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Into the CoreRalph Lauren Corp. is folding Denim & Supply into its Polo brand as part of its new strategy.
Page 3
Rossi’s RevampSergio Rossi is introducing SR1, the first collection under its new owner and creative team.
Page 5
American ChallengeTurmoil continues at American Apparel as its ceo exits. Page 3
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Fashion. Beauty. Business. SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
WASHINGTON — Fashion designers, concerned that the Supreme Court might “roll back the small amount of copyright protection” the industry currently has, are weighing in on a case before the high court involving cheerleader uniforms.
In an amicus curiae brief filed with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, a group of designers led by Susan Scafidi, founder and academic director of Fordham Univer-sity’s Fashion Law Institute came out in support of Varsity Brands Inc. in an effort to fight for design protection.
The designers include Jack McCollough
PARIS — Nicolas Ghesquière likes to shake things up.
So for his spring show on Oct. 5 at the tail end of Paris Fashion Week, Ghesquière is taking a break from the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the dazzling, cloudlike Frank Gehry museum that has hosted his last three ready-to-wear shows.
WWD has learned the designer is decamping to the Place Vendôme, where Vuitton is constructing a future flagship in an 18th-century corner building with stun-ning views of the picturesque square.
The venue, which he describes as a raw space within a grandiose structure, embodies his wish to continue uniting tradition and the here-and-now to propel the storied megabrand.
“I thought it was very interesting to catch the space right at the moment when there is that brutalist feeling inside:
CONTINUED ON PG.9
CONTINUED ON PG.8
Aiming for “a new way of elegance,” Miuccia Prada presented a masterful show, de-blah-ing basics — from trenches to cardigans and even pajamas — with her potent Prada powers, including an incongruous application of marabou feathers. For more on Prada and the Milan collections, see pages 11 to 15.
ClassicsWith a Wrist
BUSINESS
Designers Weigh In on Supreme Court Copyright Case● Members of the fashion
flock are concerned that the federal court might roll back protections.
BY KRISTI ELLIS
FASHION
Ghesquière ‘Dives Deep’ Into Vuitton● The designer and Michael
Burke, ceo, reflect on progress, next steps in creative retooling of luxury megabrand.
BY MILES SOCHA
MILAN
S P E C I A L E D I T I O N
CollectionsThe
Milan
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 3
Frederick’s of Hollywood Names Megan Fox Brand Ambassador, Stakeholder ● The actress has signed on to help revive the beleaguered lingerie brand.
● They Are Wearing: Riot Fest Chicago
● Nordstrom Inc. Resets Assignments for Top Managers
● Luxury Brands Need to Upgrade to a Digital Mind-set
● Diane Kruger, Sarah Jessica Parker Attend New York City Ballet Fashion Gala
TOP 5TRENDINGON WWD.COM
NEWSMAKERSThis Week’s Most Talked About Names In Our Industry
Nicolas Ghesquière
Miuccia Prada
Ashley Graham
Karl Lagerfeld
● The company is maintaining guidance since the change was already contemplated in the initial forecasts.
BY VICKI M. YOUNG
Ralph Lauren Corp. has decided to fold its Denim & Supply business into one of its core power brands, Polo Ralph Lauren.
Stefan Larsson, president and chief executive officer, said in an interview, “In our Way Forward Plan, one of the key pil-lars was to focus on the core, and evolve the brand and the business from that. One part of that is to focus on the three core brands — Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren and Lauren by Ralph Lauren.
“When we looked at Denim & Supply — denim has always been a core part of the authentic American style that Ralph has created — we decided to grow the denim business [from] where we have the most growth, and that is within Polo.”
Transitioning Denim & Supply consum-ers to Polo won’t be an issue – Larsson said buyers of the brand were already purchasing the Ralph Lauren and Polo brands. He elaborated that when the company did its brand analysis, “We got the consumers’ view on how much love they have for the Ralph Lauren and Polo brands. They saw Polo as Polo Ralph Lauren. That’s the strength that we will build on.”
The company won’t need to update fiscal year guidance or incur additional restructuring charges, nor will there be additional layoffs.
“We stand firm on guidance,” Larsson said, adding that folding the Denim & Supply brand had been contemplated at the time the company provided its assess-ment of restructuring costs.
The company said in August when it posted first quarter results that restruc-turing activities are expected to result in annualized cost savings of between
$180 million and $220 million, which is on top of the $125 million cost savings from fiscal 2016’s restructuring activities. Second-quarter net revenues were guided down mid-to-high single digits, with fiscal 2017 consolidated net revenues forecast to decrease at the low-double-digit rate. Initiatives under the Way Forward Plan are expected to have a greater impact in the second half of fiscal 2017 than the second quarter.
According to Larsson, the Double RL brand, or RRL, will not be affected by the change at Denim & Supply. “Double RL is the most authentic expression of Ralph Lauren. We will continue to strengthen Double RL and we will keep it small, exclusive and special. Double RL is important for us from [the standpoint of ] delivering the ultimate denim experi-ence,” the ceo said.
Currently the Double RL brand is available just in men’s, but Larsson said there is an opportunity to expand that to women’s. For now, the main driver of the denim business will be from the strength of the Polo brand.
There are no changes to the RLX Golf brand or to the Club Monaco business.
Larsson emphasized that the changes are all aligned to set the company up to build from its core strengths. Larsson said that, by putting denim back into the core Polo brand, that part of the business is now “closer to the consumer.” ■
● Paula Schneider will exit as the company seeks a sale to fuel its next chapter.
BY KARI HAMANAKA
LOS ANGELES — American Apparel can’t seem to catch a break.
Chief executive officer Paula Schnei-der, who was originally tapped to lead a turnaround at the Los Angeles-based firm, is leaving amid plans to sell all or part of the retailer. These latest develop-ments come about seven months after American Apparel exited bankruptcy, leaving a question mark over the future of a company that was once a bright spot and case study for U.S. manufacturing. Employees have been told it’s business as usual at the firm.
The shift in leadership was first reported by WWD.com Thursday, when workers were notified of the change. A company spokeswoman declined com-ment on the news.
But things appear to be happening fast and furiously, with Chelsea Grayson, the company’s general counsel and chief administrative officer, moving to transition into the ceo role “pretty quick,” a com-pany source said. She officially assumes the title Oct. 3 when Schneider departs.
The American Apparel board under-went a shake-up of its own with the recent departure of former Liz Claiborne Inc. chairman and ceo Paul R. Charron, who was appointed chairman in March. He was succeeded by Brad Scher, the
founder and managing member of New York consulting firm Ocean Ridge Capital Advisors, which specializes in working with companies in turnarounds.
The company source said Schneider’s departure was her own decision and Scher’s appointment was aimed at provid-ing a stronger financial backbone to the board.
“She certainly knows what’s going on there,” said California Fashion Associa-tion president Ilse Metchek of Grayson. “She’s been a partner since Paula took over and she knows the company.”
A sale is now likely imminent with this latest development, according to Metchek, and “hopefully it will be a sale that main-tains the premise that the company stays in L.A., none of which we know.”
Schneider’s resignation letter, which was obtained by WWD, said the “sale process currently under way for all or part of the company may not enable us to pursue the course of action necessary for the plan to succeed nor allow the brand to stay true to its ideals. Therefore, after much deliberation, and with heavy heart, I’ve come to the conclusion it is time for me to resign as ceo.”
She said in her letter that little could be done in her first year on the job, blaming the company’s debt and “macroeconomic headwinds in retail that have proven chal-lenging for American Apparel along with most other specialty retailers in the U.S.”
Following the company’s exit from bankruptcy in February, she wrote, “we have begun to maintain optimal inventory
levels and to ship our first full delivery under the plan for fall 2016. We are expe-riencing strong initial sell-through rates in retail, wholesale and online with our new product.” Schneider also pointed to a 30 percent cut in expenses since she took the top spot.
It’s unclear whether a shift in strategy would take place under Grayson. The company source said it’s still early days for Grayson and her broader focus is “to continue to try to draw that Millennial customer into the store.”
Who would buy the firm is just as unclear. Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. had reportedly taken a look at the company more recently.
Chad Hagan, managing partner of Hagan Capital Group, went in with Amer-ican Apparel founder and ousted ceo Dov Charney on a $300 million bid for the company in January. Their consortium was the last to publicly express interest in the company.
“This takes away any interest that we had,” Hagan said of the appointment. “We are not interested. It’s not progress-ing in the way I’d expected it to.”
Charney, who has been railing for some two years now in and out of court that the company was stolen from him and shareholders by the New York hedge fund Standard General — which he had initially aligned with in hopes of regaining control of the business — had his own thoughts on the latest news.
“This is a transfer of wealth from Main Street workers, artists and vendors to Wall Street hedge funds, law firms and consul-tants,” he said. “It’s a Wall Street takeover of an apparel company. It’s Wall Street versus Main Street. It’s Wall Street versus an apparel company. Appointing Chelsea Grayson as ceo of American Apparel is emblematic of their thinking.” ■
RETAIL
Ralph Lauren Corp. to Fold Denim & Supply Into Polo Brand
BUSINESS
American Apparel CEO Exits;Company’s Future Unclear
Looks from Denim & Supply, a line being folded into the Polo brand.
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BRANDARTusa6 East 74th Street 3rd FloorNew York NY 10021-USA+19173883186
BRANDARTitaly
Via Andrea Costa, 19, 21052Busto Arsizio (VA)-italy
+390331634392
creativity ı productions ı logistics
www.brandart.it
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 5
● The department store will be created out of a space taken from an existing Hudson’s Bay store in the city.
BY DAVID MOIN
Saks Fifth Avenue will open a 200,000-square-foot store in Mon-treal by carving out space from the 650,000-square-foot Hudson’s Bay store on Boulevard de Maisonneuve.
Hudson’s Bay Co., the parent of Saks Fifth Avenue, Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor department stores, said Thursday that Saks in Montreal will be the luxury chain’s largest store in Canada, and will take a similar approach to CF Toronto Eaton Centre, where Saks also carved out space within the Hudson’s Bay flagship on Queen Street.
The four-level Saks unit will include an 80,000-square-foot Quebec-themed food hall, leaving 120,000 square feet for fashion including women’s designer ready-to-wear, handbags, accessories, beauty, men’s, 10022-Shoe and the Fifth Avenue Club for personal service.
The Montreal Saks store is expected to open in fall 2018. The Saks stores on Queen Street and Sherway Gardens, both in Toronto, opened earlier this year. Saks Can-ada also plans to open a store in Chinook Centre in Calgary in 2018. No other Saks locations in Canada have been revealed.
Marc Metrick, president of Saks Fifth Avenue, said Montreal shoppers “are known for their impeccable style. Montreal has that kind of customer we can have fun with from a fashion standpoint. The city is ripe for the full Saks experience.”
Saks has become a strong believer in bringing food into its offering and is adding food halls at certain of its locations, includ-ing Brickell Center in Miami next year and Eaton Centre in Toronto. There is already a food hall operating inside the Saks in Sher-way Gardens in Toronto. “It’s about really building environments that become desti-nations,” Metrick said, adding that people want dining options and the sensation of
experiencing something different.Saks will have pass-throughs into the
Hudson’s Bay store, though Metrick stressed, “Each store will have its unique and specific feeling. We are looking [to create] a holistic customer experience” so customers cross-shop the stores.
While Saks in Montreal gets built, the Hudson’s Bay unit will remain open and undergo extensive renovation to “reconfig-ure the store layout, redefine departments and enhance the shopping environment,” said Liz Rodbell, president of the Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor divisions of HBC.
The strategy in Montreal reflects satisfac-tion with the performance of the Saks and
Hudson Bay stores in Toronto, which are located side-by-side on Queen Street.
Rodbell said the company is “very pleased” with the setup in Toronto, that putting Saks next to Hudson’s Bay “has made the location even more of destina-tion” and that the two retail nameplates are “extremely complementary.”
Asked whether Saks is cannibalizing busi-ness from Hudson’s Bay, Rodbell replied, “We have seen no decline in our business, not at all. We believe the same thing will happen in Montreal.”
Hudson’s Bay Montreal will “absolutely reimagine its space, create a more compel-ling environment” across much of the store including footwear, home, men’s, beauty and women’s fashion, she said.
With Saks moving in, some categories at Hudson’s Bay are likely to shrink in size, though Rodbell said there’s a lot of back-of-house space that can be converted to selling space. “We definitely see an opportunity for the building to be more productive.”
Asked if the company is considering carving space out of other Hudson Bay stores to create Saks units, or for other uses, Rodbell replied, “Not at this time. We have nothing to announce today.”
Aside from Saks, Lord & Taylor and Hud-son’s Bay, Hudson’s Bay Co. operates Gilt, Saks Off 5th and Home Outfitters and, in Europe, Galeria Kaufhof, Galeria Inno and Sportarena. ■
● The collection will be presented at Milan’s Teatro Filodrammatici with a ballet performance.
BY LUISA ZARGANI
Sergio Rossi is restarting with SR1.This is the name of the first collection
to be unveiled by the new owner of the luxury footwear brand, Investindustrial, under the lead of recently arrived chief executive officer Riccardo Sciutto and the design team.
The collection will be presented at Milan’s Teatro Filodrammatici with a live ballet performance this evening. “It’s a tale about falling in love again,” said Sciutto in an exclusive interview.
The event is meant to reflect Sergio Rossi’s rebirth. The executive’s strategy is to return to the original nature of the brand as it was established by its name-sake founder. The company has enlisted talents such as Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda as art directors of the performance.
Sciutto, previously general manager of Hogan, joined Sergio Rossi in March, and still marvels at the quality of the company’s manufacturing plant in San
Mauro Pascoli in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region, one of the country’s most import-ant leather goods hubs. Covering 194,400 square feet, the state-of-the-art plant with solar panels has 110 employees, including artisans that have 40 years of experience with Sergio Rossi, and who painstakingly apply more than 100 steps to a shoe by hand. The company produces 250,000 pairs of shoes a year.
“There is a fantastic heritage and we want to bring back the soul of the brand,” said Sciutto, who proceeded to rebuild the archives upon his arrival, buying 400 pieces since then. “Sergio Rossi’s woman is refined, has an independent character and is seductive. There’s a touch of irony and subtle elegance,” observed Sciutto, who wants to return to these brand staples.
The SR1 collection will comprise 10 models that reference two of Sergio Rossi’s
historic shoes. One example is a luxury high-heeled sabot with a metallic plaque on the vamp. The price range will not change, with designs retailing at between 400 and 600 euros, or $447 and $670. The company is also revamping a historic logo and changing product packaging.
Following the exit of design director Angelo Ruggeri in May, the brand is designed by a team headed by a veteran in footwear design whose name Sciutto prefers to keep under wraps.
The company has decided to suspend the men’s division to focus on its women’s category. “Let’s do that well, with brave and consistent choices,” he said.
He did reveal the appointment of a new chief operating officer, Giuseppe Pinto, and the arrival of a new IT director, a new producing and merchandising direc-tor, and a new head of retail to beef up his team.
European investment house Investin-dustrial in December 2015 took control of Sergio Rossi from Kering, and tapped former Pomellato ceo Andrea Morante as president of the firm. Investindustrial was founded by Italian financier Andrea C. Bonomi and also has stakes in Aston Martin, B&B Italia and luxury lighting firm Flos, among others.
The footwear company was founded by designer Sergio Rossi in the Fifties. Gucci Group, which has since been folded into
Kering, snapped up a majority stake in the brand in 1999 during an aggressive acquisi-tion drive masterminded by Domenico De Sole and Tom Ford. The group eventually took full control of the company in 2004.
Sergio Rossi’s revenues total around 70 million euros, or $78 million, said Sciutto.
In sync with Sciutto’s new communica-tion and marketing strategy, a new store concept will be unveiled in the spring. There are 50 Sergio Rossi freestanding boutiques and the brand also is carried in more than 400 multibrand stores. When asked what distribution plans he had in mind for the brand, Sciutto said it was “not a problem of number but of deeper penetration.”
He said the brand is very strong in Japan, with 19 points of sale in the country. In the U.S., there are stores in Miami and New York. There are also boutiques in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. ■
ACCESSORIES
New Sergio Rossi Owner Unveils First Collection
RETAIL
Saks Fifth Avenue’s Canada Expansion Extends to Montreal
“We want to bring back the soul of the brand. Sergio Rossi’s woman is refined, has an independent character and is seductive. There’s a touch of irony and subtle elegance.”
— RICCARDO SCIUTTO, SERGIO ROSSI
A rendering of the Saks Fifth Avenue planned for Montreal.
A sketch of a Sergio Rossi shoe from the SR1 collection.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 7N
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● The leadership will be more squarely focused on either the full-price or off-price operations.
BY DAVID MOIN
Nordstrom Inc. has shifted the responsibilities of two of the three Nord-strom brothers in charge of the business, and to add horsepower to its e-com-merce, digital and mobile businesses, has appointed Ken Worzel president of nordstrom.com.
Worzel has been executive vice president of strategy and develop-ment at Nordstrom since 2010, where he has been developing and executing customer-driven strategies to further the company’s growth. Prior to Nord-strom, he worked as a consultant, including part-nering with Nordstrom for 13 years while at Marakon Associates and McKinsey & Co.
“Through his six years as a leader at Nordstrom and many years prior to
that working alongside our executive team, Ken has gained a deep understanding of how our e-commerce, digital and mobile efforts play an integral role in providing customers a differentiated experience through service, personalization and conve-nience,” said Erik Nordstrom, copresident of Nordstrom.
In the management shifts, Erik will now be responsible for the Nordstrom brand, including Nordstrom stores, nordstrom.com and Trunk Club as well as customer care, marketing and supply chain. Previously, he oversaw nordstrom.com. The company said Erik Nordstrom will now support Jamie Nordstrom, executive vice president of the corporation and president of Nordstrom full-line stores. Jamie is the cousin of the Nordstrom brothers: Pete, Blake and Erik.
Copresident Blake Nordstrom will be responsible for Nordstrom Rack brand, including Rack stores, nordstromrack.com and HauteLook, and corporate functions including finance, technology, legal and human resources. Before, he had been in a supportive role for Jamie.
Blake was overseeing Rack stores and full-line stores as well as the corporate functions as listed, and now will be focused on the off-price segments of Nordstrom Inc., while Erik puts his focus on the full-price side of the business.
Pete Nordstrom, copresident, continues in his role overseeing all of the company’s merchandising functions and store plan-ning. He will also remain closely involved in all areas impacting the Nordstrom brand, including marketing.
“This is really just about better aligning leadership support around the full-price and off-price brands,” said a spokeswoman, explaining the changes.
Nordstrom Inc. operates 121 Nordstrom stores in the U.S. and Canada; 205 Nordstrom Rack stores; two Jeffrey bou-tiques; one clearance store; nordstrom.com; nordstromrack.com, and HauteLook. The company also owns Trunk Club. ■
RETAIL
Nordstrom Inc. Reassigns Top Managers
● The transaction is still subject to customary approvals.
BY VICKI M. YOUNG Accenture has inked an agreement to acquire Kurt Salmon, a move that gives it a deeper penetration in the areas of retail operations and merchandising.
Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Kurt Salmon, a global manage-ment company, is a subsidiary of Man-agement Consulting Group. Accenture is a global professional services firm. The deal is still subject to regulatory approv-als, as well as the approval of Manage-ment Consulting Group’s shareholders.
Chris Donnelly, the retail industry lead
at Accenture, said, “In an environment dominated by rapidly rising customer expectations, industry convergence and low barriers to entry, our retail clients are looking for end-to-end strategy solutions to navigate this disruption. Through this acquisition, we will be able to offer our clients a powerful combina-tion of services to help shape the trans-formation of the retail sector.”
Donnelly said Accenture’s retail practice is strongest on multichannel functions, particularly around digital. That’s due in part to its acquisition of U.K.-based Javelin Group last year. Tra-ditionally, Accenture has been strong on the operations side and in supply chain matters. “What Kurt Salmon brings is an
even deeper bench in those areas around operations and around merchandising as a core retail function,” Donnelly said.
Founded in 1935, Kurt Salmon has more than 260 employees, with offices in the U.S., Germany, the U.K., Japan and China. Once the acquisition is com-pleted, Kurt Salmon’s employees will join the Accenture Strategy retail indus-try practice. Accenture overall has more than 375,000 people serving clients in 120-plus countries.
“We feel very strongly that there really is a tremendous amount of disruption in the retail marketplace driven by tech-nology and consumer trends,” Donnelly said. He added that the issue for legacy retailers is that “they have to rethink their business.…They need to think about how they organize their stores, the advertising and the logistics. Over the decade we’ve seen rapid change. The rationale for buying Kurt Salmon is that the retailers are looking for people who ‘have been there and done that.’ It’s important to have the industry exper-tise.” ■
BUSINESS
Accenture Signs Deal To Buy Kurt Salmon
● With luxury tourism down, the French luxury-goods trade association strategizes for a rebound.
BY KATYA FOREMAN
Comité Colbert is out to win back the hearts of luxury tourists from Japan and the U.S., with plans to devote the next few years to promoting French art de vivre in those countries.
Paris, the most visited city on earth, stands to lose as much as $1.5 billion in tourist revenues this year. Visits by Jap-anese tourists plummeted 46.2 percent, and Americans by 5.7 percent in the first six months, according to the Paris Regional Tourist Board. It blamed the string of deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and Nice; a spate of strikes in France, and the wettest spring in 150 years.
“Resilience, optimism; the collec-tive mood of our members is that we are determined to bounce back,” said Elisabeth Ponsolle des Portes, president and chief executive officer of the French luxury goods trade association, at a press lunch Wednesday hosted by one of Comité Colbert’s members, the Ritz. “Many of our American and Japanese clients are scared to come to Paris, our aim is to remind them what a wonderful place it is.”
The year 2017 will be dedicated to Japan “through the prism of young cre-ation,” said Guillaume de Seynes, execu-tive vice president of the manufacturing
division and equity investments at Hermès International and chairman of Comité Colbert since June. Initiatives, he added, will include an exhibition in Tokyo in June of works by 50 stu-dents from the Tokyo University of Arts inspired by “Dreaming 2074: A Utopia Created by French Luxury,” a collective bilingual work of literature and music created for the association’s 60th anni-versary in 2014. Three students will then be invited to present their works in Paris next fall. The year 2018 will be dedicated to the U.S., with details to come, while a deeper look into Sub-Saharan Africa — notably Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and South Africa — is also on the cards.
“The past few years have been focused on studying emerging markets; now we’re looking at mature markets, but also markets with strong potential,” said de Seynes.
“Nigeria has a population of 200 million people, a figure that is expected to grow to 500 million by 2050. It will be the third-biggest country in the world,” said Ponsolle des Portes, adding that Comité Colbert members are already active in three sectors there: wine and spirits — with Nigeria the fourth-big-gest consumer of Champagne globally; perfume and cosmetics, and watches. Fashion opportunities still need to be explored. “The African client is extremely discerning but tends to get their clothes made by a tailor, using fabrics they have chosen and adapted to their morphology. The approach is quite different to that of Europe and the
U.S.,” she said recalling the experience of attending Nigeria’s equivalent of the Oscars. “The Nigerian film industry — known as Nollywood — is huge, you should have seen the amazing outfits and hairdos à la Marie Antoinette, it was a show in itself. There is so much going on culturally over there, both in litera-ture, with figures like the young novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote the bestseller ‘Americanah,’ and the arts. Bonhams recently opened an office [in Lagos].”
Comité Colbert, which has an ongoing partnership with the École nationale supérieure des arts appliqués et des métiers, is also looking to other ways to get the next generation interested in the crafts and métiers of its various mem-bers. Founded in 1954 by Jean Jaques Guerlain, the association counts 81 members in fields ranging from fashion and jewelry to hotels and gastronomy, with certain skills tracing back to the Middle Ages.
Comité Colbert is participating in a competition organized by France’s Ministry of Education inviting students from schools across France to produce three-minute videos based on fields of work that interest them. The awards ceremony will be held at the Grand Rex cinema in Paris in May. ■
“Resilience, optimism; the collective mood of our members is that we are determined to bounce back.”
— ELISABETH PONSOLLE DES PORTES, COMITÉ COLBERT
THE MARKETS
Comité Colbert To Promote French Art de Vivre
Ken Worzel
Erik Nordstrom
Blake Nordstrom
The press lunch was held at the Ritz Paris.
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Basically the most beautiful gray box pos-sible inside this most beautiful building. To me, this contrast is very interesting,” Ghesquière said at his vast, sun-drenched office at Vuitton headquarters, with pan-oramic views of the mythic monuments lined up along the Seine. “It’s a great mes-sage about Vuitton, about the history and patrimony represented by that place and also the modernity and innovation we are bringing. So it’s a great symbol.”
Nearly three years into his tenure at Vuitton, Ghesquière seems sanguine and confident at the creative helm of one of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton’s cash cows — so much so that he brushes off lingering speculation about a possible departure like he would a fluff of dark lint on the snowy, “2001: A Space Odyssey” sofa upon which he’s lounging.
Before the summer, Vuitton issued a firm denial of a Reuters report suggesting the October show could be Ghesquière’s swan song, going to the extent of detailing that the French fashion star’s current con-tract runs through the end of 2018.
“LVMH and Louis Vuitton strongly deny what has been said in Reuters. Nicolas Ghesquière’s contract renewal will not happen until end of 2018, so no discussion whatsoever is engaged at this stage,” it said.
During a joint interview with Vuitton chairman and chief executive officer Michael Burke, the designer stressed his commitment and passion for the Vuitton project, while Burke credited Ghesquière with giving the brand a fresh and youthful élan that is gaining commercial traction.
Burke also enumerated a creative pur-view and impact from Ghesquière that is broader than some might think.
“He designed a silhouette, a very clear, strong silhouette, but beyond ready-to-wear, beyond runway, he’s informed literally every nook and cranny of the com-pany, including all categories from shoes to jewelry to leather goods. There’s been an amazing list of bestsellers that germinated from his studio and the rest of the com-pany,” Burke said, mentioning such bags as the Petite Malle, City Steamer and Twist Lock. “That’s the magic — how one studio can inform and irrigate an organization as complex, big and successful as Louis Vuit-ton. That was our joint challenge.”
Indeed, the two men reconfigured Vuitton’s creative structure to erase boundaries between what comes down the runway and the permanent collections. For example, leather goods studios for the two categories were merged.
“That was key. It has to be organic,” Burke said. “It’s not like here is a room of runway goods, and here are the classics or permanents.”
“We broke this boundary between certain kinds of categories: products that are more classic and what was fash-ion,” Ghesquière said, adding that “the resources and the talents are incredible” across the company.
The designer said his next mission is to “dive deeper and deeper into each product category to make sure that the proposition we are doing is respectful of this vision of innovation and tradition.”
“The most important thing is to keep on creating the fusion between the studio and the rest of the house — making sure that that becomes an organic flow of directions, needs and proposals,” Burke concurred.
Wearing tapered Acne Studios jeans and a plain gray T-shirt, Ghesquière spoke candidly about his arrival at Vuitton after making his reputation as a ringleader of fashion experimentation and futurism at the helm of Balenciaga.
He parted ways with the brand, owned by LVMH’s rival luxury group Kering, in November 2012 after a 15-year tenure, landing at the creative helm of Vuitton’s women’s collections a year later.
Recalling his first meeting with Burke; Bernard Arnault, chairman and ceo of LVMH, and Delphine Arnault, sec-ond-in-command at Vuitton, Ghesquière had talked “about how this house is so much about history, craftsmanship, the famous savoir-faire, the French way of doing things and how important it was to preserve that.”
“At the same time, I think they were look-ing for someone who could embrace this tradition and move it forward without com-promising — using this craft, this incredible legacy to do modern things,” he continued.
Ghesquière acknowledged that he had perhaps been pigeon-holed as something of a “niche” designer, given the exacting, couturelike creations he was known for at Balenciaga.
“But maturity has brought me here and they recognize that no one can do without fashion today. It’s very hard for a luxury house to not play the game of fashion,” he said. “They did it brilliantly with Marc Jacobs obviously, and I think with me, they wanted to add to this world of luxury the innovative vision I was known for.”
One of the world’s largest luxury brands, with annual revenues estimated by Citi to reach 9.1 billion euros, or $10.25 billion at current exchange, this year, Vuitton is considered the core of LVMH’s fashion and leather goods division and a linchpin brand of the group, accounting for as much as half of its profits.
Sales at the division fell 1.3 percent to 2.92 billion euros, or $3.3 billion, in the three months ended June 30. In organic terms, sales were up 1 percent, with Vuit-ton considered the star performer.
“No other brand is more exposed to the impact of travel retail shifts than Louis Vuit-ton, and the resilience of its financial per-formance is the best proof of the soundness of its product and distribution strategy,” LVMH chief financial officer Jean-Jacques Guiony said in July, when the results were reported. “As far as the product architec-ture is concerned, we are extremely pleased with the development of Vuitton over the last, I would say, three to four years, and have reinforced in a great way the value content at the various price segments.”
Ghesquière said he finds Vuitton’s enor-mous scale exhilarating.
“It’s a place where you have to be wise
because every decision that you take has very big consequences,” he said. “It’s a brand that is built on success and it’s quite exciting to be a part of it, to see the results your work has.”
The designer’s aim is to propose “a style that is coherent with the brand Vuitton and at the same time, one that has a lot of integrity with my fashion proposition.”
Ghesquière has often tossed out the “wardrobe” word when discussing his collections.
Pressed to talk about his defining silhouette, the designer replied: “It’s hard to describe, but for sure it’s about this mix and contrast between sporty clothes and very high luxury — embroidered pieces, exquisite leather. It’s two sides of the same brand. My role was to bring that together, make it a silhouette and I think that is what I’m doing,” he explained. “It’s still luxurious, very sharp, but there is more freedom and movement, more fluidity, more femininity.”
He makes no apologies for showing bags with almost every runway exit, stressing that it’s not because of some corporate imperative.
“The bags make sense for Louis Vuitton. It’s not that we are making clothes to show bags; we are making a silhouette that includes a bag,” he said. “I designed those bags and I love them so it’s hard not to put the bag on the girl.
“I always enjoyed leather goods but I was doing it differently at a different scale,” he continued, alluding to his Balenciaga days.
As for the term “wardrobe,” Ghesquière said it connotes creating garments that are timeless.
When he arrived at Vuitton, he asked himself: “Which were the pieces that were absolutely necessary for Louis Vuitton? And that does not exclude fashion and very strong pieces.”
For example, the painted leather jackets he did for his manga and digital inspired spring 2016 collection were carried over to become part of the permanent collection.
“Every season, we are adding a few more propositions to the wardrobe, so it’s the challenge of every designer to balance those things: timeless pieces and the wish to have a strong statement; a strong prop-osition for the season. It’s the way I build it,” he explained.
Rtw is carried in all freestanding Vuitton stores — roughly 40 percent of the network of 460 locations that includes men’s cor-ners, accessories corners and leased depart-ments on the ground floor of department
stores, according to Burke, who was unequivocal that the goal is to grow the rtw category. “What we are now building is wardrobing, beyond the runway — taking Nicolas’ style and silhouette and rolling it out across various product categories like knitwear, dresses,
coats, outerwear,” he said.Vuitton made a big statement about
rtw’s importance by starting to stage cruise shows — big-budget productions in exotic locals with striking buildings as a backdrop. The project united Ghesquière’s passion for groovy midcentury architec-ture and Vuitton’s heritage of travel.
“That was a key moment in the calendar where we were absent and when Nicolas came he grabbed that opportunity and filled it,” Burke said.
The otherworldly Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro by Oscar Niemeyer was the backdrop for the most recent cruise show. Burke and Ghesquière said they are hunting for a locale for the cruise 2017 show, with a striking building likely to be part of the geography.
“A world tour of architecture,” Ghesquière said, elaborating on how it inspires him. “I always love to imagine what kind of person can evolve in a differ-ent architecture. It could be modern or very classic.
“I think architecture is pushing creative people to imagine characters, to imagine music, to imagine what is this lifestyle or the scene of a movie you can imagine in the architecture,” he explained. “Archi-tecture has to be functional and make you dream: It’s like fashion, in a way.”
While mystery was part of Balenciaga’s brand personality, Ghesquière has opened up since arriving at Vuitton, firing up an Instagram account that has grown to 500,000 followers and come to include personal episodes — vacations, gym ses-sions — in addition to campaign images, buildings that inspire him and glimpses of the creative process.
“I embrace it, and I like the fact that there is a direct connection with people. There is a certain amount of comments and mes-sages, not always nice,” he said, flashing a knowing smile. “It’s a public mood board of what you want to show more than what you want to say. For the luxury industry, if we don’t use social media, we miss a certain category of audience.”
It was an old-fashioned medium — television — that sparked speculation that Ghesquière’s days at Vuitton could be numbered. When he appeared on talk show “Le Petit Journal” in July, host Yann Barthes flashed a Nicolas Ghesquière logo and coaxed him to specify when he might launch a signature label.
“I said, ‘One day.’ Then he asked, ‘Are you allowed to do it?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And then I said, ‘I will come back one day to tell you.’ That’s what happened — and then a lot of rumors,” he said.
Ghesquière reiterated to WWD that he intends to introduce his own collection “at some point. But I’m not leaving Vuitton for that. For me, the time is coming. I need to do it. Vuitton is an important part of my career, but it is compatible with other projects. Marc has done his brand with Vuitton, too, for 16 years. There are many examples of designers doing both.”
To be sure, he feels “there is still a lot to accomplish in terms of development [at Vuitton.]”
And he accepts that speculation about him comes with the territory.
“When you’re in a position at the biggest luxury brand in the world, I’ve learned to try to be quiet and wise.” ■
Nicolas GhesquièreGhesquière ‘Dives Deep’ Into Vuitton CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Michael Burke
8 SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 9
Holiday retail sales should see a 3.3 to 4 percent increase versus a year ago, according to a new study from AlixPartners.
The results include such categories as apparel and footwear, furniture, electron-ics and appliances, food, beverage, health and personal care, and sporting goods, but excludes motor vehicles, fuel, restau-rants and drinking establishments.
The firm found that recent presidential
election years appear to most adversely impact retail sales in September and Octo-ber, with a bounce back in November and December.
In a survey of 1,008 U.S. consumers from Sept. 8 to 12 about their holiday shopping plans, AlixPartners revealed that 83 percent (and 87 percent of Millennials) expect to spend about the same or more this holiday season versus a year ago. Thirty two percent plan to start holiday shopping earlier this year, 18 percent have already started, and 38 percent will have started before Halloween. The company said that only 8 percent don’t plan to use online sources to research their purchases, and only six percent don’t plan to make online purchases.
Noam Paransky, a director in the firm’s retail practice said, “In the past,
AlixPartners’ methodology has been among the most accurate out there in forecasting holiday sales, including hitting last year’s 2.82 percent increase also right on the nose. This year, we’re anticipating sales that continue to be a bit better than the year before, but still not up to histori-cal, pre-recession standards that much of the industry became used to.”
AlixPartners found that August was only the third time (with the exception of 2008
financial crisis), that sales declined versus July since 1992 (the first year of published data on the U.S. Commerce Department web site). In both prior instances (1993 and 2013), sales growth in the Septem-ber-December period was better than the
January-August period.Paransky told WWD, “Our method is
rooted in a historical analytic framework that goes back five or six years,” he said. He added that 90 percent of full-year sales are very similar and there’s very little deviation. “We extrapolate the full year from that,” he said. When coming up with the retail sales prediction, the best indication is the consumers’ previ-ous year’s activity, rather than what they say they’ll spend for the holiday season, he said.
In the 2012 and 2004 presidential elec-tion years, year-over-year sales growth slowed an average of negative 22 percent in September-October, but bounced back an average of plus 16 percent in November-December, said AlixPartners. Paransky said that often the political messaging overwhelms the consumer and retailers don’t get good placement. “Once the election is decided there’s a bit of a bounce-back effect,” he said.
The company found that 38 percent of consumers said they’re better off than a year ago, and of that group, 52 percent of Millennials said they were “better” or “much better” off. ■
and Lazaro Hernandez, founders and creative directors of Proenza Schouler; Narciso Rodriguez; Maria Cornejo, cre-ative director, and Marysia Woroniecka, founder and president, of Zero + Maria Cornejo; Jeffrey Banks; Barry Kiesel-stein-Cord; Melissa Joy Manning; Keanan Duffty, and Nathalie Doucet, founder of Arts of Fashion Foundation.
The case, Star Athletica LLC v. Varsity Brands Inc., could provide much-needed clarity of design copyright rules, which several of the fashion designers who signed onto the brief have sought to pro-tect and expand.
“They include designers who played key roles in the effort to persuade Con-gress to extend copyright protection to fashion designs or otherwise worked to raise awareness about the issue of intel-lectual property protection and fashion,” Scafidi said. “The intent of the brief is to prevent the opposite result, namely the danger that the Supreme Court might roll back the small amount of copyright pro-tection the fashion industry already has for things like fabric prints and jewelry.”
The quest to expand copyright pro-tections for fashion creations has been elusive in an industry plagued by design piracy. Fashion designers came close to advancing legislation in Congress that sought to put more teeth in copyright pro-tection. Proenza Schouler’s McCollough and Hernandez, Rodriguez and Cornejo all lobbied for the design piracy legisla-tion in 2011 and 2012 but the bill eventu-ally stalled in Congress.
Now they are seeking to hold on to the limited protection they do have and support more clarity for design copyright rules in the courts.
Star Athletica petitioned the high court in January asking the justices to weigh in on the appropriate test to determine when a feature of a “useful article is pro-tectable” under the Copyright Act.
The case stems from the lawsuit filed by Varsity Brands against Star Athletica in 2010, accusing the company of infringing on several copyrighted designs on its cheerleader uniforms.
Star Athletica asserted that Varsity’s
copyrights were invalid because the designs at issue were “unprotectable” designs of useful articles and they were not physically or conceptually separable from the uniforms.
“Despite the all-too-common mischar-acterization of fashion as a sector of the economy wholly outside copyright, the fashion industry itself has an extensive history of using the limited patchwork of available protection to become a global leader in design,” the designers wrote in the brief filed Thursday.
They examined how “U.S. fashion, from emerging designers to established brands, has come to rely on separability as an integral part of its strategy for continued growth.”
“While the question presented in this case concerns the general copyright standard for protecting the separable elements of useful articles, the immediate subject of the dispute — fashion — is one that has long received disparate treatment within copyright law,” they argued in the brief.
The case played out in the lower courts in the different ways. The District Court for the Western District of Tennessee in Memphis ruled in favor of Star Athletica, determining that Varsity’s copyrights were invalid because the design elements were not physically or conceptually separable from the utilitarian function of a cheerleading uniform. The court ruled that the designs were not copyright-able because the “aesthetic features of a cheerleading uniform merge with the functional purpose of the uniform.”
Varsity appealed the decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the lower court’s ruling. The appeals court said the law protects fabric design and not dress design, and ruled
that Varsity’s designs were “more like fabric design than dress design” and therefore protectable.
Scafidi, who was an expert witness for Varsity in the lower court case, has said other courts have laid out nine tests to determine what it means for something to be “conceptually separable” and argued that she does not believe there is a gray area in the case. It is clear that the designs on the front of Varsity’s cheerleader uniforms are conceptually separable and therefore copyrightable, she has asserted.
“As amici can personally attest, the legal protection available to designers and fashion houses — for all its gaps and imperfections — is a significant part of business models and design strategies throughout the industry, and the recog-nition of the applicability of copyright to separable design features for over half a century has been particularly useful,” the brief stated. “Redefining this right such that copyright would not extend even to an easily identifiable two-dimensional design capable of existing in a wide range of media would have a decidedly negative impact on the fashion community, which has come to rely on whatever predictable protection it can find.”
The designer group argued in the brief that the U.S. fashion industry has undergone a major transformation in the past century, noting that the scope and importance of the industry’s creative works and copyright protection extends “far beyond high-priced luxury couture” to sportswear, footwear, accessories, jew-elry, denim, athletic apparel, swimwear, lingerie, bridal and textiles.
“Although protection for fashion designs under U.S. law is limited, one fac-tor contributing to the American fashion industry’s emergence as a global leader was the judicial recognition of copyright protection for certain elements of creative design starting in the 1950s,” the brief stated.
The industry has successfully relied on the “fundamental principles of physical and conceptual separability to persuade courts to recognize copyright protection for certain aspects of fashion design, including textile patterns, bridal lace designs, jewelry and artistic accessories, and separable elements of masks and costumes,” the brief stated.
The Copyright Office also “regularly engages in conceptual separability analy-sis,” according to the brief, and has issued “tens of thousands of registrations related to textiles and fashion.” In 2014 alone, textile designers sought copyright regis-tration of over 4,700 works described as textiles, fabric prints or fabric designs, they stated.
The Sixth Circuit’s opinion noted that the designs in the case are “analogous to the series of copyrightable abstract designs by artist Piet Mondrian that have proven to be capable of replication in a wide array of media. Whether a dress replicates the design of a painting or a painting reproduces the conceptually separable design elements of a dress, the result is the same; the original design is included in the subject matter of copyright,” the designers argued in the brief. “Similarly, the fact that separable designs are capable of having aesthetic or informational utility does not disqualify them from copyright protection — to the contrary, works that embody expressive content are what copyright exists to protect.”
Oral arguments at the Supreme Court have been scheduled for Oct. 31.
The Varsity case is the second high-pro-file lawsuit before the Supreme Court to draw designer involvement. This past summer, designers including Calvin Klein and Paul Smith filed friend of the court briefs in Apple’s 2011 suit against Samsung that alleges the South Korean conglom-erate’s smartphones infringed on the California company’s patented designs for the iPhone. In December 2015, a jury awarded Apple $548 million in the case, an award Samsung is appealing to the Supreme Court. ■
Designers Weigh In On Supreme Court Copyright Case CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
RETAIL
AlixPartners: Holiday Sales Should Spike● Recent presidential election
years appear to most adversely impact retail sales in September and October.
BY LISA LOCKWOOD
“U.S. fashion, from emerging designers to established brands, has come to rely on separability as an integral part of its strategy for continued growth.”
“Once the election is decided, there’s a bit of a bounce-back effect.” — NOAM PARANSKY,
ALIXPARTNERS
Designers used these images in their brief filing to show how artist Piet Mondrian’s design is an example of an original creation that would be included in a copyright.
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 11
The Reviews
FendiAth-leisure on the runway. “Ugh,” you say? Oh, ye of little imagination. You haven’t considered the Fendi way with a rugby stripe. Said Karl Lagerfeld: “Italian Tri-anon.” That’s right, he and Silvia Venturini Fendi took as their spring muse Marie Antoinette, in her carefree country days, before those un-fun revolutionaries ruined everything. As for the “ath” part of the Queen’s leisure, she romped about meadow and vale; she needed something to wear.
It speaks to the specific dynamic of this design duo — who made fairy-tale magic the stuff of haute at the Trevi Fountain in July — that such an inspiration could result in clothes that not only radiated beauty and charm, but did so sans a drop of retro. Nor were they “modern” per se, but rather, the joyful, timeless renderings of a non-linear thought process that romanticized sportiness even as it grounded rococo. The results: oddball perfection.
Much of the collection derived from the Queen’s “famous apron, but light, almost flying,” Lagerfeld said. What from the front looked like lovely, fluid dresses and skirts were open in back and tied at the waist, sometimes over practical underpinnings and sometimes over bloomers shrunken to naughty proportions. Lingerie layered with striped sweaters, sheer scalloped-trimmed shirts and tailored pieces; lavish brocades and gold-painted canvas, with silk stripes, French garden prints and all sorts of filmy fare. Rendered mostly in pastels with a healthy dose of metallic shimmer, it pro-jected an ethereal romance that practically disguised the reality: the wealth of functional clothes — alluring dresses and skirts as well as great jackets and coats, their tailoring girl-ied up with flowered and beribboned extras. There were even 18th-century pantalons, reimagined as big-pocketed utility pants.
As for the accessories, intensely decorated handbags turned studs gentle in ribbon motifs and flashed the latest iterations of those famous Fendi fur charms, now in fanciful flowers. The models wore pyramid studs in their hair and snazzy striped athletic sock-booties with curved heels, because Her Majesty was chic from head to toe. Well, until those un-fun revolutionaries… — Bridget Foley Ph
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PradaMiuccia Prada isn’t so shy after all. You know all those peek-a-boo show bows she’s famous for, the quick blink-and-you-missed-her half-steps from backstage? It turns out, they have nothing to do with reticence or stage fright. Rather, Prada just may not be into going out there to soak up the applause. At least not until after her spring show on Wednesday night, when she proceeded a good way down the runway (the same metal mesh catwalk she used for men’s). She stopped where direc-tor David O. Russell sat with Sinqua Walls, Kuoth Wiel and Jack Huston, the stars of
Russell’s film collaboration with Prada, a snippet of which was screened during the show. Prada stopped and applauded them for several seconds before returning backstage.
A graceful gesture. And appropriate to the sartorial moment, because the graceful gesture is what Prada had on her mind for spring. “I decided I wanted to…do some-thing much more simple [than the recent past collections], and kind of trying to find a new way of elegance,” she said backstage. “Elegance sounds [like] an old-fashioned word, but also [stands] for something meaningful, cultivated….We need at this moment something personal, intimate, real,
more sensitive somehow.”That quest culminated in a breathtaking
collection, one in which she de-blahed the classics with all the power of her potent Pra-da-ness. Tank, trench, cardigan, plaid shirt, pajamas, baseball jacket, wrap skirt, and on and on, even the polite pinup two-piece swimsuit of yore: Prada rethought them in a manner that had nothing to do with styling over substance or staging shenanigans, movie aside. (In fact, at this double feature, you had to choose one, film or runway. Divided attention would have shortchanged both.) A major motif was the incongruous application of marabou feathers to much of the above, whether as cuffs on pajamas (tops
and bottoms trimmed in different colors); a floating panel down the length of a skirt, or a boa dangling at the wrists of a shirt/sweater/skirt trio. Otherwise, Prada layered discor-dant pieces and prints and made subtle tweaks of silhouette, buttoning a trench off to the side and exaggerating a baseball jacket into a couture-like sac in back.
Personal and intimate, as per the design-er’s stated ambition — definitely. But in this age of equality run amok (fashion equality, folks; the rest is fine), Prada’s masterful invocation of basics to create fashion proved that, in the big picture, a fashion hierarchy still exists. The view of the top is pretty great. — Bridget Foley
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Max MaraKnown for its gold-standard winter coats, Max Mara moved to a “chicka-boom beat” for spring — often a challenging season for the powerhouse brand.
That was again the case. This was an uneven and sometimes noisy collection with its large-scale prints of palm fronds, and the grassy textures that echoed the greenery climbing the backdrop and growing out of the concrete runway. The finale of colorful novelty sweaters should have been cute with their lemur motifs, but their mossy textures dampened their charm.
The design team was enamored with Lina Bo Bardi, an Italian-born Brazilian architect known for her modernist build-ings, timeless furniture and association with the Tropicália cultural movement of the Sixties.
The jungle prints were an ode to how she incorporated rainforest greenery into buildings, and the black-and-white versions that opened the show were carved into pencil skirts, bustier jumpsuits and taut bomber jackets — among the key silhouettes in the show.
The sporty elements were the most fetching in a post-Rio Olympics, ath-leisure way. Hooded windbreakers and jaunty berets gave an active aspect to cocooning double-face coats or zippered vests. Bomb-ers and blousons outnumbered tailored jackets and topped jumpsuits with pant legs cinched at the bottom with elastics.
Patchworks of suede and whipstitching on handbags were winks to Bo Bardi’s furniture, and fed the show’s earthy, out-doorsy vibe. — Miles Socha
MoschinoJeremy Scott knows well the value of the two-dimensional. His Insta-fodder collec-tions for Moschino have been a lightning rod for fashion in its current state of dis-ruption, wherein clothes are immediately consumed through the lens of an iPhone, even by those who were there to view the runway in the flesh. Choosing the quaint 2-D prettiness of paper dolls as his spring ruse could be interpreted as a sly cultural commentary, although Scott would never cop to something so cynical. He celebrates the superficial with a smile, not a sneer.
“Actually I had been sitting on the idea for a few years,” said Scott, standing in front of a board of show looks, which looked convincingly tacked with photos of paper dolls. “I got so inspired by how to twist an evening dress. Then I was looking through my notebook and was, like, ‘Oh hey, that idea was good.’” He built from the undies up, opening with a long dress with a trompe l’oeil print of a body in a bra in panties, then adding on a skirt, and a polka dot blouse with paper tabs, creating a throwback wink at a Franco Moschino day-time wardrobe. What looked like a blouse and cardigan belted over a skirt with pearls was an optical illusion of a one-piece dress. A classic trench was an illustration printed with a belt, collar and creases.
The lineup amused, particularly a one-piece swimsuit printed to look like a bikini, complete with anatomical midriff acces-sorized with a paper-doll face-framing sunhat, beach towel and camera. Head-on, it truly tricked the eye. The eveningwear parade of cardboard-cutout, old-school pageant gowns with stiff skirts that jutted off the hips, their ruffles printed on, and jewels cut out of flat Neoprene, were festive and funny, but — no pun intended, really — felt a little flat. That’s the reality of life in a two-dimensional world.
Midway through the show came a series
of pill-themed outfits — dresses doctored up with pills; a handbag that looked like a prescription bottle that was part of Scott’s see-now-buy-now capsule (get it?) collec-tion, which he conveniently filed under a “Valley of the Dolls” sidebar. The trend has taken hold in a major way this season, in part thanks to Scott, who was early to it, selling McDonald’s iPhone cases and Barbie T-shirts immediately after the show since his arrival at Moschino. Even he sometimes feels hemmed in by the appe-tite for the immediate he’s willfully stoked. The capsule collection and paper dolls
Max Mara
Moschino
were two different ideas happily and almost coincidentally united by the title of the famous Jacqueline Susann novel. “I was happy to find a link that made sense,” said Scott, noting that the buy-now cap-sule can’t cannibalize the full runway col-lection. “I’m straddling two worlds, so I have to protect one world as well as participate in the one that I basically created….It’s interesting. Sometimes it’s like, ‘Why did I do this? It’s my own fault’ and then you’re like, ‘Val-ley of the Dolls’ and you’re happy again.” — Jessica Iredale
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Emilio PucciJust over a year into his role as cre-ative director for Emilio Pucci, Massimo Giorgetti is still working out his vision for the house. As with any iconic brand seeking a major reboot, the pressure is on to do something fresh and relevant with a powerful archive. Giorgetti has clearly decided on a more youth- and contempo-rary-driven collection, which is an attrac-tive yet crowded position in the market. He’s dialed down the sultry sex appeal of his predecessor in favor of something sporty and simplified; now he has to make it distinct and he seems reluctant to rely totally on Pucci prints.
A lesser-known staple from the Pucci of yore is jersey. “There is a big experiment, a big challenge to move the iconic Pucci jersey dress into 2016,” Giorgetti said backstage, pointing to the opening range of draped jersey dresses in original Pucci brights: electric yellow, pink, red, blue and black. The silhouettes were midlength and modest with long sleeves and high necks. Some were layered with swimsuits in con-trast colors and all pushed a striking color story that felt strong and current, even if jersey isn’t the most “now” of fabrics. Giorgetti’s pattern work came blown up on shirtdress embellished with simple knots and more impressively as wavy intarsias and knits on cropped tops and skirts, some shown with wacky raffia hats pulled down over the eyes. The impulse to offset big color and graphics with digestible shapes was easy to understand — maybe too easy. Giorgetti needs to focus on developing a sharp signature. — Jessica Iredale
Philipp PleinPhilipp Plein’s mammoth carnival set had at all: a swing ride as the centerpiece of a Willy Wonka village populated with a giant garden gnome, balloon dog and pink flamingo — not to mention the hunky milkmen and shirtless muscle men soaping down a two-tone Chevy.
As hundreds of guests filed in, it was one giant technicolor selfie station with endless backdrops: dotted mushrooms, outsize flowers, ice cream van and candy-hut-turned-vodka bar.
Finally, a giant boombox lording over Plein-land released its cargo: Fergie, hair pointing up in a ponytail, crooning in a low-slung car. Now the fashion-tainment could begin.
The clothes, as subtle as an ambulance, were sometimes little more than a handful of gold chains swinging over a bare torso and a loincloth of lapping metal mesh. Chains were the big motif — on slinky gowns and skin-tight denim — and got those lugs in a lather. There were trucker hats and sneakers laden with hardware and logos for tomboy types, and some gleaming animal print jackets and decent bombers that will find their way into maga-zine editorials.
By the time Paris Hilton made her way round to the Chevy, the foam and flexing reached a fever pitch.
But wait, there’s more! All the models mounted the chairs for a swinging finale as Fat Joe rapped, “All the Way Up,” circling the village in a vintage Corvette. And then Plein took to the mic to reveal that this was his last show in Milan and that he would be moving the spectacle to New York Fashion Week next season. Many in the crowd, dressed to the nines for the after party, let out a moan.
Oh, well. At least the memory of the night will live on in advertising. Word has it Fergie is to appear in Plein’s spring cam-paign, lensed earlier this week by Steven Klein. — Miles Socha
Emilio Pucci
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Luisa Beccaria Luisa Beccaria has a lock on the retro romantic aesthetic, but her spring collec-tion showed how vintage looks could be made relevant for the here and now. Mod-els swept through the loggia of a 16th-cen-tury monastery in outfits in delicate pastel shades inspired by Monet’s Water Lilies.
Beccaria and her daughter Lucilla Bonaccorsi used shirting fabrics to give dresses a crisp, tailored feel. A Fifties-style sundress and tailored dungarees with a ruffle trim were both charming and emi-nently wearable. Ditto the outfits in cham-bray linen with eyelet details, including a terrific belted shirtdress.
In fact, it could be argued that daywear was the real star of the show. Raw linen was used as a backdrop for dense pink floral embroidery, which crawled over everything from a three-quarter sleeve coat to a prim dress or a Seventies-style pantsuit. It also covered the sheer shirts and skirts worn underneath, for an effect that was both opulent and light.
Eveningwear, by contrast, held fewer surprises, though the lineup included some lovely propositions, such as a plunge-neck dressing gown-style dress embroidered with large periwinkles. On the whole, though, these creations, while tasteful, felt a little generic. — Joelle Diderich
Ports 1961 Ports 1961’s spring collection was an ode to summertime joy. Breezy, relaxed silhouettes, bright tones, stripes as well as fresh cotton fabrics, all conveyed a sense of cheerfulness. “I wanted to communicate the positive feel of summer holidays,”
said creative director Natasa Cagalj, who injected a playful feel into the lineup.
The oversize striped shirts — mostly deconstructed and featuring sharp cuts — were matched with roomy pants and had a lighthearted vibe. Striped shirting fabrics were also worked into skirts with origamilike pleats, as well as dresses, including an off-the-shoulder style layered over slim trousers in the same pattern. A vivid, multicolor floral print was splashed on T-shirt dresses and separates cut in comfortable silhouettes.
The collection veered from bright tones and prints to more sober and darker hues of blue and black, which were combined on a range of elegant pieces, injected with an urban sophistication. These included a knit tank top worn with a pencil skirt dec-orated with tiny mirrors, as well a slightly shiny pajamalike suit. — Alessandra Turra
Genny If Genny is ever going to have the come-back its parent company Swinger Interna-tional is gunning for, it needs to consider a new direction. Sara Cavazza Facchini’s spring collection, designed with “elegant and feminine women with audacious brave hearts” and Robert Mapplethorpe lilies in
mind, was filled with iridescent fabrics in ivory, lavender and silver cut into pieces that looked like Facchini’s girlhood fantasy of what she would wear to a fancy party when she grew up. In reality, you had to wonder where a modern woman would go in a shiny halter jumpsuit with flared legs and an embroidered bib, or another jumpsuit with cutout shoulders, bell sleeves and a silver hardware harness; or a strapless white mini with a side ruffle over pants that were sheer through the leg with solid cuffs. An audacious, brave heart was required. — Jessica Iredale
Les Copains Life is a journey and why not take it in style? Les Copains’ creative director Ste-fania Bandiera embraced an adventurous mood for spring, delivering a wardrobe for chic globe-trotters. Safari looks were a major inspiration, translating into a khaki jumpsuit and a pretty dress decorated with utility pockets and cinched at the waist with a corsetlike leather belt.
The cotton knits were cut loose, layered over crochet triangle bras and paired with fluid pants and asymmetric skirts. Cross-body leather bags worn with some of the looks enhanced this practical yet chic attitude.
While she kicked off the show with these decidedly modern, feminine-with-a-mascu-line-influence looks, Bandiera then indulged in a more obvious romanticism with a range of embroidered organza dresses and ruffled pieces, which were less convincing and a tad out of context. — A.T.
Anteprima“Against Fragility,” read the invitation to Izumi Ogino’s Anteprima show. The designer channeled the rebellious spirit of Fifties-era London Teddy Girls for her spring collection, which blended slip-dresses and skirts with items borrowed from men’s closets.
Crop-haired model Kris Gottschalk set the tone, opening the show in a fluid black dress set off with white piping, worn under a black leather bomber jacket printed with blue polka dots. The pattern was a recurring theme, appearing as a print on separates or as larger circles woven into a filmy black knit dress or cardigan coat.
Quiffs and silver hoop earrings gave the models a tough-girl attitude, but the skirts here far outnumbered pants. They came either slim and fluted or in a Fifties-style circle cut, often paired with elongated polo shirts or variations on varsity jackets and sweaters, adorned with the letter A.
“A is for the alpha female — feminin-ity as strength, and never a weakness,” explained the show notes. These looks weren’t for powerful women seeking to broadcast their status, but rather for that stealthy girl who is the leader of the pack. — J.D.
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New York Philharmonic Gala’s Opening NightJosh Groban, Lola Kirke and others attended the symphony orchestra’s performance on Wednesday, when it returned for its 175th year.
On Wednesday night at Lincoln Center, while one man in street clothes pushed his upright bass into a back entrance of David Geffen Hall, a procession of suits and ladies in gowns were making their way down the red carpet. The crowds had come out to celebrate the opening night of the New York Philharmonic, which also featured the Philhar-monic debut of jazz pianist Aaron Diehl.
“I don’t think I’ve gone to the symphony for a very long time — I’m excited to be going tonight,” said Bernadette Peters, who’d come draped in an emerald Zac Posen gown. The state-ment wasn’t exactly true — the
actress has spent time at the fictitious New York Symphony in Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle” series. “We were invited because Alan Gilbert was on the show,” she added before her costar Lola Kirke joined her inside the theater.
While Wednesday night’s gala performance opened the season, it also marked the be-ginning of the end of Gilbert’s tenure as music director of the Philharmonic; he will step down from the post in 2017.
“It’s an opportunity to say goodbye — or ‘great last season’ — to my friend Alan Gil-bert,” remarked Josh Groban. “It’s not often I get to actually come to an institution like this,
to celebrate one of the great institutions of the city.”
While the New York Philhar-monic tends to attract an older audience, Groban recalled a
memorable moment from his time attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts summer camp.
“I’ll never forget the World
Memo PadFashion Scoops
Bernadette Peters and Lola Kirke
Real Estate BubbleThere were press reports on Thursday that Pierre Cardin’s Bubble Palace, which is for sale, is Europe’s most expensive home, with an asking price of about $456 million.
But the reports were wrong — even though the house still isn’t cheap.
“The sale price that Mr. Car-din is asking for it is 300 million euros [or $335 million at current exchange],” said Michaël Zingraf, founder of the namesake real estate agency in Cannes, France, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate for the south of France. He has had the sale contract for roughly two years.
“It’s a sculpture; as well as Pi-casso’s ‘Boy With a Pipe [Garçon à la Pipe],’” Zingraf said. “It’s a masterpiece. It’s for an architec-ture lover.” (Zingraf also has had for two and a half months the sale contract for Johnny Depp’s estate in Le Plan-de-la-Tour, south of France.)
While there’s no denying that the asking price for the Bubble Palace is one of the highest price in Europe, others have a higher value, according to Zingraf. Villa La Leopolda, in Villefranche-sur-Mer, also on the French Riviera, is known to be one of them — although its price couldn’t be learned.
Cardin declined to comment on Thursday. The 94-year-old designer was on his way to the Château du Marquis de Sade in Lacoste in the south of France. “Mr. Cardin bought it in 2001. He tends to go there instead now,” a Cardin spokesman explained.
The Bubble House was the set for a Pierre Cardin show in October 2008 and more recently for the Dior show by Raf Simons for the cruise 2016 season. (Scenes of “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” were also shot there.)
The Bubble Palace, a con-ceptual house conceived by Hungarian architect Antti Lovag, is famed for its Space Age appearance and vistas of the Riviera coastline through circular windows and portals located in Théoule-sur-Mer, near Cannes. The fantastical, cave-
like structure was constructed between 1975 and 1989. The connecting bubbles represent one room each. Cardin, who purchased the palace in 1992, has described the Palais Bulles complex as “something of a gallery of living art” and a retreat tantamount to “a little corner of paradise.”“Round shapes have always inspired me,” said the designer, who created the iconic bubble dress in 1958, also comparing the house to a woman’s body — “everything is absolutely sensual.” — LAURE GUILBAULT
A Moment In FilmAt the Prada show, the curtain was lifted on the short film “Past Forward,” a collaboration between Miuccia Prada and director David O. Russell, and the movie’s actors. And for the first time in recent memory, the designer walked a portion of the runway at the end of the show. After taking her bow, she turned in the direction of Russell and the film’s actors Sinqua Walls, Kuoth Wiel and Jack Huston.
“I just finished filming ‘Above Suspicion’ with Emilia Clarke and I am now focusing on my work as a producer,” said Huston, who appears in the recently released “Ben Hur.” Any time off for the busy actor? “Just being in Milan is a holiday,” he said.A portion of the black and white, 18-minute surreal film debuted on a multiscreen installation during Prada’s show on Thurs-day. The American filmmaker is known for “Silver Linings Play-book” and “American Hustle,” among others. — LUISA ZARGANI
Style Council“I was on holiday and they sent me an e-mail,” said repeat hon-oree Anh Duong on Wednesday evening from the fourth floor of Saks Fifth Avenue. The artist was one of the 2016 selections for Vanity Fair’s annual Best Dressed list who were being toasted with a cocktail party at the retailer’s flagship. First-tim-ers and alums alike mingled
about, musing on how their daily attire earned them the recog-nition.
“This is the second time I’ve been on the list — the first was right before Eleanor Lambert passed away,” Duong continued. “I always paid attention to the list, because I love fashion.” As for her estimation of how she ended up on the list? “I don’t feel like I have a style — I just dress how I dress. I wear whatever I’m in the mood for,” she said. “I have close relationships with many designers. I’m not a good shopper — I don’t like to go into stores,” she added — a statement that no doubt didn’t endear her to the owners of the store she was standing in.
Leona Lewis clearly absorbed the trendiness of dogs at NYFW, and posed with a fluffy pooch, before the animal broke free and scurried about the fourth floor. Diane Kruger arrived on the arm of Jason Wu, while the likes of Monica Lewinsky, Chimamanda Adichie, Victor Cruz, Olivia Chan-tecaille and Georgina Chapman — as well as the occasional Real Housewife, for contrast’s sake — milled about between racks of Narciso Rodriguez and Marc Jacobs.
Cruz, also on the list, arrived in a Todd Snyder suit and listed many fellow athletes among his personal best-dressed list. “I think Rihanna has amazing style, Ronnie Five, Tom Brady, LeBron James...I think of Beyoncé, I think of Justine Skye, all these differ-ent people. But those people are really doing it right.”Those who truly have an effortless time looking Vanity Fair-ready proved at a loss for how to describe such a distinction. “I really think being well-dressed doesn’t come from the garments you pick; it’s really how you feel within yourself,” Chapman offered for her rules for style (which probably include wearing lots of the Marchesa line she designs). She’d stopped by the party dressed for the Magic Bus gala with her mother in tow, whom she cited as a style inspiration. “My mom’s always been an incredible dresser...Mummy can’t hear me,” she said, before turning to her mother. “I’m giving you a compliment!” — LEIGH NORDSTROM
Going For A Bus RideNew York’s fashion elite is finally at ease. After passing the torch on to London and now Milan, the ones who remained Stateside are finding peace, relaxation and time for charita-ble efforts. Oh, and a good body scrub.
“A lot of sleep and a haircut,” Cameron Silver said while de-scribing his post-fashion week rituals. “And a real good body scrub because it was hot and humid. Major exfoliation.”
The H by Halston and H Halston fashion director attend-ed Magic Bus’ second annual gala on Wednesday night. The event, held at Three Sixty in TriBeCa, featured a vocal per-formance, a mentalist and a live auction, the proceeds of which went toward Magic Bus’ mis-sion: to empower impoverished children, especially young girls, in India through education.
“New York Fashion Week should be called ‘New York Friend Week’ because the only shows I really went to were with people whom I have a real relationship,” Silver said. “It’s our back-to-school.”
Georgina Chapman might not have indulged in body scrubs af-ter Marchesa’s show last week, but she did find a way to relax — she’s been spending time with her family and kids. But for her, there’s still work to be done.
“Bridal Week is in two weeks, so it’s right into that,” Chapman said. “Keren [Craig] and I love doing bridal. It’s such a romantic time and it lends itself very well to our aesthetic and what we do. I think [the collection is] just going to be quintessentially Marchesa: very ethereal, very light, florals, laces.”
Chapman is a big supporter of Magic Bus and its founder, Matthew Spacie. “Matthew is one of the most energetic people I’ve ever met and when he first came to my studios talking about the work he did, I was captivated by his approach,” she said. “The volume of people he manages to help in such an incredible way, the fact that it’s really sustain-able. A very little amount of money goes very, very far with him.” — ALEXA TIETJEN
Made To ShineFurthering its efforts to break stereotypes of plus-size women, Lane Bryant will on Monday launch a fall ad campaign titled “This Body Is Made to Shine.”
“With previous campaigns we’ve helped disrupt the dated and ridiculous views and depic-tions of the ‘perfect’ body dis-played in the media. With ‘#This-Body Is Made to Shine’ we intend to encourage women to embrace even more positivity and turn the tables on negativity in order to overcome social misconceptions,” said Linda Heasley, president and chief executive officer of Lane Bryant, the chain specializing in fashion for women sizes 14 to 28.
The campaign centers around photographs and videos shot by photographer Cass Bird. They include actors Gabourey Sidibe of the movie “Precious” and Danielle Brooks of “Orange is the New Black,” and models Ashley Graham, Candice Huffine and Alessandra Garcia.
The campaign also tackles negativity by exposing undesir-able conversations on social media as well as running feisty responses from the models to de-pict “how women shine through.” For example, there is a quote from social media, “You ruined Sports Illustrated!” To which Graham, who appeared in the SI swimsuit issue,
replies, “The way I see it, I made it better forever.”
Another quote from social media says, “Big is not beautiful,” to which Brooks responds, “Have you lost your mind? Big is always beautiful!”
Another quote from social media says, “Did you see those rolls?” to which Huffine responds, “Welcome to the bakery, honey!”
Lane Bryant intends to “spot-light what it means for women to unapologetically celebrate themselves in spite of any adverse feelings or feedback,” the company said.
Earlier this year, Lane Bryant drew a lot of attention with its “This Body” campaign, which encourages women to own what they have and feel empowered.
The latest campaign will be vis-ible in Lane Bryant’s stores, digital and social media channels, as well as on billboards, in cinemas, mag-azines and through partnerships with Refinery 29 and Glamour.“With the steady rise of social me-dia also comes the scrutiny wom-en face on a daily basis — both in a positive and negative light,” said Brian Beitler, Lane Bryant’s chief marketing officer. “‘This Body Is Made to Shine’ aims to strip away the adversity experienced and show all women that it is possible to continue to shine despite what anyone has to say. The women in this campaign shut down their naysayers and do what’s right for them.” — DAVID MOIN
Youth Symphony Orchestra,” Groban said, reminiscing about when the camp’s ensemble was led by a guest conductor from the Detroit Symphony. “They did [Gus-tav] Holst’s ‘The Planets.’ It was absolutely incredible. I remember us going back to our cabins that night, and we had friends that were in that orchestra that were sleeping in the bunk beds, and we were like ‘Man, that flute — you crushed it on the flute tonight,’” he continued. “I’ve been to some great orchestra since then, but that one stands out.”
Before making his entrance onstage to conduct the night’s program, Gilbert also recalled a seminal experience from his youth.
“From the time I was really young, I was going to concerts because my parents were in the orchestra,” Gilbert said. “But I do remember the first concert I went to where somebody did not talk, because I’d always been to children’s concerts when they announce the piec-es. Suddenly, it felt very grown up and very formal. And that was a striking moment — may-be that’s one of the reasons I like to speak very often during concerts these days.”
Based on the crowd’s reception that night, after eight seasons they are still interest-ed in what Gilbert has to say — and are eager to hear where he will go next. — KRISTEN TAUER
Ashley Graham in Lane Bryant’s fall
campaign.
