DAILY EDITION OCTOBER 12, 2016 1

Fashion. Beauty. Business.

Better JeansLevi Strauss & Co. saw strong growth in third-quarter profits and sales.Page 7

Ready for RelaunchAnnick Goutal’s scent Tenue de Soirée previews the brand’s overhaul. Page 10

Meeting the FansThe Proenza Schouler designers appear at Bergdorf ’s today for their bag line. Page 7

● During a conference call, analysts were told about strong potential for luggage maker Rimowa.

BY MILES SOCHA

PARIS – Shares in LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton shot up 4.5 percent on Tuesday after the French luxury player said a rebound in Asia and a surge at Louis Vuitton underpinned its strong third-quarter results.

Elaborating on the French group’s 6 percent sales gain during a conference call, chief financial officer Jean-Jacques

Guiony said sales in Mainland China accel-erated to the midteens, versus a midsin-gle-digit percentage in the first half.

“More or less all businesses contrib-uted to this improvement,” Guiony said, also citing improvements in Hong Kong from midteen negative to midsin-gle-digit negative.

By region, organic revenues jumped 10 percent in Asia excluding Japan versus flat sales there in the first half. Europe and the United States each logged a 6 percent improvement, while Japan declined 9 percent from flat growth in the first half due to a strong yen and

● Fashion designers back Apple in the infringement awards case, voicing concerns about the potential harm to the industry and broader design patents.

BY KRISTI ELLIS

WASHINGTON — In a case that could have significant implications for the fashion industry, the Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments over the

level of damages awarded in the long-run-ning design patent infringement lawsuit between Samsung Electronics Co. Inc. and Apple Inc.

Justices on Tuesday grappled with a central legal question of whether total profits from the sale of an infringed product should be awarded to a company if the design patent applies only to the component part of a product. Apple is arguing that it should be entitled to the total profits.

It is a critical review by the High Court

BUSINESS

LVMH Shares Rise on Asia Rebound, Vuitton Surge

BUSINESS

High Court Hears Apple, Samsung Patent Case

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

Joy to the PurlCall her Whoopi Claus. The comedienne and TV personality is launching a collection of “ugly” Christmas

sweaters that will be sold exclusively at Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay stores and online beginning Nov. 1. For Whoopi’s take on the holiday season, fashion and more, see pages 5 and 6.

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info@brandart.it

OCTOBER 12, 2016 3

NEWSMAKERSThis Week’s Most Talked About Names In Our Industry

Whoopi Goldberg

David Yurman

Bernard Arnault

Jack McCollough

● The Chinese textile concern plans to ramp up global expansion of Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot, particularly in Asia.

BY JOELLE DIDERICH

PARIS — Chinese textile concern Shandong Ruyi Group has finalized its purchase of a controlling interest in SMCP Group — the parent of fashion chains Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot – from private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Rob-erts & Co., the parties said Tuesday.

The closure of the deal, which was first revealed in March, comes against a backdrop of strong growth for the brands, which reported a 19.2 percent gain in revenues in the first half, powered by

“explosive” growth in China, resilience in France and a promising start in leather goods and shoes.

Shandong Ruyi Group has said it plans to ramp up global expansion of Sandro, Maje and Claudie Pierlot, particularly in Asia. SMCP’s founders and management are reinvesting in the firm as minority shareholders, while KKR is also retaining a minority stake in the group.

Financial terms were not disclosed but the deal has been estimated at 1.3 billion euros, or $1.45 billion, including debt, giving new standing to Shandong Ruyi, relatively unknown to several U.S.-based fashion dealmakers. It’s the latest in a wave of acquisitions by deep-pocketed Chinese firms.

Shandong said it would retain SMCP’s design and creative teams in Paris along with “its current strategy and organiza-tional structure, while benefiting from

the global retailing expertise of its new shareholder.”

Parisians Evelyne Chétrite and Judith Milgrom founded Sandro and Maje in 1984 and 1998, respectively, while Claudie Pierlot set up her business in 1984.

“This is an important milestone for Shandong Ruyi Group in our continued endeavor to become a leader in the fully integrated textiles and fashion business both in China and globally,” said Shan-dong chairman Yafu Qiu.

Daniel Lalonde, president and chief executive officer of SMCP, added: “With Shandong Ruyi Group’s support, we will pursue our goal to become a global leader in accessible luxury through organic growth and expansion in Europe, North America and Asia by leveraging our brands’ global desirabil-ity, our unique business model and our team’s talent.”

BUSINESS

Shandong Ruyi Acquires Sandro, Maje Group

A Louis Vuitton look for spring 2017.

The Maje store in Hong Kong.

Instant Fashion ● A Special Report

Salvation or Gimmick ● The industry remains divided

on whether it’s a good idea.

From Runway to Newsstand ● Can fashion magazines cash in?

Clicking Outside the Box ● How social media is driving

see-it-buy-it-wear it.

PLUS: ● Social Studies ● The Essentialist

OUT THIS WEEK IN

“This is exactly what the customer wants. See-now-buy-now. That’s the instant gratification that everybody’s looking for.”

— DONNA KARAN

import restrictions for Chinese tourists.Guiony trumpeted a “very solid busi-

ness” for Vuitton in the U.S. and other regions, with the cash-cow brand largely mirroring the 5 percent gain logged in the fashion and leather goods business over-all in the three months to Sept. 30.

The increase in that division, which spans such brands as Fendi, Givenchy and Kenzo, would have stood at around 7 percent if one removes the impact of discontinued lines at Donna Karan Inter-national, which LVMH is selling to G-III Apparel Group, he noted.

“The French customer was pretty strong in Q3,” excepting tourists, Guiony said, also citing robust Vuitton sales in Italy, Germany and the U.K., the latter despite twin 5 percent price increases pre- and post-Brexit decision. “France is still negative, but not as negative as H1.”

He acknowledged that Vuitton’s foray into perfume — sold in select Vuitton bou-tiques since early September — represents a “small business. But as far as image and traffic generation, the fragrance business is doing exactly what we had in mind.”

Analysts were also curious about LVMH’s acquisition last week of a major-ity stake in luggage maker Rimowa, which values the German firm at 640 million

euros, or $719 million.Guiony said Rimowa would remain

primarily a wholesale-driven business, with select retail expansion in major cities “to enhance the image.”

LVMH’s long-term objective is to increase Rimowa’s operating margins to 20 percent. “We think this is achiev-able,” Guiony said. “A global group like ours can bring a lot to the business… If there are intelligent synergies to be

made, why not?”Meanwhile, he brushed off sugges-

tions the purchase represented any shift in the group’s policy on mergers and acquisitions.

“We are opportunistic people,” he said. “This is not significant of any future trend of more or less M&A.”

Asked about additional forays into e-commerce, Guiony described a mea-sured approach.

“We believe very much in the digital content of the shopping experience,” he said, also lauding the effectiveness of “e-marketing” on social media channels.

As for pure e-commerce, he said, “we don’t expect this to become a very big channel. Otherwise it would have hap-pened already.”

Asked by one analyst if LVMH would consider selling on Amazon, which is challenging traditional department stores in the U.S., Guiony said the existing busi-ness model “does not fit with our brands” and “doesn’t fit with luxury.”

He declined to give specifics on the Marc Jacobs business, which is “still under a reinvention phase. The business was down again in Q3 and it will be again in Q4.”

Third-quarter sales at LVMH totaled 9.12 billion euros, or $10.21 billion, and outstripped analysts’ projections, as reported. The perfumes and cosmetics division grew 10 percent, while watches and jewelry were up 2 percent and the selective retailing division, 8 percent. Wines and spirits advanced 4 percent, dented by the discontinuation of a distri-bution agreement for Grand Marnier.

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LVMH Shares Rise On Asia Rebound, Vuitton Surge CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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OCTOBER 12, 2016 5

● Available Nov. 1, the 11 sweaters each tell a different story and have individual names.

BY LISA LOCKWOOD

Whoopi Goldberg, actress, comedian, TV host of “The View” and executive pro-ducer, is entering the fashion world with a witty line of “ugly” Christmas sweaters exclusively for Lord & Taylor and Hud-son’s Bay.

Available Nov. 1, each of the 11 sweaters is aptly named and tells a different story. For example, there’s “Bite Me,” which fea-tures one gingerbread man taking a bite out of another; “Santa Love,” which has two Santas about to kiss; “The Arm-Me,” which features an octopus menorah; and “Who Doesn’t Love a Tree,” which has a boy wearing a yarmulke putting an ornament on a tree. There also are “Reindeer Kettes” with dancing reindeers; “Hark the Herald,” featuring angels and music notes; “Skirt the Issue,” which resembles a Christmas tree skirt; “All Together Now,” which shows a family and a Christmas tree scene; and “Either Way it Works” that depicts a large Christmas tree that lights up.

“I like Christmas sweaters — the stranger the better,” said Goldberg in an interview in the Green Room following a taping of “The View” last week. She said she has always wanted to design a Christmas sweater line, and her business partner, Tom Leonardis, met with Gary Wassner, chief executive officer of Hilldun Corp., the factoring firm. “Tom had a conversation with Gary, and Tom came back and said, ‘You’re doing Christmas sweaters.’ That’s how that came down,” she explained.

The sweaters are designed in New York and manufactured in China. They will be sold at 37 Lord & Taylor stores and 29 Hudson’s Bay stores and retail for $139 (U.S.) and $179 (Canadian). The sweaters will be housed in the “Happy Christmas” holiday gifting section of Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay stores.

The unisex sweaters range in size from small to extra large. The label in each is WHOOPI spelled out in a line drawing of her face, with the date 2016 on each. Designed to become “collector’s items,” each of the hang tags is an accordion pam-phlet featuring sketches of the sweaters and the names in French and English.

The line will be featured in the retailers’ holiday catalogues and in the windows at Lord & Taylor’s Fifth Avenue store, where Goldberg will make an appearance on Nov. 15. In addition, Goldberg intends to wear her Christmas sweaters throughout the month of December on “The View.” She will also make appearances on “The Late Show with Jimmy Fallon” and the “Rachael Ray Show,” where she will have a fashion show of her sweaters. Will she wear them on these shows? “Well, hell yeah,” said Goldberg.

“I love the season, I love the holidays. Holidays have always been very important to me and they were important to me as a kid, and I honor them,” said Goldberg, dressed in her signature white shirt and a light blue denim jacket.

Asked how she came up with the witty designs, she said, “I have a lot of oddness in my brain, and so, this is the kind of stuff that I think about on a daily basis and happily, it all worked out. They’re fun and they’re sweet and they’re not nasty and

they’re not mean. They’re very loving. And if you’re going to do something for the holidays, why not something positive?”

The collection is designed “for men and women, like myself,” she said, adding she didn’t design a kids’ line “but if it goes as well as we think it will, we’ll have fun, holi-day ‘ugly’ sweaters for kids” next year.

Over the years, Goldberg said she has

worn the oddest and weirdest sweaters and “the more bells and whistles” the better. She didn’t do “too many bells and whistles” on her own line because it’s expensive to do but there are some that light up and have bells.

In recent years, Goldberg said she’s been disappointed with the Christmas sweaters she had been wearing. “The

quality of the Christmas sweaters has gone down for me. They’re not as comfortable and they don’t feel as good,” she said. “If we’re going to do it, we wanted to do them really well. They’re cashmere blends and they’re really soft,” she said.

Wassner introduced Goldberg to the artist and knitwear specialist and she explained her vision to them. “I wanted to make something I would wear,” she said. “Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re poignant and sometimes they’re silly as hell. I feel like it’s a no-brainer for you, and is just fun. People will be more inclined to wear them and put their poli-tics aside.”

Goldberg said she’s not an artist (“I can hardly take a photo”) but explained, “‘this is what it is’ and they drew it.” For example, she told them, “It needs to have a crack in the butt here,” referring to the sweater with the gingerbread men.

Goldberg is hard-pressed to choose a favorite. “I like them all. There’s Charlie Brown [with a depressing Christmas tree] on one side and a full-on tree with lights on the other side. I love the two Santas kissing. I love the odd family…” she said.

According to Wassner, they received “good orders” from Lord & Taylor and

RETAIL

Whoopi’s ‘Ugly’ Christmas Sweaters to Launch at Lord & Taylor, Hudson’s Bay

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Whoopi Goldberg touts her holiday sweater collection.

OCTOBER 12, 2016 6

Hudson’s Bay.“You want to sell out,” said Goldberg.

“It wasn’t a gigantic order. But I bet you next time, it probably will be because it’s good quality and nothing offensive (at least to us), and it’s set out just to make you feel good. And that’s all you can ask for over the holidays. Just to have a day where you feel better.”

Of course, the problem with Christmas sweaters is you can’t give them as Christ-mas gifts because you want customers to wear them throughout December. “You do have to buy it early. You might want to stress that,” said Goldberg.

Liz Rodbell, president of Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor, said of the collabora-tion with Goldberg: “Having her involved in something so fun takes it to another level. I think our customers are going to love it.” Intermittently, the store has carried holiday motif sweaters.

“What she [Goldberg] delivered in

her designs, with the three-dimensional quality and the happiness and the whimsy of it is just going to really resonate as people want to celebrate and have a good time together,” she said. If they sell well, the store naturally would be interested in doing it again. “Yes, 1,000 percent. We’re going to challenge her to make more designs and make it bigger for sure,” said Rodbell.

No stranger to fashion, Goldberg has become a regular at the shows during New York Fashion Week and this season attended Marc Jacobs, Thom Browne, Tracy Reese, Gypsy Sport, Opening Cere-mony (where she walked the runway) and Hood by Air. Asked what she thought of the social media uproar over what some considered dreadlocks at Jacobs’ show, she said, “I thought it [the show] was spec-tacular. I actually have dreadlocks. They did not look anything like dreadlocks that anyone I know has. They look like what they were, yarn and wool. I thought it was art. I was unhappy I couldn’t wear any of those clothes. They were gorgeous. The shoes were great.”

The reason she goes to all the shows is because her granddaughter is very interested in fashion. “She thought she wanted to be a model, but then decided she’d rather design her own jumpsuits and

hats. She and her older sister are working together,” Goldberg said.

Besides her work on “The View” (which she re-upped in July for another year) and this new fashion collaboration, Goldberg is also the executive producer of a new TV show on Oxygen called “Strut,” about the first transgender modeling agency. “It’s doing well,” she said about the first several episodes. She said they’ve taped six episodes.

Asked how she feels about all the hullabaloo over the “see-now-buy-now” movement, Goldberg said she sees a

problem with designers showing in-sea-son. “People don’t have time to save up money. If they don’t have fluid cash, [the six month lag time of showing the next season] gives them enough time to save cash,” she said.

Having gotten her feet wet with this Christmas sweater collaboration, Gold-berg said she would welcome the oppor-tunity to design more fashion categories. Top of her list would be eyeglasses, socks or a shirt line. “We’ll try the glasses first,” she said. “If I can sucker people into doing the glasses, then we’ll move on.”

Whoopi’s ‘Ugly’ Christmas Sweaters to Launch at Lord & Taylor, Hudson’s Bay CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

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Whoopi Goldberg’s “Santa Love” sweater.

“All Together Now” sweater.

“The Arm-Me” sweater.

OCTOBER 12, 2016 7

● The company pushed ahead despite continued weakness in its U.S. wholesale business.

BY EVAN CLARK

Levi Strauss & Co. boosted both sales and profits in the third quarter despite continued weakness in its U.S. wholesale business.

The firm’s third-quarter net profits increased 69 percent to $98.3 million from $58.2 million a year earlier as the company posted better sales and cycled past charges related to its productivity initiatives.

Gross profit margin slipped to 50 percent of revenues from 50.2 percent a year earlier as the international business and lower negotiated product costs were offset by currency fluctuations and lower margins in the U.S. wholesale business.

Revenues for the three months ended Aug. 28 increased 3.8 percent to $1.19 billion from $1.14 billion, but were up about 5 percent excluding currency fluctuations. Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes grew 14.5 percent to $146.3 due to higher direct-to-consumer sales and lower adver-tising costs.

Sales in the Americas rose 1.5 percent to $724 million, as turnover in Europe jumped 9.3 percent to $283 and revenues in Asia increased 5.3 percent to $179 million.

“It was a good third quarter, balanced growth in all three regions, including the Americas, which includes, obviously, the U.S., which is still today our biggest mar-ket,” said Chip Bergh, president and chief executive officer, in an interview Tuesday. “We did all of this despite U.S. wholesale, which is still the largest part of our overall business.”

Levi’s U.S. wholesale business — includ-ing the Dockers brand — relies on midmar-ket American retailers that have struggled with traffic declines and the increasing gains seen in the e-commerce channel.

“Wholesale is still our biggest chal-lenge,” Bergh said.

“If there’s any company that should be winning disproportionately in today’s environment, it should be Levi Strauss,” he said, pointing to the strength of the com-pany’s brands. “We’re very committed to wholesale. It is a very big part of our busi-ness and we believe we can grow it even in this challenging environment if we take the right steps. We’re not writing it off.”

Bergh said Levi’s wholesale partners have been facing a “confluence of issues,”

including the strong U.S. dollar and weaker tourist traffic.

Sales at the company’s own stores and its e-commerce business grew a collective 14 percent in the third quarter.

“It is fundamentally that middle market department stores are all being chal-lenged,” he said. “There are wholesale cus-tomers or retailers who are still doing OK. The bottom end of the market — T.J. Maxx, Ross, Costco — those businesses seem to be doing OK. And the really high end of the market — Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman’s — in general are doing a little bit better than the middle market.”

Later on a conference call with ana-lysts, Bergh said the challenges at middle market department stores were also opportunities.

“If you walk the floor of any of our big — any of the big department store, customers of ours you will see that we’re basically a classification business, we’re a bottom’s business for them,” he said. “By contrast if you walk through any of our own retail stores we show up it’s a lifestyle brand. And I think we’ve got enormous opportunities to partner with our biggest customers to change the shape of our business in their stores and change the trajectory of our business and their business by leveraging the strength of our brands.”

Beyond that, Bergh told WWD that the company is focusing on what it can control. But there are plenty of things outside of the control of Levi Strauss or any other com-pany — including the election; big storms, such as Hurricane Matthew, and other unexpected events, such as the fallout of the Brexit vote.

Bergh said there is a lot of uncertainty around the U.S. presidential election, but that ultimately Hurricane Matthew would be a bigger hit to sales, although even that impact would not be significant in the context of a global company.

The group’s storm-related store closures added up a total of 33 lost days of business. Levi Strauss has about 662 doors globally.

While the weaker pound has helped drive business in the U.K., Bergh said the company saw a negative impact of $5 mil-lion as those pounds were converted back into dollars.

“That’s pretty significant,” the ceo said. “Over time, this is going to catch up with us and with everybody else because at the end of the day, if the pound keeps going south, we’re going to have to do things structurally” to adjust.

● The mass retailer will introduce the new collection geared for those planning courthouse weddings and beach ones.

BY ROSEMARY FEITELBERG

Whether a matter of convenience, cost-cutting or a break from tradition, the continued prominence of low-key brides is prompting David’s Bridal to launch the Casual Bride collection.

The assortment will be aimed at shoppers who want to buy dresses off the rack and take them immediately, or shop online and will retail from $99 to $750 when it debuts in January. The collection is not only suited for courthouse or beach

weddings but also rehearsal dinners and other special events. This more low-main-tenance approach to wedding gown shopping is somewhat of a market shift, a David’s Bridal spokeswoman said during Tuesday’s Home Studios preview.

Perhaps some of that choosiness may be chalked up to the fact that the average age of women getting married has edged up to 27 years old. Despite declining numbers, couples that marry later in life tend to have higher wedding budgets and can afford more expensive bridalwear, according to an August survey by IBISWorld of bridal stores. Despite positive economic conditions, rising competition and a declining marriage rate are expected to result in industry revenue falling 0.5 percent this year to $2.9 billion.

Another continuing trend is consum-ers’ interest in blushes, tans and gold

underlays for their dresses. The David’s Bridal spokeswoman noted that bridal trends tend to lag behind Pantone color trends. David’s Bridal tends to emphasize the colors of the season in its bridesmaid dresses.

Through David’s Bridal customer insight team, management knows “brides are so swayed” by Pinterest that many brides say they want a Pinterest-worthy wedding. “It really sets the bar higher than it ever has, whether it’s Kim’s and Kanye’s wedding, or some other celebrity,” the spokes-woman said. “We see it by a landslide.”

While the $99 opening price point for the Casual Bride collection is lower than the chain’s norm, the $750 upper price tag is “a little hefty” for David’s Bridal, the spokeswoman said. At Tuesday’s presen-tation, the retailer enlisted 18 models, not

only to show the different types of brides but also how the dresses look on different body types.

In December, the retailer will open a 15,000-square-foot store in Birmingham, England. With more than 300 stores worldwide David’s Bridal already has units in Stratford, Watford and Glasgow. Con-sumers there have been “super receptive” to the big-box approach to bridal shop-ping, which is a switch for that region’s emphasis on boutiques. The Stratford flagship, which opened three years ago, is 10,000 square feet and offers such labels as Wonder by Jenny Packham, Truly Zac Posen and Oleg Cassini.

Founded in 1950 as a family-owned oper-ation, the chain plans to open its first fran-chised store in Mexico City in February as a test. Stateside, the approach is to refresh and relocate select existing locations to ensure the retailer is in the right place, the spokeswoman said. There are currently no plans for new stores in the U.S.

● The department store will host the label’s designers and an artisan, who will personalize four of the new handbag designs.

BY MISTY WHITE SIDELL

On Thursday afternoon, Bergdorf Goodman will brace itself for an onslaught of truant fashion students.

Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez are set to make a personal appearance tomorrow at the retailer’s renovated handbag depart-ment. Key styles from the brand’s new Hava handbag collection will be available for customization there, with an artisan on hand to hand-whipstitch chain straps to shoppers’ liking.

The appearance is the latest strategic move by the label to push its reconcep-tualized accessories assortment. In June, Hernandez and McCollough told WWD that they aim to double Proenza Schoul-er’s accessories sales in the next two to three years.

An updated version of the brand’s core PS1 bag, the PS1+, is forthcoming in January.

“When we first started in the business we used to do a lot more of this kind of thing, have parties and whatnot but it’s become difficult to find the time. Now we want to work with really important partners of ours and support new prod-uct launches — things we feel strongly about,” Hernandez said by phone while stranded in Hydra amid a Grecian air strike kerfuffle.

The notoriously private designers have decided to appear for approxi-mately 45 minutes at Bergdorf ’s, where they expect a mix of “students, fashion fans and then the clients — sometimes they’re all of that and that’s the best client,” said Hernandez. While the event runs from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., the designers are expected to appear around 4 p.m.

An artisan will take residency at Berg-dorf ’s — employed to whipstitch Hava chain straps with leather lacing, per consumers’ choice of color and pattern. Hava top-handle bags will come with an interchangeable leather tassel. Each bag will take approximately 45 minutes to customize, with shoppers invited to wait or have their product messengered.

The four styles available for custom-ization will range in price from $1,250 for the Hava chain cross body to $1,950 for the medium top handle Hava. These prices are consistent with retail values of typical shelf-stock styles.

“I think more than anything [consum-ers] want to hear your opinion of what looks good on them. They think of us as a go-to advice person, experts on the subject. We still get questions about what color is in this season,” said Hernandez.

“I think it’s interesting [for people] to meet the face behind the brand, I don’t think social media in any way replaces that experience. It gives you a broader audience, but there is something really special and unique to still be able to go to the store and meet designers and talk about the creative process, fostering a one-on-one relationship. I think people crave that kind of interaction in their lives right now, it feels very relevant.”

BUSINESS

Levi’s Q3 Sales, Profits Rise

ACCESSORIES

Proenza Schouler Customizes Hava At Bergdorf’s

THE MARKETS

David’s Bridal Launches Casual Bride Line

A look from Proenza Schouler’s Hava handbag collection.

OCTOBER 12, 2016 8

● Tod’s chief will fund the building of a manufacturing plant in Arquata del Tronto, which was hit hard by the deadly natural disaster in August.

BY LUISA ZARGANI

MILAN — Diego Della Valle is again lend-ing a helping hand.

The Italian entrepreneur, chairman and chief executive officer of Tod’s Group said Tuesday that he would fund the construction of a manufacturing plant in Arquata del Tronto, in the area of the Marche region in central Italy hit by the deadly earthquake in August. The plant is expected to be up and running within year and will produce footwear for the Tod’s brand.

The region is a historical footwear manufacturing hub and Tod’s itself is based in Casette d’Ete, about 63 miles away from Arquata.

Della Valle’s pledge to support Arquata was made during Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s visit to Tod’s headquarters on Tuesday. Della Valle’s brother Andrea, president of the Hogan brand, also toured the plant with Renzi.

An area of 43,200 square feet has been earmarked for the construction in Arquata and young workers from the city and the surrounding area will be hired after a period of training at Tod’s Comunanza plant, also in the Marche region. Della Valle has always been a firm supporter of Made in Italy production and the group’s craftsmanship is a source of pride for him.

The investment in the new factory wasn’t disclosed at press time.

Renzi has been mingling with Italy’s fashion world much more frequently in

the last year, hosting the opening lunch for Milan Fashion Week both in February and in September. His visit to the Tod’s headquarters came as the prime minister is touring the country to push through his agenda for change in Italy’s political system. Della Valle was an ardent and earlier supporter of Renzi’s, although recently he had distanced himself from some of the prime minister’s policies.

Della Valle has been vocal about “the world of solidarity,” as he told WWD in July, discussing his “Noi Italiani [We Italians]” project, which was seen by the media as a political party, signaling his stepping into politics. Della Valle dis-missed the notion, saying, “Noi Italiani is focused on supporting the country on what is perhaps the most important thing we have — the artistic and cultural pat-rimony, which means a lot of new jobs, especially for young people.” He said he thought all companies should initiate the “solidarity operation in their territories to support people who need it the most.”

Della Valle’s most public effort to support the country so far has been the restoration of the Colosseum. The first part of works, started in September 2013, has been completed and an event mark-ing the milestone was held in July, in the presence of Renzi, whom Della Valle has backed in an on-again-off-again-on-again relationship.

In 2010, Della Valle revealed he was pledging 25 million euros, or $28 million at current exchange rates, for the works.

The entrepreneur has over the years helped Tod’s employees and the group’s territory with a number of initiatives, including bonuses for each worker, health insurance for them and their families, and the purchase of school books for their children. Della Valle, whose Tod’s head-quarters has a nursery, has supported the construction of a school nearby.

● He is currently strategic marketing and media director at Kering, the London-based label’s parent.

BY MILES SOCHA

PARIS — Kering has named a new chief executive officer at Christopher Kane — the third since the French group acquired the London-based brand in 2013.

Nikolas Talonpoika, currently strategic marketing and media director, is to assume the role Wednesday and report to Jean-François Palus, group managing director.

“His mission will be to accelerate the brand’s international expansion while, together with Christopher and Tammy Kane, further strengthening its distinc-tive identity,” Kering said in a statement, issued after the close of trading on the Paris Bourse.

Talonpoika succeeds Sarah Crook, who had the role for two years, during which Kane opened his first flagship in London and expanded his leather goods offering.

Kering said Crook is leaving the group and also touted among her achievements increasing the brand’s visibility in Europe and Asia and establishing a successful e-commerce presence.

She could not immediately be reached for comment.

Talonpoika is the second Kane ceo to be recruited from within Kering — and from its communications department.

Alexandre de Brettes, who held the role before Crook, had been Kering’s director of financial communications and market intelligence.

Talonpoika, 44, has been in his present role at Kering since 2012 and has also been media director at Gucci Group, whose brands now fall under Kering’s luxury division. They include Stella McCa-rtney, Balenciaga and Bottega Veneta.

A British national, Talonpoika also worked at advertising groups WPP and Pub-licis as a client director on such accounts as Richemont, L’Oréal and Nespresso. He’s been based in Paris since 2005.

Kane recently marked the 10th anniversary of his brand with a capsule collection of sweatshirts. His brand spans men’s wear and soon Crocs, which he sent down the runway for spring 2017.

“Crocs are great, I love them,” he told WWD during Paris Fashion Week. “Obvi-ously people do like them, and that’s a different customer that I want to grab. I want to include everyone and not be a snob.”

When it acquired Kane, Kering said it planned to seize on the Scottish designer’s high profile and creative prowess to develop the business as a global luxury brand.

FASHION

Diego Della Valle Pledges Support to Earthquake Area

FASHION

Christopher Kane Taps Nikolas Talonpoika as CEO

● A stalwart watch and jewelry retailer’s commitment to the storied block pays off.

BY SHARON EDELSON

Wempe’s flagship at 700 Fifth Avenue has reopened after a two-year, $8 million renovation and expansion that more than doubled the selling space to 5,500 square feet and raised the retailer’s profile on the street with eight windows stretching across half a block of the facade of the Peninsula building to 55th Street.

The focus of the project was to increase the space for customers and integrate open salons for Patek Philippe and Rolex into the floor plan. Ceilings throughout the store were raised and many of the display cases are now directly accessible to shoppers.

The entrance area of the store is devoted to Wempe’s jewelry collection. Underscor-ing the company’s commitment to time-pieces is a replica of Sinclair Harding’s H1

Sea Clock. The original marine chronom-eter, which made calculating longitude at sea possible, is at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich near London.

Wempe is known for the depth of its product range. “We didn’t enlarge the number of brands, but went deeper into the assortment,” said Kim-Eva Wempe, the fourth-generation head of the fami-ly-owned business, noting that the store sells 20 brands and offers a range of prices in every segment, from $1,000 to six figures. “We show a brand and its full collection.”

“My staff worked for 10 months during the renovation and didn’t lose a sale,” Wempe said. “We dedicated the new space to service with five watchmakers who have rooms where they can do repairs.” Service is a big aspect of the store, extending to staff on the selling floor. “The staff knows everything from every line and every brand,” Wempe said.

Timepieces are serious business for Wempe.

“We don’t do fashion watches or jewelry

watches,” Wempe said.Wempe’s grandfather started the com-

pany in 1878 in Hamburg. “My grandfa-ther started with Patek Philippe and my father started with Rolex,” Wempe said. “I started with jewelry.”

Wempe lamented the fact that American women don’t spend a lot of money on jewelry. “It’s a pity that a woman will buy an[expensive] handbag, but she doesn’t buy nice jewelry for herself. Our jewelry starts at $1,000 and goes up to six figures. The average price of a watch is $8,000. The average price for jewelry? Not even $2,000.”

The flagship’s clientele is evenly split between men and women. “I can’t see it by gender,” Wempe said. “A 28-millimeter dial is the traditional size of a women’s watch. Women wear up to 41 millimeters.”

To commemorate the flagship’s reopen-ing, the company created the Fifth Avenue limited edition Wempe Zeitmeister, a limited-edition watch with a silver-plated or black dial and large-format date priced at $2,890. The timepiece’s second hand and the number five of the date display appear in red, an accentuated reference to the store’s location.

The neo-classical building was erected in 1905 as the Gotham Hotel. “With the St. Regis [across the street] it was one of the first steel skyscrapers,” Wempe said. “The way we did the store is wonderful for this 100-plus year-old landmark building. And you still have intimate places where you can have a talk with a salesperson.”

RETAIL

Wempe Boosts Size on Fifth Avenue

Handbags and Crocs by Christopher Kane.

Wempe raised its profile on Fifth Avenue.

www.uovo.org

OCTOBER 12, 2016 10

● The new eau de parfum is a peek into the brand’s refresh, which will kick off in 2018.

BY RACHEL STRUGATZ

Annick Goutal is giving retailers a peek at its new look.

The fragrance company, in the midst of a brand overhaul that’s slated to hit the mar-ket in early 2018, is this week releasing a fragrance in line with the updated concept.

Tenue de Soirée, which translates to “Evening Dress,” is a glimpse into the future of the 36-year-old French fragrance brand, according to Thierry Maman, chief executive officer of the Amore Pacif-ic-owned company. The classic, striated perfume bottles that each have a ribbon hanging from the neck and a gold bow famously printed on the label are being replaced by something a bit more “fun, quirky and young.” A purple ombré bottle has a minimal white label, oversize purple

synthetic fur pom-pom attached to the neck (a nod to vintage powder puffs) and

a charm engraved with the brand’s initials hanging from it. The eau de parfum is a floral chypre, but Maman was mum on the ingredients beyond iris, the main accord.

The scent is a “bridge between the traditional Annick Goutal and the next Annick Goutal, Maman explained, pointing out that this fragrance is actually more representative of Goutal than anything the brand has done to date. He likened it to a “wink” thats full of humor and outside the “usual bottle code.”

“There’s more creativty, more humor in it. She liked to play, she was quite a character...[and] we’re actually back to that,” Maman said of Goutal, who passed away in 1999.

A 100-ml. bottle of Tenue de Soirée retails for $190, about 5 percent more than existing fragrances, and will be sold at the brand’s 12 freestanding doors, its e-com-merce site us.annickgoutal.com, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman. It’s also

the first time that the brand will offer a 30-ml. size for $80, Maman added, noting that a more accessible entry price point could attract a younger consumer.

“The idea is really to do a complete brand rejuvenation. We are changing basi-cally everything, including the name,” said Maman, who joined Annick Goutal last year after leaving his post as global president of Parfums Givenchy. He was unable to reveal what the brand’s new name will be, but said that bottles, packaging, store design and logos will be different come 2018.

The Paris-based Maman will be visit-ing key retailers across the U.S. through the end of the year to introduce the new Annick Goutal. The brand operates 12 free-standing stores, two of them in New York, and has 500 points of global distribution.

Also a key part of the refresh will be a consolidation of the portfolio’s 45 fragrances.

Maman admitted that the house has “too many scents,” and said offerings will be reduced to 20 to 25 fragrances. Once Maman’s “edits the range,” the idea is to “animate the brand” with one launch per year, which could include the rejuvenation of an existing scent, too.

“We’re not in a race to launch new fra-grances. It’s not our positioning. We want to focus on our bestsellers [too]. Going forward, any new scents will be in line with the new identity,” he said.

BEAUTY

Annick Goutal to Re-brand, Launch Tenue de Soirée

that could have major implications for the fashion world. Calvin Klein, Alexander Wang, Nicolas Ghesquière, Dries Van Noten, Alber Elbaz, Sir Paul Smith and Chitose Abe of Sacai were part of an original group of designers signing an amicus brief in support of Apple. Those designers were later joined in separate briefs filed by Tiffany & Co., Adidas AG and Jenny Yoo and Crocs.

The case before the High Court, filed by Samsung, is the culmination of a five-year battle between the two largest phone makers.

Apple filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the South Korean firm in 2011, charging Samsung with infringing on its patents and directly copying the design elements and technologies of its iPhone.

A jury in California found in favor of Apple in 2012, awarding it more than $1 bil-lion. That patent infringement verdict was later upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, but the award was reduced.

Samsung paid Apple $548 million provisionally last December, but decided to appeal to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in March. In its case, Samsung is challenging whether it is liable for $399 million of the jury award.

In its appeal to the High Court, the South Korean company said the $399 million was awarded to Apple based on infringement of three patents in question — a black rect-angular round-cornered front face, a bezel and a colorful grid of 16 icons. Those pat-ents, Samsung alleged, cover only “specific, limited portions of a smartphone’s design” and thus the award should be reduced.

Apple disagreed, arguing that only sig-nificant financial damage awards will act as a disincentive to the copying and infringe-ment of patented products.

Under discussion in the case is section 289 of Title 35 of the United States Code, which gives the owner of a patent the right to all the profits made from the sales of an

infringing design.Samsung asked the court to consider

the legal question of whether damages in infringement cases can be limited to profits made on a component that a patent covers, as opposed to the total profits of an infringed product.

During arguments Tuesday, the Supreme Court justices questioned the arguments made by both sides, with some justices appearing skeptical of Samsung’s position and others peppering Apple over why the High Court should step in as opposed to remanding the case back to the lower courts.

Several references were made to the Volkswagen Beetle as an example of how consumers identify with the design of a product and whether single components drive demand and therefore should be considered individually in patent infringe-ment awards.

“A smartphone is smart because it contains hundreds of thousands of the technologies that make it work,” argued Kathleen Sullivan, Samsung’s attorney. “But the Federal Circuit held that Section 289 of the Patent Act entitles the holder of a single design patent on a portion of the appearance of the phone to total profit on the entire phone. That result makes no sense. A single design patent on the por-tion of the appearance of a phone should not entitle the design-patent holder to all the profit on the entire phone.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy seemed to challenge Sullivan’s argument at one point.

“Suppose the Volkswagen Beetle design was done in three days, and it was a stroke of genius and it identified the car. Then it seems to me that that’s quite unfair to say, well, we give three days’ profit, but then it took 100,000 hours to develop the motor,” Kennedy said.

In her response, Sullivan argued, “We concede that the total profit from the ‘article of manufacture’ [the legal term used in the statute] may sometimes be a substantial part of the total profit on the product. Let’s take the Beetle, or let’s take a cool, shark-shaped exterior body on a car like the Corvette.

“It may be that the article of manufac-ture to which the design patent is applied is just the exterior body of the car, but it

may be that nobody really wants to pay much for the innards of the Corvette or the Beetle. They want to pay for the cool way it looks. If that’s so, it should be open to the patent-holder to prove that the bulk of the profits come from the exterior of the car,” she added.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued that the Federal Circuit Court “bought” Apple’s argument that “people…bought this product mostly…because of the look of the phone.”

She said the argument was that “people don’t really put much value on the unit. This is what they were arguing and they put on an expert that gave total profits.

“If the jury credited them [Apple] and it was a properly instructed jury, could you overturn that finding?” Sotomayor asked.

Seth Waxman, Apple’s attorney, argued there is “no basis to overturn the jury’s damages verdict in this case.”

Waxman underscored what many of the fashion designers and other industrial designers argued in their brief. “Congress was concerned in 1887 when it passed the Design Patent Act... if the only compen-sation [to companies whose patents are infringed] was something that could be viewed as the cost of doing business [for example getting] a 10 percent margin on $2.50 for what it cost to produce this little component, there would be no deterrents to what Congress deemed to be an emer-gency,” Waxman said.

In their amicus brief filed this summer, 113 fashion designers and other designers across a broader spectrum argued: “Design patents...protect from misappropriation not only the overall visual design of the product, but the underlying attributes

attached to the design of the product in the eye and mind of the consumer. When an infringer steals the design of a success-ful product, it captures the consumer’s understanding of what the product does and what the product means in addition to the emotional connections associated with the company’s brand.

“The plain text reading of [the statute] requiring disgorgement of total profits, thus remains sound and perfectly aligned with modern cognitive science. Indeed, disgorgement of total profits is the only appropriate remedy for design patent infringement,” the designers said in the brief.

Charles Mauro, founder and president of Mauro New Media, a firm representing the designers in the amicus brief, said Tuesday that awarding damages based on total profits of a product in a patent infringement case is “the primary reason we do not have rampant infringement in the U.S.” He has said if the compensation method is changed for infringers, from total profits to a calculation based on profits of an individual patent or patents, it will essentially remove the major disincen-tive — full disgorgement of profits — to copy product designs.

Mauro, who attended the oral argu-ments, expressed concerns about the debate at the High Court over patent infringement awards.

“This was not a good day for design IP protections in the U.S. and for design overall,” Mauro declared. “The oral argu-ment only added confusion and probably reduced the perception of design as a protectable asset in the U.S.”

Brian Fletcher, assistant solicitor general, arguing on behalf of the gov-ernment, said the “relevant article of manufacture to which a patented design may be applied will sometimes be a part or a component of a larger product sold in commerce. And when that is the case, all parties agree that the patent-holder is entitled only to the profits from that infringing article and not to all.”

The Solicitor General’s office has pro-posed a four-part test to help determine an article of manufacture and the relevant analysis that should be used to determine a component’s design value.

High Court Hears Apple, SamsungPatent Case CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

The Supreme Court heard the Samsung versus Apple case on Tuesday.

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Annick Goutal’s Tenue de Soiree.

https://registration.experientevent.com/ShowPPE161/Default.aspx?flowcode=attendee&Source=FLASH

OCTOBER 12, 2016 12

● Two new stores open in Dubai this week.

BY RITU UPADHYAY

DUBAI — David and Sybil Yurman flew here this week to launch their first retail operations in the Middle East. The Amer-ican jewelry brand opened two pop-up stores at Bloomingdale’s in The Dubai Mall and at Harvey Nichols — Dubai in the Mall of the Emirates.

“This was a long courtship, our coming to the region,” said David Yurman. The launch is in partnership with Al Tayer Group, which owns and operates both of the department stores in Dubai. Al Tayer first met with Yurman nine years ago, in what the jeweler describes as a “romance” to partner together. But David Yurman said the company at the time was not prepared to expand overseas.

“Our company was not ready with all the logistics and infrastructure it takes to enter a new market then,” he said, adding that Dubai also has changed remarkably in that time.

Sitting in the Bloomingdale’s Dubai pri-vate shopping suite with his high-jewelry line, he gestured out the window, “When we came for our first visit almost a decade ago, this did not exist at all.”

He believes the market is ready for the collection, reflecting Yurman’s brand ethos. “What we brought to the market in the U.S. was accessible jewelry for a lifestyle that changed over 30 years ago. Back when we launched women hardly bought their own jewelry. This came out of the Women’s Lib movement in the Six-ties and Seventies. We created a category of relaxed American luxury that’s very democratic and accessible. Shopping is probably the first area where women are

empowered and women have choice. And in this part of the world you see that a lot. Women adorn themselves so beautifully and have a strong sense of style.”

The arrival of chief executive officer Gabriella Forte to the Yurman team last year helped propel the entry into the region, with the business set up for expan-sion now. “Dubai is one of the region’s busiest shopping destinations and a win-dow to other countries in the region. This market is key to our international growth and expansion plans,” said Forte.

The brand’s international footprint prior to the Dubai launch was in Canada and France. Forte said that the Dubai locations give Yurman the opportunity to reach many more markets and customers. The company has added a London office that will oversee the Middle East and European expansion.

The Yurmans, whose company still operates very much as a family affair, with

both Sybil and son Evan involved in the business, said they were moved by the family nature of the Al Tayer Group. “The Al Tayers are also a family business, which to us is very impressive. We had a chance to get to know not only Khalid, the ceo, but the entire family. Those values are import-ant to us,” said Sybil Yurman. “Plus they are just very, very good at what they do.”

At the opening, Khalid Al Tayer said, “What we really try to do for our custom-ers in the Middle East is bring them the best the world has to offer. The relation-ship with David Yurman as a brand and the Yurmans as a family is one we developed over time, where we got to see the amazing work they do and the success they have had and we knew it would resonate well here. We met on multiple occasions and watched the company grow over the years. The timing was just right now.”

At Bloomingdale’s, Yurman will be

present in three spaces: a dedicated 130-square-foot shop and two unique areas for visual presentation. At Harvey Nichols — Dubai, the brand will be housed in a 170-square-foot space. The shops echo the aesthetic at the brand’s New York City flagships on Madison Avenue and in SoHo with tambour wood vitrines, travertine countertops and polished metal finishes.

The Dubai stores will carry Yurman’s women’s collection and high jewelry. The brand’s well-known Renaissance cable bracelet will be featured in various designs and new collections include Pure Form, Stax and Supernova, as well as established collections such as Albion Gold, Solari, Pinky Rings and Chatelaine Pavé. Sybil Yurman said they plan to do special col-lections specifically for the region. “They love color here, especially green, so we will definitely do something special with that for the Middle East.”

FASHION

David Yurman Expands to the Middle East

● Rare footage of the Yurmans and the brand’s archival pieces were on display.

BY RITU UPADHYAY

DUBAI — It was a celebration of “Love, Work, Life” at a special retrospective exhi-bition at the Leila Heller Gallery here this week, pulled together to commemorate the launch of David Yurman’s first stores in the region.

Hosted by Khalid Al Tayer, chief executive officer of the Al Tayer Group, the Yurmans’ partner in the region, the exhibition gave guests a look at some of the brand’s archival jewelry pieces, as well as never-before-seen footage and images of the Yurmans living and working in the West Village in the Sixties and Seventies, when both were young artists.

Welcoming the Yurmans to the region, Al Tayer said, “We were so happy to finally be able to get some of the most creative talent from New York here to our amazing city.”

The Yurmans, who had never seen all the footage and photos compiled, were awestruck. “This is awesome,” remarked David. “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen the history of our life all together like this,” added Sybil.

A nostalgic Sybil recalled the cou-ple’s early years together and how that

influenced the brand. “When David and I were young we used to go to the

Metropolitan museum. We had no money so that’s where we used to have our dates,

with hardly anyone there,” she said. “We would look at the ancient Roman brace-lets that were twisted. That was a lot of the inspiration for the bracelet.”

One video from the early Eighties showed David hand-making one of the first rope bracelets. “We introduced them in 1982, the year our son was born. But each of those bracelets would take so long to make, and he would be up all night work-ing,” Sybil recalled.

Addressing guests at party, Yurman said he was pleased to finally have cemented a nine-year friendship with Al Tayer into a partnership. And true to the theme of love, he called wife Sybil to stand with him as he took the microphone. “I just feel more comfortable when she’s with me. We did this all together.”

The emotions of the night spilled over to guests as well, many of whom left surprised by what they had discovered about the couple behind the American brand. “They are incredibly humble and down-to-earth and inspiring,” said Alaa Al Shroogi.

Of course it was the jewelry that ulti-mately did the talking. Remarking on the drama of his simple statement pieces, Dubai-based lawyer Natalia Shustova playfully flashed a pavé Yurman pinky ring and said, “I can transform into whomever I want to be just by adding this one little element.”

EYE

‘Life, Love and Work’ of David Yurman Showcased

Ayman Fakoussa, David Yurman, Sybil Yurman and Dipesh Depala.

David and Sybil Yurman celebrate the opening of their stores in Dubai with Khalid Al Tayer, ceo of the Al Tayer Group.

The David Yurman store in Bloomingdale’s Dubai.

A celebration of the leading innovators and outstanding product launches that made for an unforgettable year in beauty

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OCTOBER 12, 2016 14

Flora Bar and Coffee Open at Met BreuerThe latest projects from the Estela and Café Altro Paradiso team opened Tuesday on the basement floor of the museum.

The Met Breuer’s latest acquisi-tion is a study in artful pairing.

Downtown, restaurateur Thom-as Carter and chef Ignacio Mattos have created culinary buzz: their first restaurant, Estela, landed on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, and their second effort, Café Altro Paradiso, garnered two stars from The New York Times. Now they’re hoping to continue that success uptown with the opening today of Flora Bar and Flora Coffee on the basement level of The Met Breuer museum.

It’s likely to be a symbiotic relationship: Flora will benefit from the built-in traffic of a world-class museum, and the restaurant’s pedigree is sure to coax down-town diners eager to check out Mattos and Carter’s latest project uptown to the museum, which opened last March.

Bronwyn Keenan, ‎deputy chief special events officer for The Met, began scouting a restaurateur for The Met Breuer in 2014. “We started talking back and forth and then we just kind of flirted with one another for six months. It was a process of turning each other down,” says Carter, noting that the museum wasn’t originally in-terested in running dinner service and there was also an issue of timing — Carter and Mattos were then in the process of opening Cafe Altro Paradiso.

But in spring 2015, the Met Breuer restaurant project was back on the table, so to speak, and the pair were awarded the project that summer. “Obviously, it’s a huge honor to be chosen by the largest museum in the North-ern Hemisphere,” Carter adds.

Flora Coffee will serve coffee, pastries and takeaway sandwich-es in a casual, counter-service setting during the museum’s operating hours while Flora Bar, a sit-down restaurant, will be open after-hours for dinner.

The seafood-forward menu at Flora Bar builds on the culinary momentum Mattos has cultivated downtown. The chef described his approach for Flora Bar as “just simply handled ingredients in a way that it’s comforting but unas-suming and surprising at the same time,” and Mattos credits Mediter-ranean, Japanese and Chinese in-fluences on the menu — but avoids tacking a genre onto his cuisine. “It’s not fusion, it’s something very subtle,” he explains. “We’re in New York and it’s such a cultural melting pot. That’s why we’re here, because we have access to this mix of culture. What we do is we just filter and articulate it in our own way.”

Mattos and Carter worked alongside architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle to design a dining room that reflects the building’s modernism, but also fit their

culinary concept. “They took all our cues,” says Carter. “It’s exactly the same raw materials that we have at Estela: walnut, bronze, glass, marble. The banquettes — it’s a very simple, midcentury, low profile, clean design that fits the space. I mean, the Breuer vernacu-lar is something that you can’t veer from otherwise it would just look like a sore thumb in the space.”

Flora also reflects the muse-um’s modernist ethos through its food presentation — Mattos’ plating leans to the minimalist and unassuming. “We’re going to make sure that, yes, the food makes sense with what’s happening within this space,” Mattos says.

The restaurant also benefits from the modernist elements of the building, with a ceiling that soars up to the dish-shaped lights above the first floor, expansive windows that look onto a court-yard and concrete walls (which the Flora team insists don’t ruin the acoustics.)

“We’ll be adding little details along the way,” Mattos says, looking out across the empty dining room the day before its public unveiling. “You never open a restaurant that’s completely finished.”

Considering the museum’s opening exhibition, “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible,” Flora has found a familiar home. — KRISTEN TAUER

Flora BarOpen Tuesday through Sunday, 5:30 p.m.-11 p.m.

Flora CoffeeOpen Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

(646) 558-5383florabarnyc.com

Caesar salad and tuna tartare with toasted flax seeds and rye crackers.

Inside Flora Bar at The Met Breuer.

Thomas Carter and chef Ignacio Mattos

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Fashion ScoopsStanding For A Cause“I don’t even know what time it is. I think it’s next Tuesday right now in my schedule,” said Saks Fifth Avenue president Marc Metrick.

The executive flew into Los Angeles Sunday evening, fresh off of Paris Fashion Week, but showed no signs of fatigue at the event he hosted Monday night to benefit Stand Up to Cancer.

“It’s something we’ve been do-ing for almost 20 years,” Metrick said of Saks and its involvement in the campaign. “Really, it’s about giving back. It’s about doing some-thing that’s important for our cus-tomer and their lifestyle. So many people are touched by this.”

Saks sprinkled Mr. Chow pink for the Beverly Hills cocktail event for the Stand Up to Cancer program, which is part of the charity Entertainment Industry Foundation.

Halle Berry was at the cocktail party as this year’s official am-bassador — although she wasn’t giving interviews. She joined the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, Hillary Swank and Nicole Kidman, who have all served in the position in

past years.This was the first year the

event, typically held in New York, came to the West Coast. This year also represented the first time the campaign partnered with an accessories designer — Christian Louboutin — to design the campaign’s limited-edition T-shirt, with 100 percent of the sales from the $35 shirt going to Stand Up to Cancer. — KARI HAMANAKA

Ethical OfferingEthical fashion label Maiyet has mounted a pop-up in London’s Mayfair that sells a range of hand-crafted items including art, design, fashion and food alongside the brand’s fall 2016 range of women’s ready to wear and accessories.

The brand, known for working with craftspeople, has set up a 2,000-square-foot space at 41 Conduit Street that will run for three months. Designed by Cavendish Studios, the space features sculptural stands made by artisans working with Cornish clay.

The pop-up, which opens this week, stocks a range of brands,

including Tom Dixon home furnishings, floral arrangements by The Tuk Tuk Flower Studio, frames from Soho Bespoke and Phaidon books as well as items from Tata Harper, Yosuzi, Maison De Mode and Madhuri Parson.

East by West, a pop-up café concept by Jasmine Hemsley that fuses Ayurvedic food with British seasonal fare, is on-site and the shop also plans to host a series of events including book launches, chef tastings, live music, magic shows, performance art, poetry readings and screenings.

Prices range from 6.95 pounds, or $8.54, for a Wallpaper city guide to 1,596 pounds, or $1,962, for a Maiyet small Peyton saddle tote.

“I think today, the most interesting and inspiring people in the world care a lot about how they look and what they wear,” said Maiyet co-founder and chief executive officer Paul van Zyl. “But they also care about food and beauty and books and their minds — and they love flowers. So what we tried to do is to assemble a set of like-minded brands that are first and fore-most pleasurable, but also have a sensibility towards the world.”

He added that customers

can be anyone looking to have “a wonderful breakfast or lunch, grab some flowers, get a book to take as a gift or to help you with your home cooking, but also wrap yourself in Maiyet cashmere poncho. I think we’re relentlessly focused on making London a great success. When it is a suc-cess we’re sure it will be then we will look elsewhere.”

The pop-up will run until Christmas. — LORELEI MARFIL

Revisiting BalenciagaThe Victoria & Albert Museum has revealed plans to stage “Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion,” an exhibition that will pay homage to the work of Cristóbal Balenciaga.

This will be the first exhibit on

the couturier’s work in the U.K., and is planned to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the first Cristóbal Balenciaga store open-ing in San Sebastián, Spain and also with the 80th anniversary of his famous Paris salon.

The show will examine the ways the late designer’s innova-tive use of fabrics and craftsman-ship influenced haute couture in the 20th century by focusing on the work he produced during the Fifties and Sixties, which the exhibition’s curator Cassie Davies-Strodder highlights as the couturier’s most creative period.

“The exhibition will focus on the exquisite craftsmanship, mastery of cutting, and pioneer-ing use of fabrics that made Balenciaga’s designs so special and set him apart from his con-temporaries. It will also explore his lasting impact on the world

of fashion through his protégés including André Courrèges, Emanuel Ungaro, Oscar de la Renta and Hubert de Givenchy and through his continued influence on fashion designers today,” Davies-Strodder said.

More than 100 garments and 20 hats from the museum’s archives will be on display, some of which have never been seen be-fore. Sketches, photographs, fab-ric samples, toiles and film will also be used alongside the garments to contextualize the designer’s work and offer a detailed view of his methods of construction.

“The exhibition will be a celebration of the V&A’s exten-sive Balenciaga holdings, first collected for the museum in the Seventies by Balenciaga’s long-standing friend, the fashion photographer Cecil Beaton,” added Davies-Strodder.

Earlier this year, an exhibition of 27 creations by the designer dating from 1930 to 1968 took place at the new Kering head-quarters in Paris as part of Euro-pean Heritage Days. Kering now owns the brand and the creative director is Demna Gvasalia.

The Victoria & Albert show will open in May, and will run until Feb-ruary 2018. — NATALIE THEODOSI

Halle Berry and Marc Metrick

OCTOBER 12, 2016 15

Memo Pad

Sharon Olds on New PoetryThe poet discusses art and politics, gender, and “the need to make something,” all explored in “Odes.”

I Spy With My Little Eye...

In a somewhat strange turn of events, Hearst's Esquire is "reanimating" Spy, the magazine cofounded by Kurt Andersen and Graydon Carter in 1986, starting today on its site for a month lead-ing up to the presidential election.

Spy, which ceased publishing in 1998, took a satirical look at culture and politics. Its cofounder Carter would eventually move on to Condé Nast's Vanity Fair, where he has served as editor in chief since 1992. Since then, Carter has developed Vanity Fair into a pub-lication that comments, delights, plays in, pokes fun at, and, at times, polices the land of the powerful. Carter hasn't missed a beat when it comes to the presidential elec-tion, penning essays on his time writing about Republican nominee Donald Trump and rebranding him as a "short-fingered vulgar-ian." That reference came from Carter's days at Spy.

With so much buzz surround-ing the presidential election, it seemed only fitting to revive Spy in some way as it marks its 30th anniversary, although it does seem somewhat odd that its rebirth is taking place at Hearst,

not Condé Nast. But that might be part of the humor, depending on whom you ask.

Jay Fielden, editor in chief of Esquire, said Carter was not only looped in about the project but that he "gave his blessing."

"Jay reached out to me to tell me," Carter said. "But I couldn’t contribute for a host of reasons. Besides, it’s not as if I don’t have an outlet to write about Trump.”

"There's no conflict of interest with Graydon," said Fielden, who echoed Andersen's editor's letter on the pop-up site, that Spy fills a white space of sorts."Now we don't have Gawker, we don't have Jon Stewart," Fielden offered. (It should be noted that Carter's name is absent from Andersen's letter, save from a caption showing the two editors in Spy's offices).

Fielden expounded on how the partnership came about, noting that Hearst's newly named chief creative officer Joanna Coles had dinner over the summer with Andersen. The two struck up a conversation about bringing back Spy. Coles approached Fielden with the idea. All that stood in the way was talking to Psychology Today chief executive officer Jo Colman, who owns the rights to the Spy name.

The Spy pop-up is edited by Josh Wolk, who previously served as editorial director of Vulture

and as editor of Yahoo Entertain-ment. Other writers include J.R. Havlan of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and Gabriel Snyder, formerly of The New Republic, The Atlantic, Gawker and the Observ-er. The team tapped Wieden + Kennedy for the creation of spoof ads, which appear on the site. Richard Turley, the buzzy former creative director at MTV and Bloomberg Businessweek, just joined Wieden and he's working on the project, Fielden added.

Asked why Esquire didn't just launch its own humor vertical, Fielden said pulling off a "ground-swell" of excitement in 30 days with an unknown property

wouldn't be an easy feat."The innermost hive has to get

excited about it," said Fielden, perhaps not so coincidentally name-checking Vanity Fair's recently launched media vertical "the Hive."

Still, only a small segment of the population has even heard of Spy —and most of them are not Millennials — the target demo-graphic for the digital reader.

"Come on," the editor shot back with a mixture of humor and frustration. "It can be a ru-brik. We're tweeting it out, using Instagram...it just has to be funny and smart." — ALEXANDRA STEIGRAD

Waking The DeadYawn. That’s what three fash-ion-loving young ladies think as they traipse through glorious central Paris behind a delightful tour guide, in the latest film col-laboration between Mytheresa.com and Balenciaga.

Silent, dead-eyed and dressed in runway looks from the fall 2016 Balenciaga collec-tion, the three model/actresses are unfazed by views of the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens and the Place de la Concorde as their perplexed male guide

chatters away in a short called “Tourists.”

They stare unblinkingly at their mobile phones, walk down the open-air aisle of bateau mouche as if it’s a catwalk, and one even wears a GoPro camera as a fashion accessory.

The three perk up only as they descend into the Paris Catacombs, dark, decaying and dripping with rainwater. “This is the best place ever,” they pro-claim, tugging the guide into their group for a selfie.

The film will make its debut on Mytheresa.com on Wednesday and will be presented within a dedicated editorial story, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and all of the looks will be instantly shoppable.

This is the second film col-laboration between the Germa-ny-based e-tailer and the brand. The first came out last year and was called “Une Incroyable Excuse.” It had a similarly ironic take on fashion lovers.

Asked about how people shopped the first film, Michael Kliger, president of Mytheresa, said: “We saw that the exclusive Balenciaga pieces that were featured were sold out on the website within 24 hours. At the same time, the overall traffic and sell-through on our Balenciaga selection received a great uplift as well.” — SAMANTHA CONTI

A visual from the film collaboration between Mytheresa.com and Balenciaga.

“I’m moved by how hard it is to be young,” Sharon Olds says, sitting in the courtyard of her New York University faculty housing building, where she moved two years ago after 45 years in the same Upper West Side apartment.

From the bench, the divorced mother of two grown children looks on with softness at a pair of sisters playing in the fountain, at a pug out for his afternoon walk — and stops to chat with Na-tional Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes as he passes by. Her surroundings at NYU have given her a focus on the young. “These are not easy days for anyone,” she says.

Last month, Olds, 73, pub-lished her 13th collection of poetry, “Odes,” which is her first since she won the Pulitzer Prize for 2012’s “Stag’s Leap.” The col-lection also made her the first woman to win the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, a distinction fitting for a writer whose work champions womanhood and the female body, in language she aims to be approachable.

Olds, who writes by hand, grew up in Berkeley, Calif., and earned her Ph.D. in English from Columbia University; before her Pulitzer, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984. “Odes” is a collection of praise and dedication to things basic and human, but which are often taboo in the printed verse — sexuality, the body, everyday thought.

“Anger and humor at being a woman in patriarchy,” Olds says,

smiling, of her new work. “That’s a good combination.”

WWD: How did you first begin writing?

Sharon Olds: I was really interested in dancing, prancing about the whole house, and I was interested in make-believe, so the imagination. As soon as I could read and write, I got really involved in it. Who knows what it is that in some of us we have a need to make something and write. So I think in the beginning it would’ve been that impulse to make something of my imagina-tion and my experience.

WWD: You left your hometown of Berkeley to attend the private girls school Dana Hall outside Boston. What effect did that have on you?

S.O.: Back then, places were further apart. When I arrived at age 15 in Boston, from Berkeley — Berkeley which wasn’t Berkeley yet, but was just starting to be an interesting place for someone who wanted to reconsider her attachment to the bourgeoisie — when I got to Massachusetts, I was peculiar. People thought that I was different from other people because I was from so far away. So many of them had not met someone from Cali-fornia. I’m not saying that I was weird, but I think I spoke my mind a little bit.

WWD: How did that expe-rience shape your views on gender and society?

S.O.: That pressure, and the confusion that I think is still present of women: not wanting to seem too smart, but not wanting

to seem too dumb, and also not knowing if we were dumb or smart. The gender strictures were narrow — so in the class-room [at Dana Hall], there were no boys — girls talked first. I was glad to go on to a coed college, but that couple of years was very good for me to be out of that particular loop. And there was a creative writing class, with a wonderful teacher. A very smart, dignified, somewhat shy person.

WWD: Explain a bit about how "Odes" came to be.

S.O.: I had read a book by Pablo Neruda called "Odes to Common Things" and while I was reading it I wasn’t thinking, "Oh, I could do this as well," but I was thinking, "This is cool, this is so cool." When something then came into my head and I started writing, it was one of these odes, to my common things — a lot of them, it turned out, were things that were com-mon to girls when I was 15, that were not common to boys, or to

poetry, or to culture. They would have been outside of poetry — over in hygiene or something.

But they are for many of us common, ordinary things. So many of us don’t know what to call it or how to communicate it right. [There is] a kind of preju-dice against the kinds of possi-bilities that should be open to young women — a limited view of what women should be — or what men should me. All of the stuff we’re now talking about, about gender and transgender and the gender within each group — the politeness and the prudity

of the world I grew up in meant that there were things that were important to me and interesting to me, [but] I had never read a poem about. And then those subjects started to come into me in a burst of girl feelings — girl feelings is definitely one way to put it, and also womanly happi-ness. And then there’s a side of me that’s just so excited thinking about things that haven’t nec-essarily been talked about. They are the things I’ve always been interested in.

WWD: You declined Laura Bush’s invitation to the National

Book Festival in D.C. in 2005 for political beliefs. What are your thoughts on the place literary arts hold in today’s political climate?

S.O.: I do imagine that art might be more important than it seems to be. It just is [that] often one could think it’s powerless, or decorative, or off to the side. But I have no idea what the place of art is. Smarter people than I will have opinions on that. I suspect we couldn’t live without it. I sus-pect it saves us sometimes, from extreme loneliness or despair, when we write it or read it. — LEIGH NORDSTROM

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