WWDThat seductive combo got Michael Kors thinking for pre-fall. At his showroom on Monday, the designer couldn’t contain his enthusiasm for Scarlett Johansson’s upcoming Broadway turn in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” “Scarlett takes me to Elizabeth Taylor, which takes me to Ava Gardner, and to Madonna,” he said. “It’s the idea of sugar and spice.” To wit: Kors’ ladylike lace skirt topped with a tough leather moto jacket. For more on Kors’ collection, see wwd.com/fashion-news. For more pre-fall, see page 4.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012 WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY $3.00

PHOTO BY JOHN AQUINO

TAKES DESIGN REINS

Wang Gets to WorkRemaking Balenciaga

By MILES SOCHA

PARIS — Alexander Wang, who started this week as Balenciaga’s new creative director, didn’t waste any time requesting a look at the French house’s rich fashion archive.

“‘Immediately,’ he said, ‘I want to see the archives. I want to understand the culture behind the brand,’” said Isabelle Guichot, chief executive officer of Balenciaga, which revealed Wang’s appointment on Monday, confi rming a report in WWD on Friday. “He could have slept there almost.”

On Monday, Wang was busy shooting his pre-fall look books at a studio space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so chosen because it could accommodate his mirror and plywood staircase set. When asked about Balenciaga, Wang demurred, saying only, “We’re still fi guring things out.”

The focus was on his own collection, which was built around the idea of “blurriness and mélange,” an antidote to last season’s precise, linear look. As usual he avoided color, working primarily in black, white and gray with a smattering of brown and “amaretto.” There were tailored jackets, vests and pants but the collection had a softer edge that was still quite sporty. Scarf dresses came in suede and sueded jersey, while other tops and dresses were inspired by athletes’ jer-seys. Sweatshirts were also a big motif, in tweeds, in-tarsias and jacquard.

When a guest remarked that one might fi nd a hint of Balenciaga in the egg-shaped line of one printed silk sweatshirt, Wang only smiled.

But his appreciation for, and curiosity about, Balenciaga’s heritage was among the qualities that helped him win the post at one of Paris’ most storied and — in recent years — directional houses.

An ability to project the brand into a new stage of development, bring additional modernity, and understand the “technical culture” and craftsman-ship of the house were among other criteria Guichot

SEE PAGE 8

L.A. Ports Strike Drags On

SEE PAGE 6

By MARCY MEDINA

LOS ANGELES — As the strike at the nation’s busi-est ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached day six on Monday, the current and projected economic impact weighed on those in the industry.

With operations at 10 of the 14 cargo container ter-minals shut down, about a dozen container ships sat off-shore over the weekend, unable to unload or load cargo. Another 10 ships were scheduled to arrive Monday.

Each ship carries about fi ve warehouses’ worth of goods. Based on last year’s estimates, about $1 billion a day in freight normally moves through the ports at this time of year. Last year, the two ports handled about 40 percent of the total value of all cargo con-tainer imports entering the U.S.

Apart from the impact on national retail, the strike is considered potentially disastrous for the Southern California economy because the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are crucial to the re-gion’s trucking and transport industry, which em-ploys about 595,000 people.

Economists have placed the impact at about $1 bil-lion a day in forfeited worker pay, missing revenue for truckers and other businesses, and the value of the cargo that has been diverted to other ports includ-ing Oakland, Calif.; Mexico, and the Panama Canal.

Others believe the fi gure is infl ated and caution that the immediate impact on the retail industry could be manageable.

“The immediate impact should be minor if it lasts only a week. Of course, it’s a negative to lose port- and transportation-related wages each day, but in terms of

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ALL CHANGE

UNITED PARTIES

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG UNVEILS A NEW STORE LOOK IN LAS VEGAS. PAGE 3

THE WASHINGTON SOCIAL SCENE SHOWED THAT POLITICS DON’T HAVE TO STAND IN THE WAY OF A GOOD CELEBRATION.

PAGE 11

2 WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

Retail, Real Estate Opportunities Seen at ICSC

Dolce, Gabbana Lawyer Seeks Dismissal

CORRECTION

Emerald and yellow diamond rings from de Grisogono were incorrectly captioned on page 10, Monday.

Alexander Wang, who started this week as Balenciaga’s new creative director, didn’t waste any time requesting a look at the French house’s rich fashion archive. PAGE 1 As the strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reached day six on Monday, the current and projected economic impact weighed on those in the industry. PAGE 1 Dior Homme continued its retail expansion by opening a new store in Miami’s Design District on Saturday. PAGE 3 Fashion followers of the Duchess of Cambridge will have to watch her style adapt over the next seven months or so: the duchess is pregnant. PAGE 4 Events put on by each of the political parties highlighted the social calender in Washington this past week. PAGE 9 Rupert Murdoch on Monday confirmed the death of the Daily, his nearly two-year-old iPad magazine. PAGE 9

ON WWD.COM

THE BRIEFING BOXIN TODAY’S WWD

Zoe Colivas

MODEL CALL: From her enviable brows to a wise-beyond-her-years eloquence, it’s easy to see what puts Zoe Colivas in such high demand. For more, see WWD.com/eye.

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TO E-MAIL REPORTERS AND EDITORS AT WWD, THE ADDRESS IS FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME@FAIRCHILDFASHION.COM, USING THE INDIVIDUAL’S NAME. WWD IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2012 FAIRCHILD FASHION MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.VOLUME 204, NO. 115. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012. WWD (ISSN 0149–5380) is published daily (except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, with one additional issue in May, June, October and December, and two additional issues in February, March, April, August, September and November) by Fairchild Fashion Media, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Shared Services provided by Condé Nast: S.I. Newhouse, Jr., Chairman; Charles H. Townsend, Chief Executive Officer; Robert A. Sauerberg Jr., President; John W. Bellando, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer; Jill Bright, Chief Administrative Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 886549096-RT0001. Canada Post: return undeliverable Canadian addresses to P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill, ON L4B 4R6. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, P.O. Box 15008, North Hollywood, CA 91615 5008. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to WWD, P.O. Box 15008, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5008, call 800-289-0273, or visit www.subnow.com/wd. Please give both new and old addresses as printed on most recent label. For New York Hand Delivery Service address changes or inquiries, please contact Mitchell’s NY at 1-800-662-2275, option 7. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your subscription term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable, you are ever dissatisfied with your subscription, let us know. You will receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. For permissions requests, please call 212-630-5656 or fax the request to 212-630-5883. For all request for reprints of articles please contact The YGS Group at condenast@theygsgroup.com, or call 800-501-9571. Visit us online at www.wwd.com. To subscribe to other Fairchild Fashion Media magazines on the World Wide Web, visit www.fairchildpub.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 15008, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5008 or call 800-289-0273. WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IN WRITING. MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND OTHER MATERIALS SUBMITTED MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE.

By LUISA ZARGANI

MILAN — A lawyer acting for Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana on Monday asked a judge here to dismiss tax evasion charg-es against the designers and sev-eral of their business associates.

The designers’ lawyer, Massimo Dinoia, asked judge Antonella Brambilla to overrule all the ju-dicial documents and procedures against the designers, who are charged with omitted and unfaith-ful earnings declarations. Dinoia was speaking for the lawyers of the other defendants, as well.

The request was made during the first hearing of the trial in a Milan courthouse. None of the defendants attended.

Prosecutors Laura Pedio and Gaetano Ruta rejected all the ob-jections made by Dinoia.

Brambilla will hand down a decision on Dec. 14 on Dinoia’s objections.

Among the exceptions, Dinoia cited files that were deposited tardily and “a totally revolutionary overturning of the charges,” referring to the lat-est charges in the case. While the accusations first hinged on fraud, now they revolve around omission of tax declaration, the lawyer contended. The de-signers were originally absolved of the claims by a lower court in April 2011, but the Italian Supreme Court in November overturned that decision, saying that tax avoidance, or tax mitigation, on an earnings declaration is a criminal offense under the law.

Following investigations that began in 2008, ini-tiated by the Guardia di Finanza, an Italian police force under the authority of the national minister of economy and finance, both designers were charged with alleged tax evasion totaling 416 million euros, or $540 million at current exchange, related to the

2004 sale of the Dolce & Gabbana and D&G brands to the design-ers’ Luxembourg-based holding company, Gado Srl. The Italian tax police reportedly consider Gado essentially a legal entity used to avoid higher corporate taxes in Italy.

A separate criminal probe into supposed tax irregularities at the Dolce & Gabbana Group was part of the case dismissed in April. Those accusations address un-paid taxes of 200 million euros, or $258.7 million.

In a speech delivered calmly yet firmly, Dinoia said Gado was first seen as a “simulated screen,” but now the two designers were being considered the “economic beneficiaries” of that firm.

The lawyer said the accusa-tions are unclear, citing “ineffable fogginess of the charges. We are entirely in the dark. All that has been netted has been declared.”

Ruta replied that the accusations were “modified as per the guidelines underscored by the Supreme Court” and that there was “no absolute overturning or new and additional facts.”

Following the hearing, lawyer Fabio Cagnola who, together with Giuseppe Bana, is defending the designers’ accountant Luciano Patelli, explained that if the judge grants the defendants’ requests to dismiss the case, it will return to the hands of the prosecutors to see if they want to reformulate it.

In April 2011, deeming there was no foundation for a trial, judge Simone Luerti dismissed the charg-es against Dolce and Gabbana and five other defen-dants, including Dolce’s brother and board member, Alfonso Dolce, and managing director and board member Cristiana Ruella. Milan-based prosecutor Laura Pedio appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued its ruling after about six months.

By JEAN E. PALMIERI

NEW YORK — With the U.S. economy still sputter-ing, the global landscape in disarray and property values and interest rates at historically low levels, now is the time to invest in retail and real estate. That was the message delivered at the opening session of the International Council of Shopping Center’s national conference and deal-making con-vention here Monday morning.

Jonathan Gray, global head of real estate for The Blackstone Group, said that while conventional wis-dom may be urging caution, conventional wisdom is often wrong. He said retail rents are headed higher since the recession led to lower supply of shopping centers and building costs are low, so there’s a payoff in the future for those willing to take the plunge.

Richard Baker, governor and chairman of Hudson’s Bay Co., and chief executive officer of Lord & Taylor, agreed. He said over the next five years, his company will spend $1 billion reinvesting in its businesses to position them for growth.

Baker said that when his real estate company, NRDC Equity Partners, purchased Hudson’s Bay and Lord & Taylor in 2008, he initially viewed it as a “real estate deal.” But once the growth prospects became visible, he realized it was “an operating company deal.”

HBC, which went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange last week, is the oldest retailer in the world, established in 1670, and has virtually no competition in the Canadian department store mar-ket, he said. However, the stores had posted flat to declining sales for more than 20 years before the NRDC acquisition. They were poorly merchandised and highly promotional and “not very exciting,” he said. But the new team revitalized the business by adding new brands and revamping the floors, and sales have risen 15 percent over the past three years.

He said the 90-plus Bay stores had not been up-dated since they were built and departments had not been “right-sized.” For instance, the store in Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Center had devoted 56,000 square feet to furniture, electronics and appli-ances, but the new team downsized those categories to 25,000 square feet and lost no volume. The extra space was devoted in part to women’s and men’s shoes and contemporary fashion and 14,000 square feet were given over to Topshop and Topman. HBC is the exclusive retailer of that popular product in

Canada. Since Topshop opened 14 months ago, sales increased to $750 a square foot from $200, he re-vealed. Two additional Topshop units opened after that, each one larger than Yorkdale, and sales volume is even higher, he said, without providing numbers.

“We’ve added tremendous volume to these buildings and we’re bringing in a younger customer who is also cross-shopping,” he said.

Another advantage is that the Bay stores are tweaked to appeal to the local market. For instance, units in Toronto and Vancouver offer The Room, a department Baker described as “Bergdorf ’s meets Barneys,” that offer high-end designer brands includ-ing Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Christian Louboutin and Giorgio Armani.

At Lord & Taylor, by offering customers elevated service and presentation and a more edited assort-ment than its competitors, the business has seen a 25 percent growth rate over the past three years, he said. As a result, additional reinvestments are in the offing here as well and will include the completion of a significant renovation project at the chain’s Fifth Avenue flagship. “We’re seeing tremendous growth so we’re confident to reinvest,” he said.

In addition to enhancing the productivity of the company’s existing real estate, Baker said the Internet is also posting strong sales. “It’s on fire,” he said. “We will have over $80 million a year in volume increases in the Internet over the next five years,” he said.

In his presentation, Gray said his company has in-vested $46 billion in retail and real estate since the downturn and has had no trouble finding distressed assets that it could improve and then sell. “We’ve had the same strategy for 20-plus years,” he said. “Buy it, fix it and sell it.” Global credit issues have been “broad and deep,” and the economic growth has been quite weak both in the U.S. and interna-tionally, he added, which created opportunity for a company like Blackstone.

This includes $16 billion the company invested in shopping centers, which are facing “big headwinds” as department stores continue to disappear and centers anchored by other types of retailers are also struggling. But the proverbial silver lining is that shopping center supply has contracted significant-ly so the centers that remain are facing a brighter future. He said that in 2006, there was 200 million square feet of new shopping center growth, a num-ber that dropped to 8 million this year. “That’s a 96 percent decline in new space,” he said.

Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce

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By RACHEL BROWN

DIANE VON FURSTENBERG unveiled a new store prototype at The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on Saturday.

The space is the first major store design update for the New York-based brand since the opening of its store on Washington Street in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District in 2007. Developed with Kramer Design Group, it comes as the brand is accel-erating retail expansion and endeavoring to build a bigger accessories business.

“The brand was ready to release a new prototype,” said Paula Sutter, president of Diane von Furstenberg Studio LP. “We really felt like at this point in the brand’s growth, we were looking for a fresh take on our store design, and we want-ed a store design that reflected all the brand attributes.”

Von Furstenberg said, “Las Vegas is such a lively place to be and we are so excited to ex-pand our presence there. The new store concept is such a strong reflection of the brand.”

The 2,000-square-foot store has a gallerylike black-and-white interior that provides a stark contrast to the bold prints and colors used in the clothing. The store carries the full range of Diane von Furstenberg ready-to-wear, including dresses, sportswear, eveningwear and DVF 1974.

“You really see some of the things that are very much the DNA of the brand,” said Sutter. “We are a color authority, so having the black and white as a strong background was an important move. That is done with black steel frames.”

At the rear of the store is an accessories lounge featuring the brand’s iconic lip pattern that, at 500 square feet, occu-pies roughly twice the space

of accessory areas in most of von Furstenberg’s existing stores. Accessories in the store are handbags, shoes, belts and sunglasses, and they are displayed on an illuminated tiered glass table at the store’s entrance as well as in the ac-cessories lounge.

“This is a store concept that really shows the importance of accessories and the direction we would like to go in terms of building our accessory and shoe business,” said Sutter, who elab-orated, “Right now, it is relative-ly small in relation to the size of our ready-to-wear business, but it is a big focus for us.”

The Forum Shops store is von Furstenberg’s second in Las Vegas. The brand was part of the initial 2008 retail lineup of The Shoppes at The Palazzo, and Sutter said it would re-main at that shopping center.

The brand declined to spec-ify exact sales of the Las Vegas locations. However, Sutter described the performance at the store in The Forum Shops as “really strong” in its initial three days. Industry sources estimate that the shopping center produces $1,600 in sales per square foot annually, meaning the von Furstenberg store should expect to register at least $3.2 million in yearly sales there. “We are superopti-mistic. It happens to be a great city for Diane von Furstenberg. Our brand is right for Vegas,” said Sutter.

Von Furstenberg currently has 58 freestanding stores and 27 in-store shops worldwide. This year, Sutter said the brand, which von Furstenberg told WWD in August gener-ates $500 million in annual retail sales, opened 28 stores and shops-in-shop combined, double the number opened in 2011. “Going forward, the goal of the company is really to build our retail portfolio,” said Sutter.

3WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

Dior Homme Opens in MiamiBy DAVID LIPKE and MARC KARIMZADEH

DIOR HOMME CONTINUED its retail expansion over the weekend, opening a new store in Miami’s Design District on Saturday.

The new unit is Dior Homme’s fifth freestand-ing store in the U.S., joining a freshly renovated flagship on New York’s 57th Street, a unit in New York’s SoHo that opened this past spring, a shop in Beverly Hills and a San Francisco store that bowed last December.

Additionally, there are men’s shops within larger women’s stores in the Ala Moana Center in Hawaii as well as in the Wynn Las Vegas, CityCenter and The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace, all in Las Vegas. Next up is a freestand-ing Dior Homme unit in Waikiki, Hawaii, slated to open in early 2014.

“The Miami Design District is fast becoming a premier luxury retail destination in the United States,” said Pamela Baxter, president and chief executive officer of Christian Dior Inc. and presi-dent and ceo of LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics North America. “With the evolving economic land-scape in South America we’re seeing increased tourism among a distinctly affluent social group who, too, are looking to enjoy the best of Miami’s luxury experiences.”

Since August, Cartier, Celine and Louis Vuitton have opened stores in Miami’s Design District. Prada is set to open a unit on Thursday and Hermès, Pucci, Berluti and Agnona are readying stores in the area as well, joining existing tenants like Maison Martin Margiela, Christian Louboutin and Marni.

Much of the retail real estate in the neigh-borhood is owned by Miami Design District Associates, a partnership between Dacra, a Miami real estate development firm, and L Real Estate, a Luxembourg-based equity fund, in which LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton is a minority investor.

The Dior Homme space was vacant prior to the brand assuming the lease. The single-floor shop is fronted by a curtain of stainless steel blades across the facade. Inside, the sleek design scheme includes polished concrete floors, stainless steel accents, white lacquer shelving units and mill-work details in white, black or gray lacquer.

Watches and sunglasses are merchandised near the entrance. Ready-to-wear lines the right

side, with belts and ties stocked toward the rear. Accessories, denim, footwear and the cash wrap are compartmentalized on the left side.

“We have not operated any wholesale distribu-tion for Dior Homme in the Miami area for quite some time now,” noted Baxter of the newfound availability of the brand in the city.

A seating area at the back is adjacent to a dressing room, facing a four-screen plasma dis-play that will showcase an exclusive Bruce Weber-lensed short film titled “Can I Make the Music Fly,” commissioned by Dior Homme as a perma-nent installation in the store.

The film will be unveiled at an opening party Wednesday night during Art Basel, hosted by Weber, Dior Homme artistic director Kris Van Assche, and W magazine’s editor in chief Stefano Tonchi.

The film’s cast includes model Mason; violinists Charlie Siem, 26, and Claudius Agrippa, 10; and Sergei Polunin, the Ukranian ballet dancer who was formerly with the London Royal Ballet. Set in New York City, it fuses ballet and classical music through these talents with several vignettes.

“Dior Homme asked me to make a film for their new store in Miami — which is my hometown and also the hometown of a great ballet company and orchestra — and, last but not least, the hometown of the Miami Heat,” said Weber. “I made this film with all of that in mind; as well as my love for clas-sical music and how sometimes the wildness of the fourth quarter of a basketball game is like the giant leap of a ballet dancer.”

Dior Homme gave Weber carte blanche. “He is an incredibly talented photographer and film-maker, and one of the most influential figures in the world of fashion in the past 30 years,” said Van Assche. “He has a very personal aesthetic. It is al-ways interesting to see an artist’s reinterpretation of my work as it makes them really unique.”

NEW YORK — Michael Kors is giving back to his alma mater. The designer made a $1 million gift to the Fashion Institute of Technology, which will establish the Michael Kors Endowed Scholarship at the school.

The new scholarship will go to a student each year who demonstrates exceptional talent in fashion design, and will cover the recipient’s entire bachelor’s degree costs, including tuition, housing and books. It will also feature a mentor-ship element with internship opportunities at Michael Kors.

Kors, who studied at FIT in the late Seventies but dropped out to start working, credited the state school for providing him with a comprehensive fashion design curriculum he called “unparalleled” and praised the top-notch

talent that passes through its doors. “You have a lot of amazing kids who don’t have

the financial wherewithal,” he told WWD. “I felt that it’s more than a scholarship. It’s also mentor-ship. I love the idea that we’re able to work with them from A to Z.”

The first student to receive the Michael Kors Endowed Scholarship will be named next summer in time to start in the fall.

“This wonderful endowment reflects Michael’s characteristic thoughtfulness, sense of purpose and spirit of generosity,” FIT president Dr. Joyce Brown said. “He is creating an incomparable op-portunity for the talented students who come to the college — as he did — to fulfil their dreams. We are deeply grateful.”

— M.K.

Michael Kors Gifts $1 Million To Create Scholarship at FIT

Inside the new Design District store.

A still from Bruce Weber’s short film for Dior Homme.

DVF Unveils New Format At Forum Shops in Vegas

Accessories on display.

The exterior of the store at The Forum Shops.

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NEW HEIR: Fashion followers of the Duchess of Cambridge will have to watch her style adapt over the next seven months or so. As the world now knows, the duchess is pregnant. St. James’ Palace confirmed the speculation Monday when it revealed Kate was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum — otherwise known as acute morning sickness — which requires supplementary hydration and nutrition.

Clarence House said the pregnancy is in its “very early stages,” and that the duchess is expected to stay in hospital for several days. She will require a period of rest thereafter. No matter the sex of the child, it will succeed to the throne, as the British parliament has agreed to pass a law for equality. — JULIA NEEL

SHORT STINT: After roughly six months on the job, Elie Tahari creative director Ingo Wilts has exited to return to Europe for personal reasons, according to the company. “We are grateful to the many contributions Ingo has made to the company and wish him every success in the future,” Elie Tahari said. “He is a gentle soul and I loved working with him.”

Tahari had tapped Wilts in June. The Germany native had been senior vice president and creative director of Kenneth Cole Productions,

which, at the time, had just hired former Tahari executive creative director Kobi Halperin as consulting creative director. There are no immediate plans to replace Wilts, and Tahari will continue to design the collection with the in-house team. — MARC KARIMZADEH

C OR K?: When Chroma Makeup Studio took issue recently with the Kardashians’ makeup line Khroma Beauty by Kourtney, Kim and Khloé’s name, it wasn’t the only cosmetics company to do so. Lee Tillett Inc., an Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based business that sells a line called Kroma Makeup, sent a cease-and-desist letter on June 28 to Boldface Licensing + Branding, holder of the license for the Kardashian makeup line, claiming that Khroma Beauty infringed upon its trademark. Lee Tillett applied to register the mark Kroma in 2010.

Boldface replied to Lee Tillett’s letter on July 18 with its own letter denying the infringement allegations, but it didn’t stop there. Boldface has struck back at Lee Tillett by filing a lawsuit Friday in the United States District Court Central District of California Western Division to seek a declaratory judgment that it’s use of the word Khroma doesn’t infringe on Lee Tillett’s use of Kroma. Boldface’s legal complaint

states that Lee Tillett’s Kroma “consists solely of a descriptive term and lacks any inherent distinctive meaning to the relevant consuming public and therefore, is conceptually weak.” A call and e-mail to Kroma Makeup were not returned by press time.

— RACHEL BROWN

TOPSHOP TIDINGS: Kate Bosworth is the mystery songstress in Topshop’s first Christmas movie, which will be unveiled today. Bosworth sings a soulful adaptation of “Winter Wonderland,” dressed in a sparkling, custom-made Topshop evening dress that she designed together with the in-house team.

“This project brings together two important aspects of my life: cinema and fashion,” said

Bosworth. “I have always been a fan of the Topshop brand, and it has been an honor to work with Sir Phillip [Green] and the team. I hope everyone enjoys watching it as much as we did making it.”

The short film, which shows the American actress performing on a stage in a theater, has been directed by the Hollywood film director Michael Polish — who also happens to be Bosworth’s fiancé — and is inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer’s famous scene in “The Fabulous Baker Boys.”

The makeup used in the film will be available to order immediately on topshop.com. The dress and shoes will be sold as special, made-to-order items on topshop.com in conjunction with the opening of the Los Angeles store in February.

The store plans to make the track available through iTunes, and viewers will also be able to download previous movies starring Bosworth, “The Fabulous Baker Boys” and films directed by Polish.

The film is part of a full campaign that will run across all social media platforms, digital advertising, topshop.com, cinemas, billboards, giant screens installed in Topshop flagships and interactive audio windows globally.

— SAMANTHA CONTI

NEXT MOVE: Renaud Dutreil quietly exited his role as chairman of the North American arm of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton last summer after four years, but the former member of France’s parliament has no plans to return to politics. Tonight, Dutreuil is staging a party to unveil one of the ventures he has been involved with — the Brazilian lifestyle brand Duplo-T — as well as the release of the Brazilian movie “Heleno.”

“Duplo-T is a lifestyle brand born in 1931 and inspired by the beauty of Brazilian football, the magic of the Fifties and the incredible spirit of the Brazilian people,” Dutreuil said in an e-mail he sent out Monday afternoon. “It is a brand I have discovered two years ago and which I have immediately loved and acquired to bring it back to life.” He is launching the brand with partners like Kely Nascimento, the photographer and daughter of legendary soccer player Pele. — M.K.

WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 20124

Pre-Fall 2013 RICCI’S LATEST ACTLela Rose: “Texture, jagged edges, prints and expanses of color” was the gist of Lela Rose’s collection, which was inspired by the paintings of Clyfford Still. These elements surfaced in rough-edged, graphic lace overlays on sheaths and as driplike embroideries on tops. There were also soft pants, quirky jackets and tweedy cocktail dresses, done mostly in a rich palette that also mirrored Still’s abstract art.

Rena Lange: The Rena Lange design team (new creative director Annick Gorman starts in January) utilized a mix of materials including wool, cotton crochet, jersey and sequins to create texture and pattern for pre-fall. The dress was a main shape — be it a sophisticated sheath with organza cutouts or a pretty crochet lace day style — while easy jackets were paired with well-cut trousers and lightweight jeans.

Elie Tahari: Leather was a key component in Elie Tahari’s collection, from his signature jackets, this time with knit insets, to laser-cut dresses. He also played with embroidery, working it on bedazzled leggings and delicate, transparent dresses, while prints were done in digital painterly motifs and strong geometric patterns.

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FASHION SCOOPS

WHEN NINA Ricci launched a capsule collec-tion called Les Envies for spring, it aimed to cre-ate must-have pieces that draw from the house’s Parisian codes, while priced at around 20 percent below the runway collection. The inaugural season was picked up by retailers including Barneys New York, Neiman Marcus, Net-a-porter and, internationally, Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Mytheresa.com. On Monday, the Puig-owned brand brought the fall 2013 lineup, which is also designed by Peter Copping, to New York to show to buyers and editors. (A Paris presentation of

the same collection is being planned dur-ing the January haute couture.) Priced at suggested retail from $435 for tops to $1,990 for a gown, the lineup features many Ricci touches, like ultrafeminine lace details and pretty sorbet hues. A white lace A-line dress was shown under a pink cardigan, and a seafoam green cardi-and-T-shirt combo was teamed with a black lace skirt. A flower scribble print added to the clothes’ innocent charm.

A look from the fall 2013 collection.

Kate Bosworth for Topshop.

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By RACHEL STRUGATZ

NEW YORK — Derek Lam will expand his contemporary acces-sories offering with a footwear col-lection for 10 Crosby Derek Lam.

Following the launch of bags for spring, the de-signer will introduce the line’s first shoe collec-tion today for the pre-fall season though a li-censing agreement with Schwartz and Benjamin (the firm will also pro-duce footwear for Lam’s main collection start-ing with the spring sea-son). Last month, former parent company Labelux sold Derek Lam International LLC back to its founders — Lam and chief executive officer Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann — after acquiring a majority stake in the company in 2008.

The 24-style 10 Crosby Derek Lam footwear collection was con-ceptualized with the idea of lin-ear and diagonal colorblocking in mind — and heavily influenced by French footwear designer Maud Frizon’s prints and Charles Jourdan’s advertising campaigns from the Seventies. Retail prices will range from $295 to $395, with knee high boots going up to $575.

“It’s downtown Derek Lam. It’s really inspired by the girls on Crosby Street,” Schlottmann said Monday at the company’s show-room here in SoHo.

“For 10 Crosby, accessories completes the playful yet chic look of the collection. The start-ing point is always with perfect classics, the foundation of great style. From there I twist things up to create unexpected surprises in the collection,” Lam added.

The two, along with creative director of shoes and accessories

Sunny Lam, contend that they wanted the footwear to look like different shoes were cut up and then put back together. With a color palette that mirrors the cor-responding ready-to-wear-collec-tion, the platform oxfords, pointy

booties in varying heights, peep-toe wedges and san-dals come in combinations of black, navy and gray, brown, tan and gold and red, burgundy and dark

brown. Leather, suede and calf hair are often paired togeth-er, and other design details include

printed haircalf, colorblocked denim, artisanal stitching and

notched circle buckles.Lam introduced 10 Crosby

Derek Lam late last year for re-sort deliveries, and will introduce handbags — which will retail from $325 to $595 — for spring.

Schlottmann said the core business has always been ready-to-wear, but he would like to see handbags and shoes eventu-ally comprise 50 percent of 10 Crosby’s business. Since buying back the company, the executive said one of the next steps will be opening freestanding 10 Crosby stores. (The contemporary line currently shares a space with the main collection.) He projects that sales of the diffusion line will one day eclipse that of collection, but there is equal focus on both.

“They are two separate teams. 10 Crosby is growing fast, and col-lection is growing nicely but not as fast,” Schlottmann explained. “The collection is the runway. 10 [Crosby] is more fashion, but more merchandise driven.”

Footwear will follow the same distribution as apparel, which is carried at Shopbop, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue.

5WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

Gucci Opens 5th Store in IndiaBy MAYU SAINI

NEW DELHI — Gucci has opened its largest store in India at The Oberoi hotel in Gurgaon.

The 4,220-square-foot store on two floors is the brand’s fifth in India. Patrizio di Marco, Gucci’s president and chief executive officer, made his second visit to India in two years for the opening.

“In India there is a certain learning curve that every brand needs to embark on,” he said. “In the last couple of years we have seen a steady growth in business in our stores, which are fully meeting our expectations and giving us reason for great confidence in the long-term potential that India offers us.”

Part of the learning curve for the compa-ny has been the previous two associations in India, with the Murjani Group and later with a second joint venture. Now all five stores are run directly by the company, unlike many global brands that are in India with franchise agreements or joint ventures.

The Indian luxury market has been growing fast and is expected to see continued expansion — projected figures show a threefold increase from 2010 to 2015 to reach $14.72 billion by 2015, according to A.T. Kearney’s India Luxury Review 2011 report.

Still, India represents a number of challenges for luxury, one of the foremost being a lack of choice retail locations. Di Marco remarked that Gucci would continue to expand “selectively, when the right opportunities present themselves.”

Although most global brands are limited to the major metropolitan cities of New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, di Marco said that Gucci’s growth would be “also in second-tier cities as part of our long-term strategy for this important market.”

Comparisons with China are inevitable. “In particular the retail environment [in India] has not seen the same rapid evolution as in China. There have certainly been some notable devel-opments in the last few years, but there is still some way to go before consumers are able to ex-perience the same level of luxury shopping en-vironments as are available elsewhere,” he said.

Like many luxury brands in India, Gucci has had its retail outlets in five-star hotels and then in the luxury mall locations including The Oberoi, New Delhi, which is the smallest store

at this time, at 1,345 square feet, and the DLF Emporio mall in New Delhi, which has one of the larger outlets, at 3,875 square feet.

While many luxury brands have been look-ing at India as a long-term investment, di Marco believes a globally successful company should play a supporting role in the market’s devel-opment. “This is why we decided to enter the Indian market directly in 2009. At a certain point, an important brand like Gucci, whose lifeblood is its retail network, has to take this responsibility, in order to ensure that the brand experience is delivered to the highest standard and thereby nurture and strengthen the re-lationship with its customers and other local stakeholders,” he said.

He explained that a dual focus was needed — to create a wider awareness of and appreciation for the brand, while at the same time offering exclusive locations for the most sophisticated and evolved clientele. “If we look at our stores in the country, you can appreciate how we are executing against this dual focus,” he said.

While many luxury brands are still trying to figure out what Indian consumers like, di Marco is very clear. “Indian luxury consumers share a passion for fine jewelry and high-end accesso-ries with more mature markets. They also have a deep gifting culture, together with strong brand consciousness, and we are very aware of this unique cultural phenomenon,” he said.

His visit to India was followed up by an event in Abu Dhabi, where Gucci sponsored the Grand Prix in the final round of the 2012 Global Champions Tour.

By ROSEMARY FEITELBERG

NEW YORK — Given the various initia-tives underfoot at Saks Inc., it was fit-ting that chairman and chief executive officer Stephen I. Sadove opted to stand and occasionally walk across the stage at CUNY’s Graduate Center while talking shop Friday morning.

As a leadoff speaker at “Initiatives in Art and Culture,” he didn’t dance around the retail fallout from the recession, e-commerce opportunities and international expansion plans. In “Saks Fifth Avenue: One-of-a-Kind Luxury in the 21st Century,” Sadove repeatedly demonstrated how prod-uct and service continue to be the bedrock of Saks 87 years after it was founded. “We are a $3.5 billion retailer, which sounds big but it’s really not in the world of retail. Macy’s is a $30 billion retailer. Within luxu-ry, we are a big player but within totality of retail, we are not,” he said.

As part of its effort to deliver luxury experiences and strengthen relationships with shoppers, Saks flies in hundreds of its top customers twice a year during New York Fashion Week for the VIP treatment. The company’s personal shoppers often host those clients — many of whom they have become close friends with. Sadove said the more entrepreneurial ones sell a variety of products to their customers, not just their area of expertise. In certain locations, anywhere from 10 to 20 percent of a store’s volume is being generated by these individual associates, Sadove said.

Saks plans to expand such top-per-forming categories as footwear, acces-sories, handbags and jewelry. Jewelry accounts for 10 to 15 percent of the re-tailer’s business, Sadove said. And only three months into Louis Vuitton’s first freestanding shoe store at the retailer, Saks currently ranks second in volume for the company.

While the age of the average Saks shopper is 52, the company’s e-commerce shoppers tend to be in their mid 40s and more item-driven with their purchases. The company now ships to more than 100 countries via its Web site. That, coupled with the fact that in certain stores interna-tional tourists generate 15 to 20 percent of the business, has made it unnecessary for Saks to open a bevy of new stores overseas. Shoppers from emerging markets such as China, Brazil and Russia are contributing to that growth, Sadove said. Bombarded as Sadove is with new opportunities for apps and other types of digital technology, he must ask, “What is really going to change the behavior of the luxury customer?”

As for what’s selling post-recession, Sadove pointed to unique, one-of-a-kind items and exotic leathers. “They have come back in what has been a V-effect. They went down a bit and have come back over the last couple of years,” Sadove said.

If Saks’ sales were broken into three categories — good, better and best (with good being bridge level clothing) — each would account for one-third of business, Sadove said. The company’s own private label accounts for between 5 and 7 per-

cent of Saks’ volume, Sadove said. Having Terron Schaefer appear as a

judge on NBC’s “Fashion Star” caused a lot of controversy in the company, but his involvement has proved to have been a valuable one for the retailer, Sadove said. He will once again be a judge in the show’s second season, which starts in March. Noting that no fees were paid to NBC, Sadove said Saks typically got more than 100,000 hits on its Web site after each show ended at 11 p.m. as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales. Now a minor celebrity in his own right, Schaefer generated $250,000 in sales last week during a personal appear-ance in Saks’ Miami store.

Not about to glaze over the impact of the shaky economy, Sadove said when the re-cession struck the luxury industry saw 20 to 25 percent of its entire business disappear overnight. “Nobody felt wealthy and they said they could shop in their closet. All of a sudden the industry had $1 billion of excess inventory that went to Gilt and other flash sites,” Sadove said. “Now the availability of [that degree of] inventory for flash sites has dried up. What has happened with Gilt and others is they moved into other areas like travel and dining.”

Estimating that the amount of cross-over shoppers patronizing luxury stores and flash sale sites is less than 10 percent, Sadove said, “There is a role for these sites but I wouldn’t worry about them tak-ing over the industry in the future.”

The designer Mary McFadden was very much focused on the past when

she spoke of “A Lifetime in Design: Inspirations from the Ancient World.” Interspersing slides from ancient civi-lizations and her far-flung travels, she illustrated how both sectors influenced her collections. McFadden, who intro-duced her collection in 1973 and won her first Coty Award three years later, does not have any plans to part with her early designs. “I do have a vintage collection that has toured and been shown in five different museums, but I don’t plan to sell it,” she said.

Visitors could find some of those cre-ations in her Rizzoli-published book “A Lifetime of Design, Collecting, and Adventure,” which McFadden signed copies of afterwards.

Lam Launches Footwear

Stephen I. Sadove

Saks’ Sadove Talks Luxury at CUNY

A 10 Crosby Derek Lam wedge.

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Gucci’s newest outpost in India.

6 WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

By ARNOLD J. KARR

INCREASES IN RETAIL shrinkage this holiday season might exceed those for retail sales.

A study conducted by the Centre for Retail Research for Checkpoint Systems suggests that retail losses from all sources — dishonest employ-ees, customer theft and faulty supplier and distribution losses — are expected to amount to $8.9 billion during the period from mid-November through Christmas, a 4 percent increase over their level from 2011.

The breakdown of the losses, which theoretically add $98 to every U.S. fam-ily’s shopping bill, is $4.7 billion sacri-ficed to employee theft, $3.8 billion to shoplifting and $400 million attributable to vendor and distribution losses.

Women’s apparel and accessories rank among the products most coveted by internal and external thieves, rank-ing only behind alcohol among the product categories most likely to be

lifted. Toys are third, while perfume and health and beauty gift packs ranks fourth, men’s toiletries tied for fifth and watches and jewelry were the ninth most popular classification.

“The Christmas season is an espe-cially attractive time for criminals,” said Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research and author of the report. “Thieves take advantage of busy stores to steal high-value, high-demand goods. As a result, retailers face a big threat from professional and semipro-fessional thieves, many of whom steal goods with the intention of reselling them. Organized retail crime is a major concern for retailers, especially since the average amount stolen per incident is much higher than ‘normal’ thefts.”

Checkpoint Systems markets prod-ucts and programs to minimize retail shrinkage.

Earlier this year, the National Retail Federation reported that retail shrinkage as a percentage of retail sales declined to 1.4 percent, or $34.5 billion, last year from 1.49 percent, or $37.1 billion, in 2010.

By ROSEMARY FEITELBERG

NEW YORK — The new exhibition “125 Icons” celebrates the work of Pratt alumni and faculty, and organizers couldn’t resist throwing in a few extras.

Staged at the school’s Manhattan lo-cation at 144 West 14th Street, the show covers the past 125 years dating back to Pratt’s inception. Images of cartoon characters Betty Boop and Tom and Jerry, a 1955 Ford Thunderbird, Charles Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis” air-plane and the Chrysler Building are among the Pratt-related designs on dis-play. Howard Richmond’s Life maga-zine logo, a Vera Maxwell ultrasuede

dress, George Lois-designed Esquire covers, a “Fantasia” video with Bill Garrity’s sound engineering and Alfred Mosher Butts’ Scrabble board game are also on view. Frank Eliscu was in his early 20s when he sculpted the Heisman Trophy in 1935.

From the fashion arena there are also images by Lillian Bassman and snapshots of Norman Norell’s de-signs, as well as actual ensembles by Betsey Johnson and Jeffrey Banks. It was a Pratt alum, Kermit Love, who dressed Big Bird by figuring out the feather application for Jim Henson’s big-beaked friend. Viewers will also find Ted Muehling jewelry, Marc Rosen’s “K.L.” perfume bottle for Karl Lagerfeld and Robert Mapplethorpe’s album cover for Patti Smith. And Lucia DeRespinis had a hand in creat-ing Dunkin’ Donuts’ logo in 1980 even though she never reaped rewards from her suggestions.

Michael Gross’ “Ghostbusters” movie poster was a favorite with the 6,000-plus people who voted for their favorite Pratt designs online to help whittle down the choices. During a pre-view of “125 Icons” on Wednesday, Todd Galitz, vice president for institutional advancement at Pratt, said, “When we were setting up the exhibition, it oc-curred to me that this is an interesting way to tell the history of art, design and architecture in America just with things that Pratt created.”

wider impact in retail, most businesses have received most of their Christmas inventory and are not going to close shop,” said Esmael Adibi, director for the Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University. “If it lasts longer than two weeks, it could affect retailers with lean inventory and production pro-cesses that depend on parts or nonfinished goods on the ships.”

Industry groups the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National Retail Federation last week sent letters to President Obama asking him to inter-vene in the strike. On Monday the NRF renewed the call, releasing a statement from its president and chief executive of-ficer, Matthew Shay.

“The shutdown is already having a significant negative economic impact on retailers trying to bring in merchandise for their final push for holiday sales and will soon have an impact on consumers. The work stoppage not only impacts re-tailers, but is also affecting their product vendors — many of which are small busi-nesses — and other industries like manu-facturers and agricultural exporters that rely on the ports.…A protracted strike will ultimately result in higher prices at the very time we can least afford it. This strike is now at the national emergency stage impacting industries far and wide,” Shay said.

“We’re taking it day by day. Each day that ships linger with our goods on them, it creates a backlog,” said Kelly Kolb, vice president of government af-fairs at RILA, adding that they have not yet received a response from the White House. “Each of our members is work-ing through their advertised sales to see what products being advertised are sit-

ting on ships right now. A number of our retailers obviously have their holiday goods in stores and distribution centers, but Christmas isn’t the only shopping season. The Super Bowl on Feb. 3 is a big-time TV event, and spring is big for seasonal items like bathing suits, clothes, patio furniture and barbecues. That stuff should be moving in the next couple of weeks if not already.”

Kolb noted that during the 10-day Los Angeles ports strike in 2002, it was esti-mated that it took retailers one week to recover for every day of the strike.

Although talks between the 800-mem-ber International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit (OCU) and the Harbor Employers Association continued over the week-end, the two groups are still at odds. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday called for round-the-clock bar-gaining with the help of a mediator.

Villaraigosa wrote in a letter to John Fageaux Jr., president of the OCU, and Stephen L. Berry, chief negotiator for the employers group. The strike is “costing our local economy billions of dollars.”

The union had been working without a contract since June 30, 2010. At issue is the OCU’s concern of losing jobs through attrition without new hires to replace them, and fear that employers will out-source new jobs to nonunion workers.

The current strike by the clerical workers has crippled the ports because of support from the ILWU dockworkers, who have 50,000 members on the U.S. West Coast and in Hawaii and Canada. The dockworkers negotiate their con-tracts separately, but the 10,000 members who work at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports have honored the clerical unit’s picket lines.

Industry Starts to Feel Strike Impact

Holiday Shrinkage Seen Rising 4%

Pratt Designs on View at ‘125 Icons’{Continued from page one}

A George Lois-designed Esquire cover.

Ted Muehling’s new shell earrings.

“Ghost World” by Daniel Clowes.

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beginning of the Industrial Revolution — “getting rid of something that all reason-able people agreed was morally repre-hensible,” but for which there was much concern about the economic impact it would have. “Instead, entrepreneurs rushed in and created the greatest eco-nomic expansion in world history.”

Similar is the “addiction to Middle East oil,” he said, which costs the country $750 billion in subsidies and health care costs annually, and creates alliances with coun-

tries that “don’t share our values.”“The biggest subsidized indus-

try is coal and I spent a good part of the last 30 years suing the coal industry,” he said.

A case study into the inherent problems of coal energy is the state of West Virginia, he said, citing it as the “poorest state with the poorest health,” with environmental laws that have been stripped away like the 500 mountain tops throughout the state for the sake of coal production.

“Coal will tell you they are cheap and clean, but if you internalized their costs it would be the most catastrophically expensive way of boiling a pot of water that has ever been devised,” Kennedy said. “The

National Academy of Sciences said that every freshwater fish in America has dan-gerously high levels of mercury in its flesh coming from coal power plants. According to the Center for Disease Control, there are 240,000 children born in the country every year that have been exposed to dan-gerous levels of mercury in their mother’s wombs and that’s the cost of coal that they

don’t tell you about when they say it’s 11 cents a kilowatt hour.”

He said the Environmental Protection Agency estimates the health care cost of coal energy usage is $245 billion a year.

“Every nation that has decarbonized its society has experienced instantaneous wealth and prosperity,” Kennedy said.

Examples include Iceland, which in 15 years after it decided in 1970 to decar-bonize its energy policy went from being 100 percent dependent on imported coal and oil to being energy independent and is now a major exporter of geothermal energy and is developing wind farms.

“Sweden in 1997 decarbonized, closed its two nuclear power plants, slapped a $150 a ton tax on carbon, and energy usage dropped 9 percent and its economy has almost doubled since then,” he said. “You had tens of thousands of entrepreneurs rush into that space and create new forms of energy from wind, solar, geothermal, gar-bage waste and sawmill waste. Sweden’s GDP rose inversely to its use of carbon.”

The U.S. is investing in clean energy, he noted, and is third in the world in solar power and first in wind power generation.

“Solar is the cheapest form of energy in the world,” he said. “The problem is we don’t have an energy grid in this country to take advantage of solar and wind, that can carry electrons over long spaces.”

Kennedy is also a partner in VantagePoint Capital Partners, which through its subsidiary, BrightSource Energy, which is building a 2.7 gigawatt solar ther-mal plant in the Mojave Desert. Being con-structed by Bechtel, it will be the biggest power plant in the world and deliver power to PG&E and Southern California Edison.

“Once you build our plant, it’s free en-ergy forever,” he added. “You never have to worry about the cost of war to protect oil interests or the costs of health care, oil ex-ploration or cleaning up pollutants.”

7WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

By ARTHUR FRIEDMAN

NEW YORK — Oeko-Tex stretched its mission of sustainability to wide limits at a luncheon and seminar at Studio 450 here to celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Tom Chappell, founder of Tom’s of Maine and creator of Rambler’s Way wool apparel, said product development should always take into account corporate respon-sibility. Chappell said, “Figuring out how to make products that are good for the consumer, good for the environ-ment, good for our community and good for us is a wonderful thing because it puts all the right ideals into the marketplace.”

He told the recent gathering of industry executives and members of Oeko-Tex, the Zurich-based in-ternational association that certi-fies a textile product has been test-ed and does not contain harmful substances, that when launching Tom’s of Maine natural toothpaste, the Food & Drug Administration required animal testing before it was allowed into the market, “which we would not do…so we became the only toothpaste on the market not to have testing on animals, but with human trials. Then the industry fol-lowed and the FDA changed its rules.”

Tom’s of Maine, which began on those principles and a $5,000 loan, wound up being in 40,000 stores and was sold to Colgate-Palmolive with a $130 million valuation.

Chappell, who sold the company in 2006, was hiking in Wales and was disappointed with various materials and fabrics to wear as an underlayer for warmth and comfort. So he decided to create a fine-gauge, light-weight wool for such occasions.

Rambler’s Wool was born, but not without many who said an 18 micron wool couldn’t be done. “But because I was Tom’s of Maine, they said, ‘OK, we’ll try.’’’ The collection of sportswear and sweaters is made sustainably in the U.S. of wool from Rambouillet sheep.

“We are in 300 stores and growing very rapidly,” he added. “We are commit-ted to making it in the U.S., and I’m on my fifth garment-making house this year. You know who it is? It’s us.”

Kevin Burke, president and chief ex-ecutive officer of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said in a survey of its members, CSR came in second only to profits as the most important aspect of running a business.

“We have a target on our back,” Burke said. “We can’t operate in an environ-ment that will cause people not to want to buy our products.”

He noted that AAFA has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to broad-en its commitment to the issue.

“Sustainability today is more than being green.” Burke added. “It’s a comprehen-sive approach in addressing internal and external business decisions that create product. We have to be good corporate citi-zens. If we can’t make it in a responsible manner, then we deserve what we get.”

Pushing the edge in a contentious keynote speech was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., environmental attorney and activist, who lauded “free-market capitalism” and skewered “corporate cronyism” in regard to environmental and energy policy.

“What I really want to talk to you about is how this country is in transition to a new energy future,” said Kennedy, se-nior attorney for the Natural Resource Defense Council, a leading environmental action organization in the U.S. “One of the things that I learned from working with fisherman is that we’re not protecting the environment for the sake of the fish and the birds, but we’re protecting it for our own sake because we recognize that

nature is the infrastructure of our com-munities and that if we want to meet our obligations to future generations, to civi-lization, to our nation, which is to create communities for our children to provide them with the same opportunities for dig-nity and enrichment and prosperity and good health…we’ve got to start by protect-ing our environmental infrastructure.”

Kennedy, who is chief prosecuting attor-ney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and presi-dent of the Waterkeeper Alliance, said the

organization has had much support from the apparel industry, citing companies such as Ralph Lauren and Kenneth Cole. The Hudson Riverkeeper, which began in 1966 to reclaim the Hudson River from pollut-ers, has spawned the Waterkeeper Alliance that now includes more than 200 “river-keepers” across North America and the world, Kennedy noted, from Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska to Biscayne Bay in Miami, and including China, India, Russia, Australia and Central America.

He has brought 400 lawsuits against Hudson River polluters, resulting in re-wards of more than $5 billion to remedi-ate the Hudson.

Kennedy said despite government regulations that followed the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Clean Air Act of 1990, pollution of the environment remains a critical social, health and economic issue.

“One of the big mantras during the re-cent election cycle we heard from the big polluters — who sponsored, incidentally, all the presidential debates — clean coal and from their indentured servants on Capitol Hill, is this idea that we have is-sues between economic prosperity and environmental protection, and that is a false choice,” he said. “In 100 percent of the situations, good environmental policy is identical to good economic policy, if we want to measure our economy on how it produces jobs and the dignity of jobs, and how it preserves the value of the assets of our community. If, on the other hand, we want to do what the polluters are asking us to do, which is to treat the planet as if it were a business in liquidation, convert our natural resources to cash as quickly as possible and have a few years of pollution-based prosperity, we can generate an in-stantaneous cash flow and the illusion of a prosperous economy.…Environmental injury is deficit spending, it’s the way of loading the costs of economic prosperity on the backs of our children.”

The big question is energy, Kennedy said, and how to make it economically and environmentally viable.

Kennedy said the best thing for the en-vironment is true free-market capitalism, which, he claimed, the U.S. doesn’t have.

“We have corporate crony capitalism and monopoly capitalism that has all kinds of inefficiencies and market fail-ures,” Kennedy said. “Pollution is a mar-ket failure of a company not paying the true cost of bringing a product to market. It’s also a failure of democracy to make people accountable for what they do.”

An example of this, he said, was the abolishment of slavery, first in England, then in the U.S., which resulted in the

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weighed in finding a successor to Nicolas Ghesquière, who ex-ited Balenciaga Friday after a 15-year tenure.

“We wanted someone with global thinking, a citizen of the world, and someone who could understand the digital world and the direction of fashion and retail tomorrow,” Guichot said in an exclusive interview. “It will be a new vision; a new understanding of the brand. The heritage of Balenciaga is so big. Just a part of it has been exploited, but obviously not all of it.”

The Spanish-born coutu-rier Cristóbal Balenciaga, who founded his house in 1919 and designed until his retirement in 1968, was known for such inno-vations as the cocoon coat, the balloon skirt and the asymmet-ric flamenco evening gown.

Wang is expected to immedi-ately begin work on Balenciaga’s fall 2013 women’s collection, al-though Guichot said the format in which it might be unveiled during Paris Fashion Week, scheduled for Feb. 26 to March 3, has yet to be decided.

U n d e r G h e s q u i è r e , Balenciaga became known for its exhilarating, exclusive and brisk fashion shows, often staged at its compact show-rooms on the Rue Cassette.

“I don’t want to put [Wang] under unnecessary pressure, so we will have to figure how we want to present. We will figure out together the pace of next year,” Guichot said, noting that the pre-fall women’s collection

is already finished and the fall men’s collection is also nearing completion. “It’s an important transition for the brand.”

Wang said, “I am deeply hon-ored to embark on this new role for a brand and house that I have such great admiration and respect for.”

The 28-year-old walks into a house defined by Ghesquière, from the collection’s architec-ture — couture-caliber runway pieces, and capsules for silk, pants, archival styles and other categories — to a futuristic and otherworldly retail concept.

Guichot said it was “too soon” to talk about whether there might be any changes in either regard. “[Wang] will bring his own language and vocabu-lary,” she said.

She stressed that the brand’s luxury positioning and exclu-sive aura, which dates back to the founder’s penchant for mys-tery, would not change.

Nor will the company’s pace of expansion, which is to add between 10 and 15 units a year, Guichot noted.

Balenciaga will end the year with about 65 directly operated stores, corners and shop-in-shops, with boutiques in Rome and Ala Moana, Hawaii, among the recent additions.

Important openings for 2013 include a unit on Mercer Street in New York City, considered critical since Balenciaga’s flag-ship on West 22nd Street was destroyed by the storm surge brought by Hurricane Sandy. Guichot noted a temporary loca-tion on Wooster Street in SoHo is

slated to open in mid-December.She allowed that Wang’s

“transversal” approach to de-sign — with a keen interest in not only ready-to-wear, but ac-cessories as well — was another feather in his cap. “He had that global vision very early in his development,” she said, char-acterizing his approach as “cre-ative realism.”

Wang’s privately held fashion house will remain a separate entity from Balenciaga and its parent, luxury-and-sport con-glomerate PPR.

One of New York’s buzziest young talents, Wang established his label in 2005 and has rapidly built a global following for his edgy T-shirts, studded handbags and sleek-and-modern designer clothes for women and men.

Born to Taiwanese-American parents and raised in San Francisco, Wang studied fashion at Parsons School of Design at age 18. The Council of Fashion Designers of America recog-nized him with the Swarovski

Award for Womenswear in 2009, and he scooped up prizes for ac-cessories in 2010 and 2011.

Wang quickly expanded his product universe to include men’s wear, leather goods, a sec-ond line called T by Alexander Wang, and home objects such as ashtrays and coasters.

He operates a flagship in New York’s SoHo, and earlier this year opened a 5,000-square-foot unit in Beijing. The firm will end 2012 with a retail network of 12 freestanding stores and shops-in-shop in seven countries, with a concentration in Asia.

Guichot acknowledged Wang’s considerable responsi-bilities with his signature label. But she lauded the designer as being a “team player” and said creative logistics would be or-ganized so that he can work on Balenciaga in New York and Paris, as he shuttles between the two fashion capitals.

“Designers are now nomadic people; He will be one of those nomads,” she said.

A driven yet fun-loving ex-ecutive who joined Balenciaga in 2007, Guichot has piloted the company through a rapid growth phase during which it accrued critical mass in retail, which now accounts for more than half of its revenues.

The brand still has wide swaths of geography in Europe to cover, with no directly op-erated stores yet in Germany, Switzerland and Spain. Guichot has also cited men’s wear, footwear, jewelry and eyewear among categories ripe for expansion.

Parent of Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Puma, PPR does not break out figures for its other luxury brands, which in-clude Balenciaga alongside Stella McCartney, Boucheron, Alexander McQueen and Sergio Rossi, among others.

In the third quarter, the divi-sion posted sales growth of 45.6 percent, with all brands and regions contributing to the per-formance. In comparable terms, sales were up 15.5 percent.

Guichot said Balenciaga con-tinues at its double-digit pace and — armed with an energetic new creative director — “the po-tential is there.

“We want Alexander to help us sustain the momentum, but also it will bring a new vision, a new understanding of the brand,” she said.

François-Henri Pinault, chairman and chief execu-tive officer of PPR, described Balenciaga as an “extraordinary fashion house” with “inexhaust-ible potential.

“Wang will use his creativ-ity and his own research to reinterpret and immortal-ize the distinctive, modern and extremely innovative style imposed by Cristóbal Balenciaga,” he added.

Meanwhile, Wang’s company also continues its global march.

Over the weekend, he ex-panded online selling — in partnership with Italy’s Yoox Group, coincidentally a joint venture partner with PPR — to Europe. The move adds 23 countries including France, the U.K., Italy, Germany, Spain, Benelux, Scandinavia and Eastern European markets.

The offering includes Wang’s second collection of objects, which ranges from a domino set to inflatable pool toys, all in black.

“We will now be shipping to more than 50 countries world-wide,” said Rodrigo Bazan, president of Alexander Wang. Previously, the e-commerce site, launched in May, shipped main-ly to the U.S. and Asia.

Wang sells his collections to more than 200 stores in Europe across all categories, he noted. The U.S. is still Wang’s largest single market, but Europe and Asia make up about 60 percent of its total distribution.

In the first half of 2013, Wang plans to update his Web site and online store in terms of design, photography, content and usability.

“And as we put energies to-ward worldwide e-commerce, it will convert into our largest re-tail sales channel,” Bazan noted.

— WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM JESSICA IREDALE

8

We wanted someone with global thinking, a citizen of the world, and

someone who could understand the digital world and the direction of

fashion and retail tomorrow.— ISABELLE GUICHOT, BALENCIAGA

Wang Era Set to Begin at Balenciaga{Continued from page one}

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Capital DramaWASHINGTON — Violinist Hahn-Bin, never shy of a little histrionics, fiddled at the 25th anniversary of the Sackler Museum on Thursday night as the city’s dueling power sets averted a near social calendar catastrophe over the weekend. For more, see page 11.

MEMO PADFAILED EXPERIMENT: On Monday morning, Rupert Murdoch confirmed the death of The Daily, his $30 million, much-touted, nearly two-year-old iPad magazine. The news was buried in an announcement outlining the split of News Corp. into two publicly traded companies, one dedicated to publishing and another, named the Fox Group, to entertainment.

Robert Thomson was appointed to lead the new publishing arm, and Gerard Baker to succeed him as editor in chief of Dow Jones and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

In the new configuration, there’s no room for The Daily, whose 100 or so staffers now face the possibility of layoffs.

The company assured them that “technology and other assets, including some staff, will be folded into the [New York] Post.”

That is true for some high-profile employees — editor in chief Jesse Angelo was kicked up to the publisher’s chair at the Post, a position once held by Murdoch’s son, Lachlan. Richard Johnson, the editor of The Daily’s gossip page, Flash, and once Murdoch’s main man at the Post’s Page Six, told Deadline Hollywood he will return to the daily tabloid, though he didn’t specify in what capacity. He did not return requests for comment.

Among the rest of the staff, including news editors, a source said there’s concern no one’s been guaranteed a position within News Corp.

The Daily’s death had been predicted since its grandiose launch in February 2011. Critics wondered who’d pay for a brand-new magazine that would work as a news digest, a USA Today for iPad owners.

The Daily wasn’t just another new venture. Murdoch saw it as “transformative,” part of a bold plan to upend the news business and lead other media companies in the new world of tablet publishing.

He spent lavishly on it — annual costs were between $30 million and $60 million, according to various estimates — and dedicated serious editorial resources.

In July, Angelo dismissed reports that The Daily was on thin ice by saying it had 100,000 subscribers. Angelo’s measure of success was shy of the 500,000 subscribers Murdoch had publicly said were necessary for The Daily to break even. In early August, The Daily experienced its first round of cuts, excising 50 jobs, the entirety of its sports and opinion departments. Then came Monday’s news — its last issue will run Dec. 15.

“Our experience was that we couldn’t find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long term,” Murdoch said. — ERIK MAZA

CARINE SELLS OUT: Carine Roitfeld’s CR Fashion Book has enjoyed a solid reception on newsstands and has sold out of its initial print run of 50,000 copies — at $15 a pop, according to its publisher, Fashion Media Group LLC. Another 15,000 copies have been ordered to replenish stands and will be available before Christmas, said Stephen Gan, president of Fashion Media Group and Roitfeld’s business partner in the semiannual title. The second issue of CR Fashion Book will boost its print run to 65,000 and will launch during New York Fashion Week in February, with distribution on stands internationally by Feb. 21.

— DAVID LIPKE

AT 81, AFTER winning two Oscars, a TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award for Costume Design, and many other accolades, costume designer Albert Wolsky says he’s only now becoming comfortable with the notion of turning down work. That’s partly, he says, because his current project, a production of “The Heiress” on Broadway, starring Jessica Chastain, David Strathairn, Dan Stevens and Judith Ivey, was so much fun to do.

The play, written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, is based on Henry James’ 1880 novella, “Washington Square.”

Research, Wolsky notes, is integral to the process of doing a costume drama. “You always have to do research, even if you know the period,” he says. “It was set in 1850, which is a tricky period, just before all those

big hoop skirts.” He was very eager to work on “The Heiress,” because he had never designed for that era before. He prefers doing costume dramas, in fact, to outfitting films set in the present, he says, because, on the former, the actors don’t say to him, “I wouldn’t wear that.” His classic response to that remark: “I wouldn’t, either — it’s a costume.”

How did he research “The Heiress?” “There were an amazing amount of photographs,” Wolsky says. “There was so much photographic research.” He admits, however, “I love research; I could research forever and not design.”

Fabric, he notes, is also a passion for him, and it’s key to getting any historical moment right, particularly that of, say, the Thirties or Forties. He won his second Oscar for 1991’s

“Bugsy,” which is set in the Forties. (His first was for 1980’s “All That Jazz.”) Wolsky says that receiving such an award is always a surprise; the only film he regrets not being nominated for is Sam Mendes’ 2002 “The Road to Perdition.”

“The Heiress” is on a limited run, ending Feb. 10, at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Wolsky says he enjoyed working with Chastain, who trained at Juilliard, and plays the title character, Catherine Sloper. “She has no vanity, and her mind is very focused, and she always looks for things she can use,” he explains, noting that he added a top to the cherry red dress she wears early in the play because “that was something that she needed as an actor.” One major difference between Chastain the person and Catherine the character, of course, is that the actress is lovely looking and Catherine is meant to be very plain. Wolsky says she had told him that her friends kept asking, “‘How can you play this? You’re so beautiful.’”

The character of Catherine’s overbearing father, Dr. Austin Sloper, played by Strathairn, “was a black figure for me from the beginning,” Wolsky says. He wanted Stevens, who plays Catherine’s suitor Morris Townsend, to be “a bit of a dandy” in the first scenes, then later, “to look as if he really fell into harder times.”

Wolsky was born in Paris, where his father owned a travel agency that catered to the affluent. “When the war came, it meant a lot of running,” he recalls. The Wolskys — Albert, his parents, Boris and Luba, and his younger brother, Gilbert — actually got on a boat that was turned back, and the family was put in an internment camp for a time, but his father was

eventually able to find them passage on another craft.

Wolsky attended City College, went into the U.S. Army, then worked for his father for five years at the travel agency he had founded in Queens. Albert left it to work for a costume shop owned by Helene Ponz, and in 1963 started his career as a theater costume designer by working as an assistant to Ann Roth on “A Case of Libel.” His first credit as a solo costume designer on Broadway was on “Generation” in 1965; he says he was “very brash” when he was working on it. When he started working on Broadway, he recalls, “[It] supposedly was dying, but they were doing 75 shows a year.”

The 70-plus films Wolsky has costumed include “The Turning Point” (1977), “Grease” (1978), “Manhattan” (1979), “Sophie’s Choice” (1982) and “Revolutionary Road” (2008). He says of being a seasoned designer, “If they’re kind, they call me a veteran; other people call me old.”

Working on “The Heiress,” he says, “solidified my thinking.”

He explains what has changed by saying, “I loved being in a costume house, watching talented people sew and cut and do all those things. It made me feel that, [if I work], it has to be something I care about. If it isn’t, I’m not doing it.”

— LORNA KOSKI

10 WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

Period Piece

Party United

ON A CRISP MORNING, Connie Silver lingers in the lobby of New York University’s Silver School of Social Work, scanning a painting of herself with husband Martin hung over the mantle of the room’s imposing fireplace.

“That’s when I was a redhead,” the 72-year-old recalls, running her fingers through her now-ashen pixie cut.

The couple, together 55 years and counting, donated $50 million to the institution in 2007 — the largest private

gift to a school of social work in the U.S. to date, according to the university. Hence the portrait’s placement and the school’s name. Yet in a town with no shortage of conspicuous philanthropy, the Silvers maintain a relatively low profile. Martin Silver made his fortune as a founder of the company that would later become plasma collection firm DCI Biologicals. His wife has quietly taught at the school for more than 20 years, since it was still going simply as the

School of Social Work. In fact, when Silver was offered a lofty top-floor office overlooking the park, she opted for a small nook in the basement comparable in size to most standard cubicles.

“Well, that’s where all the students are, their lounge is down here,” Silver explains. “I wanted to be near the kids.”

Silver’s modesty can be bewildering. She doesn’t indulge in designer garb (“I work in the world of intense poverty. Someone paying $15,000 for a pocketbook is just absurd to me, but to each his own.”) The subway is her go-to mode of transportation. She outfitted her office with discarded furniture found at “the boneyard,” the school’s term for the alley on the side of the building.

“All the furniture people don’t want winds up there. It’s like the giveaway spot.…Can you believe no one wanted this stuff? I think it works well with the art,” she says, surveying her digs.

Yes, the art. Hung on the walls of her quarters are the fruits of her most recent labor — vibrant paintings that feature a jumble of contorted, cartoonish, albeit smiling, faces. Usually the faces form linear, treelike structures. The pursuit grew out of her tradition of painting watercolors for holiday cards for friends and family. Five years later, working under the professional pseudonym McSilver (an amalgamation

of her maiden name and her married one), Silver’s watercolor and acrylic paintings have landed her a spot at Art Basel Miami Beach, where her exhibition “People Treed” opens today in the Red Dot Tent.

Silver has a wicked sense of humor, one that’s conveyed in her creations.

“Oh, look at her. I love her,” she says, flipping through photographs of her pieces (nearly all have already been shipped to Miami from her studio in Connecticut).

“She’s got the fun hair and the big boobs,” she says, pointing to a voluptuous figure in a piece titled “Birds of a Feather.”

“Oh, and him,” she excitedly points to another character in the tableau, this one donning

a grand chapeau, an enormous feather sprouting out of it. “If that’s not a fashion statement, I don’t know what is.”

Silver’s process is organic and, for lack of a better word, rudimentary. She demonstrates the initial step with a pen and paper. “I put my pencil down on a point and then I don’t look at all, I look away,” she says, squiggling away blindly across the page, creating a series of loops and coils. “Then I fill in. I look at it and I see what I’ve got. Like, right off the bat here, I have a great face here and a funny little nose there. I can put some teeth here,” she says, sketching in the empty space. “It just develops. I just sit down and it flows.”

At NYU, Silver plays tour guide like a proud mother; she gets animated when discussing curriculum and is clearly well versed on the subject. She pops into offices, greeting staffers with an unfeigned familiarity and almost familial affection. It’s apparent that Silver’s involvement with the school is not simply monetary and that she genuinely considers the place home.

True to form, all of the proceeds of Silver’s Art Basel sales will go directly to bolster the Silver School’s financial aid programs. “Every dime of every single thing that I sell,” Silver says. “That’s the whole reason I’m doing this. Isn’t that how it should be?” — TAYLOR HARRIS

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Silver’s work in her office at New York University.

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WWD.COM11WWD TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2012

Party United eye

FOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON stalwarts wondering what lies ahead, the celebrations in Washington this weekend made one thing perfectly clear — at 65, the outgoing Secretary of State has the charisma, social stamina and knockout star power to run for president in 2016.

With all the events going on this weekend, it was easy to miss the one that mattered most. Not the top-secret White House dinner Barack and Michelle Obama hosted Friday night to thank their wealthiest donors. Not the ceremonial Kennedy Center Honors Gala. The best party in town was Clinton’s State Department Art in Embassies double-header, planned two years ago by her friend, top fund-raiser and Art in Embassies director Beth Dozoretz.

“What’s really important is that not one dollar of government money was spent on the 50th celebration. Every dollar was donated by sponsors, and we’re going over the top,” said Dozoretz, who has been working on the party since 2010 when she got the job widely considered one of the best political appointments in town. The program commissions American and foreign artists to design art for U.S. consulates in 200 venues in 189 countries.

The celebration started with a luncheon for 225 guests in the State Department diplomatic rooms and ended with a late-night art happening at the Smithsonian Kogod Courtyard behind the National Portrait Gallery. For art lovers, the State Department luncheon brought artists Jeff Koons, Cai Guo-Qiang, Shahzia Sikander, Kiki Smith and Carrie Mae Weems together with their fans, including British Ambassador

Peter Westmacott and his wife, Lady Susan; White House Social Secretary Jeremy Bernard; Manhattan gallery owners Sean Kelly, Arnold “Arne” Glimcher (founder of the Pace Gallery) and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn; Bank of America’s Anne Finucane, and Debra Black, whose billionaire husband Leon was the anonymous buyer who, in May, broke the record for a work of art on paper, paying $119.9 million at Sotheby’s for Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”

But it was at the party that evening that the Obama White House crowd showed up — and where Clinton made her late-night encore.

“There are a lot of things to take satisfaction in,” said Jay Carney, White House press secretary, wandering into the crowd alongside 700 artists, donors, gallery curators and Washington socialites.

Late-night arrivals by Ann and Lloyd Hand and Elizabeth Bagley raised the question: Had they just come from dinner with the Obamas?

The trio shook their heads. “That’s a $1.5 million invitation,’’ said Bagley, who made that A-list in the Clinton White House. Also in the crowd was Clinton pal Gene Sperling, Obama’s assistant for economic policy. “I’m looking for my wife. Has anyone seen my wife?” asked Sperling, just as out on the street, three unmarked black SUVs silently pulled curb side. Out popped Hillary Clinton flanked by her top aide, White House Chief of Protocol Capricia Marshall.

Although no one would confirm or deny, it appeared, as Dozoretz came out to greet her guests, that Clinton had slipped out of the president’s dinner to party-hop. — S.W.

IT’S BEEN A difficult dozen years for Washington socialites, who started planning their comeback last spring, no matter who won the White House: Republican hostesses Ann Nitze and Jane Pillsbury would help Dame Jillian Sackler toss the “The Party of the Year” to celebrate the Sackler Museum’s 25th anniversary. Sackler’s late husband had donated 1,000 works of Asian art to start it, and now Sackler wanted the museum to be as recognized as its Smithsonian upstairs neighbor, the Freer.

On the Democratic side, Beth Dozoretz, director of the State Department’s Art in Embassies program, began planning her organization’s 50th-birthday fete from the moment she took over the organization in 2010. Regardless of who won the election, she wanted to celebrate her longtime friend Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Like everyone else in this fissured city, the two sides weren’t speaking to each other much. At least not until last month, when Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang — unaware of the political partisanship inherent in both events and slated to explode a tree on the grounds of the Mall — called Julian Raby, director of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, to ask, “How can I be in two places at once?” “We’ve got a train wreck on our hands,” Raby recalled telling Virginia Shore, chief curator of the Art in Embassies program, when he realized she had commandeered his star attraction. The 54-year-old Chinese artist, who began working in gunpowder to help tell his experiences growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, was one of five artists to be honored at the Art in Embassies tribute luncheon hosted by Clinton (see story, this page).

The seeds for Raby’s train wreck were actually sown long before. In April at the British Embassy, Sackler revealed her plans to toss “The Party of the Year” during the last weekend in November to a room full of mostly Republicans, who at that point were thinking which of their ilk would be in the White House at that point. Dozoretz, a major Clinton and Obama fund-raiser, was in the crowd at the embassy and quietly mentioned that she was also planning a major party for that weekend. And as the divisive presidential election campaign dragged on, the two groups never discussed the conflict or the possibility of working — or partying — together.

With only a month to set things right, Raby called Shore and suggested they meet for a drink at the Ritz. “It seemed so bloody obvious,” he said.

The talks didn’t start off well when the two curators turned up at different locations. Finally, over martinis at the Georgetown Ritz, they came up with a plan: They would work together and in that way, Cai Guo-Qiang could still explode his tree on the Mall. The Sackler would exhibit Art in Embassies art designed by Asian and Asian-American artists before it was shipped off for installation in U.S. embassies overseas.

“We bureaucrats are often working in parallel, completely blindfolded,” said Raby, describing a condition that’s so rampant in Washington it has everyone worried the country is heading off a fiscal cliff. “The success of these two parties shows the importance of meeting face-to-face and just chatting.”

On Thursday night in the Sackler Museum, 57 feet underground, Nitze and Pillsbury lined up enough royals to outrank a straight flush with Farah Diba Pahlavi, the former Empress of Iran; Princess Michael of Kent; Prince and Princess Johannes von Auersperg; Baroness Aziza Allard; and Ethiopia’s deposed Imperial Highness Ermias Sahle Selassie and Princess Saba. But the guest who got Washington locals like former Reagan Chief of Protocol Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt lining up to say hello was Democrat Daisy Soros. She was so popular that museum patrons Jane and Calvin Cafritz took turns sitting next to her.

So perhaps it’s time for D.C. denizens to revive those halcyon days when more work was accomplished on the social circuit than on Capitol Hill?

“We haven’t done a good enough job with that yet, but we’re working on it,” said Sackler, with a nervous laugh, after the explosion. Behind her, Cai Guo-Qiang’s tree emerged from a dense cloud of black smoke.

And despite the weekend of postelection bonhomie, the fate of social Washington looks a lot like Guo-Qiang’s thrice-detonated tree — charred and blackened but still standing. — SUSAN WATTERS

Nancy Pelosi and Dame Jillian Sackler

A dancer at the Sackler Museum.

Watching Hil

Ronald, Beth and Melanne Dozoretz with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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