/Tong’s Yutong Jiang said she and her partner would prefer to be known as

“a brand based in Shanghai,” rather than a Chinese brand.

“We have been several places so I don’t define us as a Chinese brand in particular. We are based in Shanghai, but we go to Paris for showrooms twice a year. We want to be quite international,” she said.

Regardless of whether they are striving to be known as a “Chinese brand,” all of these designers have graduated within the past five years and chosen to return to China to launch their own brands. It’s a path that might seem unusual to a fresh graduate from Europe or the U.S., who might opt to work at an established brand before launching his or her own label.

But China is different – this isn’t a country for climbing ladders, but for building ladder factories. Fortuitously for this generation of designers, China is simultaneously experiencing a desire for independent design, a growing curiosity about local design, as well as a generation of millennial consumers who boast buying power unimaginable to past generations of

Chinese consumers.As the local fashion industry in China

burgeons, so does support for local design-ers. What sets these up-and-comers apart from past generations of Chinese designers is a focus on building both a brand identity and a community of young consumers, according to Tasha Liu, co-founder of the Dong Liang chain of multi-brand boutiques in China.

“These designers have huge potential to go further, [because] they are building up a very healthy and direct linkage with their young consumers – not only like designer and client, but also friends,” she said.

Lane Crawford has taken notice of the trend and started carrying more Chinese brands at its stores.

“We saw something special in their collections and vision for their brand. They all have a very unique point of view and are extremely passionate about their work. There’s no magic formula; sometimes you see a collection and you just know,” said Lane Crawford buyer Jillian Xin.

Leaf Greener, a stylist and publisher of her own WeChat fashion and lifestyle magazine Leaf, said she thinks Chinese consumers are keen to buy the work of homegrown design talents.

“I think local buyers really support local designers, the showrooms here are boom-ing because multibrand stores stocking Chinese brands are all over China right now. They are supporting Chinese talents and they seem to be doing a booming business,” she said.

As China’s fashion industry continues to grow and the market of consumers expands, these up-and-coming design tal-ents will have even more opportunities to expand their businesses, observers said.

“I think there’s unlimited potential for many of these young Chinese designers; they are just getting started and establish-ing themselves. In five years, I’m confident that more and more will become house-hold names in China as well as internation-ally,” Lane Crawford’s Xin said.

China’s ‘Gang of Six’ Designers on the Rise ConTinueD fRom PaGe 1

This gang of up-and-coming designers represent the next generation of Chinese fashion.

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december 28, 2016 7

Angel ChenA student of both theater and ballet, it’s no

surprise that Shenzhen-born, Shanghai-based Angel Chen has leaned heavily into the dramatic in both her design sensibility and brand imagery since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2014. Her collections are saturated with color, with references to both Asian gang culture and traditional Chinese poetry. The brand is stocked at Opening Ceremony, Lane Crawford, Joyce and H.Lorenzo.

Xu ZhiAfter graduating from Central Saint Martins,

designer Daniel Xuzhi Chen quickly set about establishing the Xu Zhi brand and has spent the past 18 months winning widespread praise from the industry internationally. He was nominated for the H&M Design Awards in 2015 as well as the LVMH Prize and Woolmark Asia Prize in 2016.

He is best known for his textile and textural innovations – twisting, braiding and bonding yarns into intricate garments with deceptively simple silhouettes.

Shushu/TongDesigners Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang grad-

uated from the women’s wear master’s degree program at London College of Fashion in 2014 and worked with Simone Rocha and Gareth Pugh, respectively, before returning to Shanghai to launch their own independent label in 2015.

The geek chic edge and sharp tailoring of the Shushu/Tong brand has attracted a young, hip consumer class, as well as retailers such as Lane Crawford, 10 Corso Como, H.Lorenzo and Opening Ceremony.

WMWM

Another graduate of London College of Fash-ion’s master’s degree program, Mushroom Song finished her schooling in 2015 and launched her brand WMWM later the same year.

Her largely monochromatic collections often feature exaggerated length and width, and have already proven popular in her home market of China, as well as Dubai. The designer’s next aim is to target the European market.

Museum of FriendshipOriginally from Jinzhou, in northern China’s

Liaoning Province, designer Momo Wang bought a sewing machine in her second year of a degree program in Art History and Management in Beijing, before her clothes-making hobby sup-planted every other creative passion and Wang was accepted to Central Saint Martins.

Museum of Friendship was born in 2014 and is stocked by international retailers including 10 Corso Como and H.Lorenzo, as well as a growing number of Japanese boutiques. Already, a loyal young clientele is attracted to the brand’s fun vibe – with clothing that aims to encapsulate the carefree nature of childhood.

Xiao LiXiao Li was born in the seaside town of Qing-

dao and moved to the United Kingdom to com-plete a bachelor’s degree at London College of Fashion and a master’s degree at Royal College of Art, graduating in 2013. That same year she won both the Loro Piana Award for Best Knitwear Collection and the International Talent Support Diesel Award. In 2015 Xiao Li was shortlisted for the LVMH Prize.

Best known for her oversized knitwear with decorative silicone features, imbued with both color and a sense of humor, Xiao Li is stocked at both Dover Street Market and Lane Crawford, as well as 10 Corso Como.

China’s ‘Gang of Six’ Designers On the Rise

ConTinueD fRom PaGe 6

Liushu Lei and Yutong Jiang of

Shushu/Tong.

momo Wang of museum of friendship.

Daniel Xuzhi Chenangel Chen

Xiao Li

A closer look At the

“Gang of Six”

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mushroom Song of WmWm.

8 december 28, 2016

continued on page 9

Fubu, Phat Farm, Rocawear, Sean John and others that hit their peak during the late Nineties and early Aughts.

While brands including Guess, Nautica and Calvin Klein have capitalized on this Nineties trend with capsule collections targeting a younger consumer — Guess partnered with A$AP Rocky and Nautica tapped 19-year-old rapper Lil Yachty — urban streetwear brands have yet to do the same.

In some cases, it’s intentional as former teen favorites have opted to grow along with their customers and stop chasing a fickle young consumer. But for others, the industry says it’s impossible to make a major comeback given the current marketplace.

“I don’t want to make clothes for Millen-nials,” said Russell Simmons, who founded Phat Farm in 1992. “That’s not my brand.”

Simmons is instead concentrating on his new Los Angeles yoga studio and active line, which are both called Tan-tris — during the phone interview, he requested that flower petals be scattered around the studio’s Om — along with Argyleculture, a men’s wear brand he introduced in 2008 that’s sold exclusively at J.C. Penney.

Argyleculture caters to a multicultural customer Simmons calls the “urban grad-uate,” who has grown up with him and is looking for an alternative to Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein.

The idea to abandon Phat Farm and create a new brand for a new customer came from Glen Farraye, president of the Simmons Design Group, who was tasked by Kellwood Corp. with reviving Phat Farm when it acquired the label in 2004 for $140 million.

“Phat Farm’s business had basically dissolved and nobody knew why,” said Farraye. “I said, ‘Russell, you can’t connect with teenagers because you are 50 years old. You need to reconnect with your audi-ence from a mature point of view.’”

Both Simmons and Farraye agree it would be hard for urban streetwear brands, including Phat Farm, to reassert themselves in the market in an impactful way. But Farraye believes this is the typical trajectory of young men’s brands, which are usually hot for 10 to 15 years before los-ing momentum, whereas brands that don’t chase a youth-oriented customer have a longer shelf life.

Kevin Leong, who used to design for Phat Farm and is presently the creative director for Lil Wayne’s Trukfit collection, agrees.

“The youth culture always wants something different,” said Leong. “The younger brother doesn’t want the same thing as his older brother. During the Nineties, brands like Polo and Tommy solidified their position in the market-place as classic and core aspirational brands, but urban brands were never able to do this because they were always replaced by a new version.”

Leong said young shoppers are inter-ested in graphics, colors and prints that urban streetwear brands touted, but they prefer a more tailored silhouette. And instead of wearing full ensembles from one brand, they pick and choose pieces from a variety of popular streetwear lines with somewhat morose names, including Fear of God, Anti Social Social Club, Brain Dead, No Vacancy Inn and Off-White.

“Right now kids are interested in brands that have a perspective and people that have a perspective,” said James Whitner, owner of the Whitaker Group, which operates a chain of streetwear and sneaker specialty stores throughout the U.S., including Social Status, Prosper, A Ma Maniére and APB. “Look at Anti Social Social Club. The kids are going crazy about that brand. They are interested in those brands because they are curated really well, distribution is very tight and their stories matter and resonate with them.”

Simmons thinks the main reason urban streetwear brands can’t reintroduce them-selves is because of distribution decisions made in the past.

“We made a mistake by selling in Macy’s,” admitted Simmons, who added that many urban streetwear brands didn’t have the financial wherewithal to com-pete with other department store brands. “Doing that killed everything.”

According to Simmons, the ripple effect went something like this: Major depart-ment stores picked up urban streetwear brands and took them out of regional spe-cialty stores. Those specialty stores went out of business because they lacked flag-ship brands that could draw other emerg-ing lines, and now because these stores don’t exist, urban streetwear lines don’t have the proper network of distribution.

“It would be hard for a brand like Phat Farm to reel it back in and make it into something cool again,” said Keith Tran, co-owner of Black Market, a men’s street-wear and sneaker boutique with locations

in Dallas and Arlington, Tex. “A good example of that is Billionaire Boys Club. It started as extremely niche, but once they merged with Iconix, they blew it out. Now they’ve changed their model again and want to scale things back, push prices up and reintroduce new cuts, but it hasn’t done as well as they’ve wanted it to.”

Whitner isn’t interested in carrying urban streetwear brands of yesteryear but

he will be selling Roc 96, a line created by Kareem “Biggs” Burke, cofounder of Roc-a-Fella Records and Rocawear. The Roc 96 line plays off of lyrics from Jay Z’s “Reason-able Doubt” album, which marked its 20th anniversary this year. Burke has learned from the mistakes of the past and rather than going for a wider distribution, he created a 14-store collection that dropped

Can Urban StreetwearBrands Resurge? ConTinueD fRom PaGe 1

Russell Simmons, 2003.

Ja Rule wearing a look from the Kith by iceberg capsule collection.

Jay Z, 2006.

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december 28, 2016 9

nationwide in December and included 14 capsules that are exclusive to each store.

“It was amazing,” Whitner said of the response to the line. “Jay Z manages to stay relevant. He’s crossed every generation for the last two decades. So he and the 20th anniversary of ‘Reasonable Doubt’ gives the line legs that other older streetwear brands don’t have.”

Burke said he’s investing in creating brands rather than trying to reestablish old ones because the Milllennial customer is looking for newness and instead of going mass as he did with Rocawear, he wants to create multiple small brands under one umbrella.

“A comeback is going to be tough for those that have been out there and have gotten to a certain size because when kids see an old logo name, it’s kind of tainted,” said Burke. “With Roc 96 and Fourth of November, we are giving stores certain merchandise in small amounts. We want the customer to feel like they’re getting something there’s not a lot of.”

Rocawear, which was acquired by Iconix for $204 million in 2007, is still in exis-tence and sold at stores including Dillard’s, Amazon, J.C. Penney and Dr Jays. Aleesha Smalls, the senior director of interactive marketing at Iconix, who has worked

for Rocawear since 2001, said the goal is to cater to the core customer with its product, which she said hasn’t strayed too far from its original aesthetic, and partner with influencers to speak to a younger audience – earlier this year, DJ Khaled was named the face of the brand.

“I wouldn’t say that we have said, ‘Let’s create a capsule collection for x, y and z,’ but I think it’s more about allow-ing the brand to live in different spaces through the lens of these ambassadors and influencers as a way to tap into a different audience,” said Smalls. “But if something is trending, we bring it back into the collec-tion, like our velour tracksuits.”

Sean John, which received a jolt of press when Rihanna wore an original pink velour tracksuit from the brand on the street last year, is operating in a similar way. The company, which revealed that Global Brands Group purchased a major-ity stake, now spans 16 categories — suits, watches, fragrances, boys’ and girls’, etc. — and is sold primarily at Macy’s. Accord-ing to Jeff Tweedy, Sean John’s president and chief executive officer, the brand has integrated vintage-inspired pieces into its existing assortment and plans to bring back the Sean John script logo next year, but there haven’t been any special col-lections to speak to a younger audience. Tweedy added that, similar to Argylecul-utre, Sean John’s men’s wear customer is now 30 to 40 years old.

“This is the problem, if you are out of sight, you are out of mind,” he said, adding that many urban streetwear brands didn’t

create classic items that could be sold for decades. “Fila had that velour suit, Cham-pion had their sweatshirt, Calvin Klein had that jean that Brooke Shields wore in all of their campaigns. I don’t think a lot of these brands made any of those iconic pieces that people remember.”

Will Wagner, the owner of Deep Cover, a boutique located in New York’s Lower East Side that specializes in vintage Polo Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, Champion, Nike and Calvin Klein, said he doesn’t get a lot of requests for urban streetwear brands, but he is interested in older Fubu pieces.

Daymond John, now a regular judge on ABC’s hit TV series “Shark Tank,” started Fubu, which is still privately held, out of his mother’s house in 1989. Fubu hit its peak in 1998 when sales were more than $350 million. In 2003 it mostly left the U.S. market to focus on overseas sales and in 2010, Fubu launched a legacy brand that John contends didn’t succeed due to the recession. The brand currently distrib-utes footwear in Wal-Mart Stores and suits in Korea, the Philippines, South Africa, Spain and Australia. John said every so often he makes special pieces, mostly hats, to put on social media and give to celebrity friends and will be collaborating with Ebbets Field to create the brand’s popular jerseys and hoodies.

“Fubu was the one that really catered to the urban market,” said Tran. “People were wearing Tommy, Polo and Guess, but those brands weren’t made for the urban market. Fubu was the first brand to say this is for us, by us, and I think there is more of

a legacy and heritage there that still means something today.”

Farraye also believes that many urban streetwear brands haven’t jumped on cap-sule collections in the same way Nautica and Tommy Hilfiger have because it isn’t a profitable business, but Aaron Levant, founder of streetwear trade show Agenda, doesn’t agree.

“Urban Outfitters is a decent-size retailer so there’s money there, but brands do these things to get a new generation inter-ested in the brand and that can translate into long-term financial growth down the line,” said Levant, who noted Kith’s recent collaboration with Iceberg, a brand that was popular with rappers in the late Nineties and early Aughts. “It is possible for these brands to make a comeback. It just takes the right person from the right era and the right retailer to reenergize it. But many of the people who own these brands are disconnected and don’t have any interest in doing that.”

Instead of one-off collections, Farraye says the real opportunity for urban street-wear brands is to create a more mature version of that line and not attempt to cater to the younger consumer.

“You can’t just reinvent the brand. You have to present something with new branding that is for an older audience,” said Farraye. “Unfortunately that customer grew up and left those brands, and teenag-ers coming in don’t want them, but there’s an enormous opportunity to reconnect with that urban audience if they would connect with that adult guy.”

Can Urban StreetwearBrands Resurge? ConTinueD fRom PaGe 8

a runway look from fubu, fall 1997.

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10 december 28, 2016

● The president-elect is building a wide circle of trade advisers and has tapped a national security adviser for the counterterrorism post.

by kristi ellis

President-elect Donald Trump made two key appointments on Tuesday, strength-ening his trade team and fine-tuning his cybersecurity agenda.

Trump tapped Jason Greenblatt, an executive of the Trump Organization, as special representative for international negotiations, a new advisory role that he defined in broad terms. The move appears to be taking a multilayered approach to trade policy as evidenced by the appoint-ment Tuesday of a new aide for interna-tional negotiations.

Trump also named Thomas Bossert as assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, where he will also oversee cybersecurity policy, an important area to retailers who have been seeking collaboration with the government to help thwart cyber attacks.

On Greenblatt, Trump said, “Jason is one of my closest and most trusted advisers. He has a history of negotiating substantial, complex transactions on my behalf, as well as the expertise to bring parties together and build consensus on difficult and sensitive topics. His talents lend themselves perfectly to the role I have asked him to play, assisting on interna-tional negotiations of all types and trade deals around the world.”

Greenblatt serves as executive vice president and chief legal officer of Trump’s company and spent the past two decades representing Trump and his family in

“diverse legal and business affairs, con-centrating on all aspects of domestics and worldwide real estate development and other businesses,” Trump’s communica-tions office said.

He has also been one of Trump’s princi-pal advisers on the U.S.-Israel relationships during the campaign.

“My philosophy, in both business and in life, is that bringing people together and working to unite, rather than to divide, is the strongest path to success,” Greenblatt said. “I truly believe that this approach is one that can yield results for the United States in matters all over the world.”

In appointing Greenblatt to the advisory role, Trump appears to be expanding and diversifying his trade policy team beyond the more centralized role of the U.S. Trade Representative and its office.

He has already indicated that his choice for Commerce Secretary, billionaire Wilbur Ross, will take the lead role in shaping his trade agenda, traditionally reserved for USTR, who has served as a trade ambassador and chief negotiator in past administrations.

Trump has not yet announced his choice for USTR. Among the top contenders are Jovita Carranza, founder and chief executive officer of the business consult-ing firm JCR Group and a former Small Business Administration executive, and Dan DiMicco, former ceo of Nucor Steel, who is leading Trump’s “landing team” at the USTR office and has been a critic of free-trade policies in the U.S.

Others reportedly in the running are: Robert Lighthizer, an attorney specializing in international trade at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and a former deputy U.S. Trade Representative in the Reagan administration; Wayne Berman, a senior executive with the Blackstone

Group who worked as a former Com-merce Department official under Presi-dent George H.W. Bush, and Rep. Charles Boustany (R., La.), a free-trade and strong enforcement advocate.

Trump is also establishing new White House national trade council to help advise him on global trade and U.S. manufac-turing and has tapped Peter Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist and professor at the University of California Irvine to head it. Navarro is a vocal critic of China and the author of “Death by China” and “The Coming China Wars.”

Trump has vowed to pull the U.S. out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership deal on the first day of his administration and he has also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, label China a currency manipulator and impose a 35 percent tariff on imports of companies that offshore.

Trump said the role for Bossert, an experienced national security adviser, is being elevated in his administration and “restored to its independent status” alongside that of national security adviser. Trump’s choice for national security adviser is retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

“Tom brings enormous depth and breadth of knowledge and experience to protecting the homeland to our senior White House team,” Trump said. “He has a handle on the complexity of homeland security, counterterrorism, and cyberse-curity challenges. He will be an invaluable asset to our administration.”

Bossert has run his own independent homeland and national security consulting business, CDS Consulting, since 2009 and served as a senior cybersecurity fellow at the U.S. Atlantic Council.

He has also held several national security positions in the government,

including deputy Homeland Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, spearheaded efforts to improve civil government operations, while coauthor-ing and editing the National Strategy for Homeland Security of 2007.

“We must work toward cyber doctrine that reflects the wisdom of free markets, private competition and the import-ant but limited role of government in establishing and enforcing the rule of law, honoring the rights of personal property, the benefits of free and fair trade, and the fundamental principles of liberty,” Bossert said. “The Internet is a U.S. inven-tion. It should reflect these U.S. values as it continues to transform the future for all nations and all generations.”

Cybersecurity is an important issue for retailers and one the Obama adminis-tration prioritized in the wake of several high-profile cyber attacks. A growing number of cyber attacks have impacted a broad swath of the U.S. economy, ranging from Target Corp., Home Depot and Sony Pictures to banks and government agen-cies, during Obama’s two terms.

Part of President Obama’s overall strat-egy was to strengthen ties with the private sector. He unveiled a cybersecurity center to coordinate and analyze cyber-threat assessments across agencies and dissem-inate information rapidly, and issued an executive order laying out a framework for expanding collaboration between the private sector and government through the creation of “information-sharing and analysis organizations,” or ISAOs, to serve as critical hubs to coordinate data from various sources.

Congress has considered, but not yet passed, data-breach notification legislation. Lawmakers have been considering various data breach bills among heightened con-cerns following massive data breaches that have hit several major retailers.

Retailers, which have supported some of the measures, have been strong advocates of a federal breach-notification standard to replace a patchwork of state laws that retail-ers must meet when data security breaches are discovered and consumer financial and personal data are compromised.

business

Trump Expands Trade Advisory Team, Names New Aide

● The complaint was filed in a California court and alleges wrongful termination and failure to prevent discrimination.

by kari HaManaka

A lawsuit seeking class action status against Versace could rack up more than $250,000 in damages, prompting the luxury house to ask to have the case moved to federal court.

The complaint, filed in Alameda County superior court, alleges the company did not provide the plaintiff, Christopher Sampino, with full compensation for hours worked, lunch and other breaks and did not prevent discrimination and harassment, among other claims. Versace this month denied any wrongdoing and asked for the move from state to federal court partially due to an estimate of a portion of damages being sought by Sampino, which exceeds a $75,000 minimum threshold required to transfer the case to federal court.

Attorneys for Versace said in a response filed in court Dec. 13 that it denied all alle-gations, laying out its answers to the lawsuit

across 61 defenses.Sampino, who was employed at the com-

pany’s San Francisco Premium Outlets store in Livermore, Calif., from Sept. 23 to Oct. 1, alleged in his lawsuit the store had a discrim-inatory policy that instructed employees to say “D410,” an internal merchandise code assigned to the color black, while holding a black shirt if an African-American customer entered the store. Sampino said in his lawsuit upon receiving the training instructions, which occurred on his second shift at the store, that he pointed out to the shift manager that he is African-American. Sampino then alleges he no longer received proper training as it related to state labor laws on meals and breaks or the login information used by company employees to access their pay stubs.

Sampino said he was fired from the store Oct. 1 and was told it was because he didn’t “under-stand luxury” and hadn’t “lived the luxury life,” according to the lawsuit.

The filing suggests there are “hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in recent years alone,” who could be part of the class action if certified.

business

Versace Seeks to Move Former Employee’s Lawsuit From State to Federal Court

● The retailer said “domestic department stores on the whole experienced a decline in profits and revenue.”

by kelly wetHerille

TOKYO — Takashimaya said Tues-day that its nine-month net profit dropped 18.6 percent, citing sluggish consumption and an unfavorable exchange rate caused by a strong yen early in the period.

The department store retailer’s consolidated profit for the nine months ended Nov. 30 totaled 13.23 billion yen, or $124.71 million at aver-age exchange rates for the period.

Operating profit slipped 3.4 per-cent to 20.55 billion yen, or $193.8 million.

Nine-month revenue fell 1.6 percent, coming in at 658.79 billion yen, or $6.21 billion.

Takashimaya said that it made efforts to attract new customers — including customers from outside

of Japan — by partnering with NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest telecom-munications company. The two companies launched a new point service and worked together to send coupons to customers’ mobile phones. In this way, Takashimaya attracted more customers from overseas and increased inbound sales by 8 percent.

“However, domestic department stores on the whole experienced a decline in profits and revenue, reflect-ing the harsh business environment,” the company said.

Takashimaya left unchanged its guidance for the 12 months ending Feb. 28, 2017. It expects its net profit to fall 16.1 percent on the year to 20 billion yen, or $170.38 million at current exchange rates.

It predicts operating profit will grow 3.1 percent year on year to 34 billion yen, or $289.65 million.

The company is forecasting a decline in revenues of 0.5 percent, for a total of 925 billion yen, or $7.88 billion.

business

Takashimaya 9-Month Net Profit Falls 18.6%

december 28, 2016 11

Chagall’s Enduring Love Affair With Music Revealed in Montreal ExhibitIn an art-world first, Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts spotlights music’s profound and lifelong impact on 20th-century giant Marc Chagall.

in his 97 years Marc Chagall, the great modernist painter of the early 20th century, defied every expectation as to where his childhood passion for art would lead him.

Indeed, in spite of poverty, two World Wars, ethnic persecution and other injustices he confront-ed in life, this son of a Jewish herring merchant who grew up on the fringes of the Russian Empire conquered the art world’s most sophisticated salons, using his fantastical visual language to record the joys and terrors of the 20th century.

Yet throughout such extraordi-nary upheaval, music remained a constant source of inspiration for Chagall, both for his compositions and the intensity and range of colors used in his sweeping body of work. That profound influence is showcased for the first time in “Chagall: Color and Music,” a major multidisciplinary exhibition debuting on Jan. 28 at the Mon-treal Museum of Fine Arts.

“Though there is no proof that Chagall ever played an instru-ment, music was a pervasive force in his life and work from the beginning,” said Anne Grace, the museum’s curator of exhibitions.

“Very early on we see how the musicality of the Yiddish lan-guage, the role of the synagogue, the influence of family members — several of whom were musicians, and the whole cultural context of his childhood in his native city

of Vitebsk influenced Chagall by 1910,” said Grace, who co-curated the show.

Beyond 1911, Chagall’s expo-sure to jazz and his first collab-orations within the ballet world expanded his musical appreci-ation. Yet according to Grace, “What really distinguishes this new exhibition is the impact of music on the different forms and media Chagall worked in.”

Featuring more than 400 piec-es which span the artist’s years in Russia, Paris, his exile in New York, his time in Mexico and his later life in the South of France, the exhibit includes paintings, sculptures, ceramics, tapestries, as well as Chagall’s costumes and décor for the operas and ballets “Aleko” (1942), “The Firebird” (1945), “Daph-nis and Chloe” (1958-59) and “The Magic Flute” (1967). Indeed, more than 50 costumes and masks lent by the Paris Opera, the New York City Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera evoke the ambience of each production.

The exhibition opens with Chagall’s seven-panel designs for Moscow’s Theater of Jewish Art in 1920 – his first monumental décor created for the stage and a key piece from his years in Russia.

The show also presents the North American debut of Cha-gall’s stained glass from France and includes several major works from 1910-1920, when the artist was experimenting with avant-garde movements

like cubism and orphism. That roster includes “Golgotha” (1912), “Self-portrait With Seven Fingers” (1912-1913) and “Birth” (1911-1912), which are all rarely loaned.

“The insurance value for this exhibition is priceless,” said Grace. “Half the works come from a private collection in Europe and are rarely ever seen.”

Finally, “Color and Music” presents an ultrahigh resolution projection of the ceiling of the Paris Opera painted by Chagall, created by the Google Cultural Institute in Paris.

In total, it’s a fitting tribute to a visionary who once said, “Color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.”

Indeed, Paul Versteeg, an assistant to Chagall who is still alive, witnessed him painting the Paris Opera, recalling that vibrating omnipresence of music as Chagall chose the composers for this monumental compo-sition. Interestingly, Chagall listened above all to Mozart, particularly “The Magic Flute,” as he painted.

“Chagall was resilient, as are many people who approach 100. He saw the best and worst of times. But music nourished the man and the artist,” said Grace. “That never stopped.”

“Chagall: Color and Music” travels next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on July 30, where it will remain until Jan. 7, 2018. — ConstanCe Droganes

Backdrop design for “The firebird: The enchanted Palace” (act ii), 1945.

Costume for “The firebird,” the Sorcerer Koschel, 1949,

lent by the new York City Ballet.

marc Chagall working on panels for the new York metropolitan opera

mural, “The Triumph of music,” 1966.

“The Blue Circus,” 1950-1952, oil on canvas, on loan from the musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris.

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december 28, 2016 13

● The NYPD is in search of three burglars who stole more than 20 sable and chinchilla coats from the store.

by roseMary Feitelberg

Three days after three men stole 20-plus sable and chinchilla furs from his Madison Avenue store, Dennis Basso was still com-ing to terms with what he thinks may be New York City’s largest fur heist in more than 50 years.

Reached in Aspen Tuesday, where he is a hosting a series of events that have been planned for months, Basso said of the early morning Christmas Eve burglary, “It’s still a little bit of a shock. When I watch the video, because I wasn’t there and didn’t witness it, when I watch the actual video of the break-in, it was really a little traumatic

for me. It’s clearly an invasion.” Basso said. “We treat the flagship like it’s my own home. Until it happens to you or you’re a part of it, it’s really hard to imagine.”

Basso said at least one of the thieves may have visited the Upper East Side store in advance of the robbery. The 20-plus fur coats they ran off with were dis-played 10 to 15 feet from the store’s main entrance, and they retailed from $75,000 to $200,000 each. Emphasizing they “only took the best of the best,” Basso said, “they took all the sables and a few chinchillas. They knew what they were getting.” He also pointed out the three men “bypassed many other beautiful furs that were not of the same value.”

A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said the investigation is ongoing.

Basso’s store at East 69th Street is on

a stretch of Madison Avenue near Dolce & Gabbana, Cartier and Valentino. In business for 33 years, Dennis Basso has dealt with the occasional shoplifter but, the designer said, “that’s totally different than a strategic, planned robbery. I don’t believe this was random. Some people just didn’t drive up and say, ‘OK, let’s rob this store.’ I think this was a well-planned-out situation where I’m sure they probably had visited the store and knew what they were doing. They clearly knew what they were doing.”

Uncertain if there is a resale market for stolen furs, Basso speculated, “I believe these had to leave the country because they would be too identifiable. The design and the label adds a great deal of value to the garment so I’m not quite sure what their plan was, obviously.”

Describing the store as “heavily

alarmed with cameras everywhere you look, as well as cameras on the street,” Basso estimated the thieves were in and out in probably less than two minutes. “We will look at how we lock the store and we may go back to having a gate. We had that when we were on 65th Street [before moving north to its current loca-tion in 2013.]”

While retailers are aware of the threat of shoplifting, that isn’t something Basso had dwelt on. “I personally always like to work from the positive, not the negative. I like to think until it’s a problem, it’s not a problem.” he said. “I think this was highly professional. This wasn’t about coming in and shoplifting one coat. This is a serious situation. If you see that video, they take their lives in their hands just going in the glass door.”

In Aspen, where he has a shop at the Little Nell Resort, Basso has spent Christmas week there for more than 20 years hosting various special events. The designer intended to go ahead with his plans to host a fashion show Tuesday at The Aspen Mountain Club and to be among the sponsors of the Aspen Art Museum’s annual gala Wednesday. As word of the break-in spread, “Everyone has been coming in.” Basso said. “It’s been quite busy, which is nice.”

fashion

Dennis Basso Speaks Out OnChristmas Eve Store Robbery

● The actress best known for her “Star Wars” role had most recently been filming “Wonderwell” with Rita Ora.

by roseMary Feitelberg

Just as her “Stars Wars” character “Princess Leia” evolved from politician to revolutionary, Carrie Fisher excelled in a variety of fields.

Fisher, who died Tuesday at the age of 60 in Los Angeles, was an actress, author and Hollywood screenwriter. Others knew her as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, or the ex-wife of singer-songwriter Paul Simon or CAA’s co-chairman Bryan Lourd. Readers know her name from the cover of the acclaimed semi-autobiographical “Postcards From the Edge” about a champion drinker, which Mike Nichols directed and Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine starred in as a film. HBO turned Fisher’s stand-up confessional tales into “Wishful Drinking.” Fisher had recently been filming a new movie “Wonderwell” in Italy with Rita Ora.

Beyond her résumé’s numerous footnotes, Fisher was most recognizable by many for her “Star Wars” looks — the iconic metallic gold bikini, white flowy robes and hair buns. On or off the screen, Fisher’s most valuable selling point was her candidness.

In a 1994 interview with WWD, she sounded off about all sorts of peeves and persuasions. “You know,” Fisher said at that time, “everyone thinks I’m so witty, but I don’t think I’m a real wit. Robin Wil-liams can do that — and must do it. It has to be critical to do it. It’s not essential to me. I’ll talk — forever — that’s critical — but not being witty, that’s not essential for me. Actually, what I am is eccentric. Which is hard in Hollywood, but since I’ve always been that, people expect it. I know I scare people a little bit. They don’t know if I’m weird, or loaded. Really, it’s just that I’m so self-involved.”

Frank about her battle with addiction

and dealing with a bipolar disorder, the actress said, “People get tired of restric-tion, then tired of abuse. I always wanted to be the meditation queen and move to Santa Fe, but it ain’t gonna happen unless I’m on liquid morphine.”

“Then people hear me say things like that — which is a joke — and say I’m doing drugs again. And what drugs am I gonna do? Pot makes me think about death. Coke is a nightmare. Acid’s great, but who has time? I have a baby! I’m back in AA now. I don’t qualify for Prozac, unfortunately. It sounds nice, but it reminds of me of when all those people said they had Epstein-Barr. It was only people who had time to get Epstein-Barr who got it. It’s depression, that’s all it is. Well, I’ve been depressed. Now I don’t have time.”

Fisher also refused to let others’ views define her. “The rumors in this town aren’t always true, like they said in ‘The Player,’” she said snidely. “I sat next to Gore Vidal the other night and he politely

told me my mother is really a lesbian. I don’t give a damn if she is one — but don’t you think she would have told me one drunken night?”

Fisher said of her breakup with her daughter Billie’s father, Lourd, which Newsday columnist Liz Smith attributed in a 1994 item that electrified Hollywood to Lourd’s liaison with another man. “You know I’d love to lie about it, but I can’t,” she says. “I didn’t see it coming. I was hit by a truck.”

Fisher also took Hollywood to task in WWD after being disillusioned with the town. “I don’t love it here anymore. I like the product of it, I like to be enter-tained, but the phony thing has gotten unpleasant. And then you see it mixed in with pleasant things and that’s even more disturbing. People say the stereotypes of this place can’t be exactly true. But they are. I think these days everyone in this town is on medication.”

“You know,” she adds, “by birthright I’m eccentric. My only role models were people who knew how to get attention. I have a really manic energy, so I talk it out. I take party hostages or evenings hostage, and one of the ways of getting the attention you need is to learn how to talk to entertain.”

Fashion Scoops

Touching downyeezy Cleats have made another on-field NFL appearance.

Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller launched the Triple Black style over the weekend and shortly after that, Adidas announced on its Instagram account that the black colorway would be sold to the public at some point.

On Monday, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott also wore the model, but in a beige colorway.

Previously players including Houston Texans’ wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, Minnesota Vikings’ running back Adrian Peterson and Buffalo Bills’ wide receiver Sammy Watkins wore the 350 version of the cleats and were fined up to $6,000 by the NFL. According to the league, cleats must have a solid base layer — the 350s are cream and black with a marbled effect.

While Kanye West has stirred up excitement and money with his more athletic and performance styles, his women’s footwear is still a work in progress.

During his Yeezy Season 4 show in September, West opted for thigh-high stiletto boots that models couldn’t walk in and Adidas disassociated itself from the line, stating, “These particular boots are actually not a part of the Adidas collaboration.”

West’s spokesman underscored to WWD that Adidas has never produced Yeezy heeled shoe de-signs and the shoe construction will be addressed in the pre-production process. “As is the case with many fashion shows, the designs presented on the runway are often times still in the sample, prototype stage,” said West’s spokesman. — arIa HUgHes

a promo shot for “Star Wars episode iV — a new Hope,” 1977.

The Triple Black Yeezy cleat.

obituary

Carrie Fisher Remembered In Her Own Words

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