Tag: Fashion

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Etsy is shopping for the style resale app Depop for $1.6 billion.

Etsy is buying the fashion resale app Depop for $1.6 billion.

Depop, the fashion resale marketplace beloved by Generation Z, is to be acquired by Etsy for $1.6 billion, the two companies announced on Wednesday.

The cash deal, which is expected to close by the third quarter of this year, underscores the growing influence of clothing resale platforms. More shoppers are turning to the secondhand market for something cheaper and — potentially — greener as the overproduction of clothing increasingly adds to landfills.

The trend appears to have been accelerated by the pandemic as more shoppers looked to declutter wardrobes, earn cash by selling their old clothes or set up fashion customization businesses from their bedrooms.

Investor appetite is also on the rise. Last month, Europe’s largest secondhand fashion marketplace, Vinted, raised 250 million euros in a funding round that valued the start-up at €3.5 billion ($4.26 billion), while in the United States companies such as ThredUp and Poshmark have gone public this year.

Depop, which was founded in 2011, has been particularly successful in building a marketplace for younger consumers, who are adopting secondhand fashion faster than any other group. Ninety percent of its users are under 26, with 30 million users across 150 countries. The platform is particularly known for its vintage clothes and streetwear — and for creating a new cohort of online influencers famous for selling their wares.

“We are simply thrilled to be adding Depop — what we believe to be the resale home for Gen Z consumers — to the Etsy family,” said the Etsy chief executive, Josh Silverman.

He said he believed the platform had “significant potential to further scale” and said that he saw “significant opportunities for shared expertise and growth synergies” for Etsy’s apparel sector, which was valued at $1 billion last year.

According to the Boston Consulting Group, the global pre-owned apparel market is worth up to $40 billion a year — about 2 percent of the total apparel market. It is expected to grow 15 to 20 percent annually for the next five years.

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Entertainment

The Pleasure of Eurovision Trend

The Joy of Eurovision Fashion

It is an uncomfortable reality of the modern communal spectacle that more often than not, when it comes to a major award show or performance extravaganza or even sporting event, marketing has overwhelmed personal expression — at least when it comes to the clothes. Red carpets are a big business for public personalities, and fear of looking silly an equally powerful deterrent. Brands have swooped in to exploit that tension to their own ends.

We wrote off the Oscars years ago, but when even the MTV Video Awards and the Olympics become hashtag opportunities for Valentino, Giambattista Valli and Ralph Lauren (among many, many others), you know we’ve reached peak fashion penetration.

Which is why Eurovision 2021, that no-holds-barred mash-up of emotion, inanity, genres, nationalities, wind machines, bursts of fire and just plain weirdness, was such a joy to watch.

The hosts didn’t just use “Open Up” as their official slogan and then open the arena in Rotterdam to thousands of people (thousands of people! in one room! yelling and dancing!). They opened up the stage to a parade of ridiculous outfits that were nevertheless worn with so much exuberance it was a great reminder that sometimes just the freedom to express your own taste should be the goal.

The sheer fact that Italy’s Maneskin, the winner of the whole shebang, actually worked with a big-name designer and no one would ever know because the rock band’s identity completely overshadowed the fashion brand, is symptomatic of what makes Eurovision special. And, increasingly, unique.

That designer — Etro — is, after all, an Italian family-run brand that has made a signature out of a certain boho deluxe aesthetic, most often expressed in floaty paisley fabrics and a sort of sand-swept romance. Yet there Maneskin was, doing their very energetic best to revive the whole idea of glam rock in laminated laced-up leather flares and studded leather jackets, and gold-speckled poet’s sleeves. It did make you think Jimi Hendrix-meets-“Velvet Goldmine,” but it didn’t make you think “Milan Fashion Week.”

That’s actually all to the good. Indeed, by the end of the show, it was hard not to wish that along with the winning song, viewers had gotten to vote for the winning outfit. After all, the two are fairly intertwined.

If Italy won the competition, for example, Vegas-style silver clearly won the night. Spangly, abbreviated shine was the go-to performance look, as seen on Anxhela Peristeri from Albania (in a high-necked steel-sequined leotard with icicles of sparkles dripping from her hips and shoulders); Elena Tsagrinou from Cyprus (in some sort of halter neck bikini confection with crystals and beading); Destiny from Malta (silver fringe-y minidress); and Natalia Gordienko from Moldova (long-sleeved plunge-neck bodysuit with — yup! — more silver fringing).

Apparently, their costume designers had all watched last year’s satire, “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” and been inspired to take it literally.

Though the bright yellow outfits of Lithuania’s the Roop, which combined shoulder pads, jumpsuits, and schoolgirl pleats and called to mind the early days of MTV, not to mention both New Wave silhouettes and sunny-side-up eggs, were equally hard to forget. There’s a reason that they caught the eye of supporters in Vilnius, who according to a local government blog enlisted MK Drama Queen, the brand that created the costumes for the Roop to help dress local statues in bright yellow accessories as a form of home-country boosterism.

When it came to camp, however — which is, after all, the signature aesthetic value of Eurovision — no one beat Norway’s Tix. His giant white fur and even more giant white wings took his crystal-studded silver bodysuit to a whole different level, as did the silver chains that bound him to both the Earth (and a couple backup demons gyrating nearby), the better to evoke the point of his song, “Fallen Angel.”

Speaking of angels, feathers were also a key component of the look from San Marino’s Senhit along with a giant gold headdress (along with Flo Rida, who joined her onstage). Which was only outdone in the “how-in-the-world-do-you-move-in-that?” sweepstakes by Russia’s Manizha, who made her entrance in the robes of what looked like a giant matryoshka doll only to answer the question by emerging in the freedom of red coveralls to illustrate the theme of her song, “Russian Woman.”

You couldn’t help but smile at it all, which is the point. Fashion is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to make you feel good. That’s something everyone needs. That Eurovision hides that under a bushel of kitsch doesn’t make it any less true.

Little wonder no one could muster up any enthusiasm (or votes) for England’s James Newman, who donned a … plain leather coat for his number. One of the takeaways of Eurovision 2021 should be that Coco Chanel’s whole “elegance is refusal” stance doesn’t really work in this context. Except, perhaps, when it comes to France’s Barbara Pravi, who took to the stage in a simple black bustier and black trousers to croon her song “Voilà,” winning a rapturous reception from her home market and coming in second in the jury vote.

Given the plaudits, it was hard not to wonder — with a bit of a sinking heart — if, say, a Dior ambassadorship might be in her future.

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Business

Mariano Puig, Scion of a Spanish Vogue Home, Dies at 93

Mariano Puig, Scion of a Spanish Fashion House, Dies at 93

MADRID – Mariano Puig, who helped transform his family-owned Spanish perfume maker into an international fashion house that includes the Paco Rabanne, Nina Ricci, Carolina Herrera and Jean Paul Gaultier brands, died in Barcelona on April 13th. He was 93 years old.

Puig, the company that bears the family name, confirmed the death.

As a member of the second generation to run the company, Mr. Puig built his overseas presence significantly, particularly in the 1960s when Puig opened offices in the United States and formed an alliance with Mr. Rabanne, a Spanish fashion designer whose celebrity status in Paris gave Puig better access to the French market.

Puig eventually took over Paco Rabanne and other major brands. One of Mr Puig’s five children, Marc Puig, is the current chairman and managing director of the company, which was founded in 1914 by Mariano Puig’s father, Antonio.

In 2019, Puig achieved sales of around 2 billion euros or 2.4 billion US dollars. It’s one of the few big fashion companies still owned by its original family in a luxury goods sector dominated by conglomerates like Kering and LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Mariano Puig Planas was born in Barcelona on December 8, 1927. His father at the time imported and sold products and materials such as rubber, perfumes and books. His mother, Júlia Planas, was a housewife.

In his youth, Mariano was a member of the Spanish water ski team and won national championships twice. He graduated from the Sarrià Chemical Institute in Barcelona in 1949 and studied at the IESE Business School in the 1950s shortly after it opened there. Today it is one of the two leading international business schools in Barcelona alongside Esade.

Antonio Puig lost his business when a German submarine sank a ship with an uninsured shipload of his goods at the beginning of the First World War. After starting over, he introduced the first lipstick made in Spain under the brand name Milady in 1922.

After the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Antonio Puig consolidated his perfume business by selling a lavender-scented eau de cologne called Agua Lavanda. Cologne, developed with the French perfumer Segal, became a major seller in Spain.

From the 1950s, Antonio Puig gradually passed control to his four sons and died in 1979. Mariano Puig joined the company as a chemical engineer while studying.

He was the second oldest son and the one most determined to grow the company overseas. “Spain was small and closed, and that made me think about what we wanted to do and be,” he said, according to an excerpt from a book that Puig published on the occasion of the company’s 100th anniversary.

In business today

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April 21, 2021, 3:24 p.m. ET

Mr. Puig acquired the rights to distribute well-known foreign brands in Spain at a time when the country was under military dictatorship. With his wife María Guasch he traveled to Los Angeles to sign a contract with Max Factor for the distribution of his cosmetics in Spain.

Mr Puig’s greatest coup was to convince Mr Rabanne, the fashion designer, to diversify – to add perfumery to his haute couture lines – and to work with Puig, who at the time only had about 50 employees. Shortly after agreeing to a fragrance joint venture in 1968, the two men were at dinner when Mr. Rabanne sketched the outline of the United Nations building in New York on a paper tablecloth. The drawing became the design for the bottle of their first successful perfume called Calandre. Puig eventually took over the entire business from Mr. Rabanne, including his fashion house.

Mr. Puig followed a similar path with Carolina Herrera, the Venezuelan fashion designer who had become famous in New York in the 1980s. They founded a perfume brand together before Puig also took over her fashion house in 1995.

Mr. Puig was the company’s managing director until 1998 and then chairman of Exea, the holding company over which his Puig family controlled, for another five years.

He was a proponent of the family business and helped found the Spanish Institute for Family Business in Barcelona. José Luis Blanco, its general manager, paid tribute to Mr Puig as a key player in the overhaul of Spanish industry, which had been torn by the civil war and lacked funds from the Marshall Plan after World War II.

Together with several other business leaders of his generation, Mr. Puig succeeded in “transforming this nation from ruins into the modern and dynamic country that we have today,” said Mr. Blanco.

Together with his son Marc, Mr. Puig is survived by his wife; a brother, José María; four other children, Marian, Ana, Ton and Daniel; and nine grandchildren.

As one of the most famous business tycoons in Barcelona, ​​Mr. Puig helps fund several local art foundations and museums as well as IESE.

He wanted to stay away from politics and regretted the decades-long conflict of secession in Catalonia, which peaked in 2017 when the Catalan regional government made a failed attempt to declare an independent Catalan republic with Barcelona as its capital.

In a letter published earlier this year in La Vanguardia, the Barcelona-based newspaper, Mr Puig wrote: “I feel very Catalan, I feel very Spanish and I have a deep love for my city. But recently we’ve seen a contradiction that can only make me sad. “

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Business

The Obstacles to Reporting on Black Illustration in Vogue

Is Fashion Changing? - The New York Times

Fashion leaders are committed to tackling racism in their businesses. To see if anything is improving, the New York Times reporters felt they needed concrete data on the current state of representation of blacks in the industry.

Reporters asked well-known brands, stores, and publications to provide information about the number of black employees and executives in their ranks – including those who design, manufacture, and sell products; Walk runways; appear in advertising campaigns and magazine covers; and sit on company boards. However, of the 64 companies contacted, only four fully answered a short series of questions.

In a recent article, a team of reporters published the companies’ responses, as well as personal comments from black stylists, editors, and publicists. Below is an edited conversation with these journalists: Vanessa Friedman, Salamishah Tillet, Elizabeth Paton, Jessica Testa, and Evan Nicole Brown.

What was the biggest challenge in telling this story?

VANESSA FRIEDMAN The absolute lack of consistency. You are dealing with global organizations speaking to a wide variety of markets and opening up a whole range of different types of cultures. They are headquartered in different countries with different demographics, different histories, different issues with racism and different laws. We had a series of very simple questions, less than 10, that felt like the most basic and obvious things that anyone could answer. But only four out of 64 companies answered completely.

When did you realize that the inability to answer the questions was history?

FRIEDMAN You write what you find, and we felt it was important to get that across, if you have this mess in basic information until you can get a clearer picture of it, you really can’t know when it’s progressing .

Why couldn’t the companies answer these questions?

ELIZABETH PATON Each company had their own reservations and problems and reasons. I think to some extent it had to do with culture. For example, the perception of the Italian brands we tried was different from that of the Americans. I mean, legal reasons were part of it, but American companies in particular provided more information than European companies. I actually think America is in a slightly different place right now in their talk about race.

JESSICA TESTA It was almost surprising how reluctant some of the magazines were to participate because their numbers were the ones that would actually reflect them well. I feel like we’re getting opposition from all sides, but one thing we heard was, “I’ll be interested in going next time.”

How was the response to the story?

PATON Most brands understand the work we are doing, even if they found the questions very uncomfortable. Some brands were disappointed that their efforts were no longer recognized, even if they hadn’t given us full answers. I haven’t heard a brand tell us we made a mistake trying to carry out this project. They realize that they need this test to change.

They also interviewed people about their experience in the industry. What did you take away from it?

EVAN NICOLE BROWN It was important to me to find the crossbreeds, but also the differences that the black pros felt in this area. Sometimes in the past people have been asked to speak up about things and there has been a fear that might work against them or their concern would be misunderstood, but I think this project did a really good job of making people feel comfortable , to speak . I think this platform was appreciated and there didn’t seem to be any fear just to share these really honest experiences which definitely helped the piece and helped confirm the dates or lack thereof.

Which questions are you really interested in?

SALAMISHAH TILLET How do you further diversify the leadership at the top for me? And then what are the structures and what assumptions are made in those rooms that prevent this leadership from becoming ever more diverse? Because we want to continue to change all aspects of the industry and all levers in the industry, but if the top remains monolithic, then it is really those who determine how the other aspects of the industry change alongside it.

BROWN I was really interested in the tension where classicism is popping up in this conversation in terms of representation. Even if representation in the fashion industry on the racing front improves, much remains to be done on the socio-economic front. Through this coverage, I became more aware of the communities being reached and what the ideal consumer is for so many of these places that we are discussing.

What should the readers take away?

FRIEDMAN I think we’ve learned a lot about where the sticking points are and the importance of getting a clear picture of what’s going on. You can’t go forward until you know where you are. And it’s just time for all of us to know where we are in this industry.

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Is Vogue Altering? – The New York Occasions

Is Fashion Changing? - The New York Times

When it comes to the power structure of established brands and the designers they represent, the representation of black is incredibly small.

Of the 64 brands we have contacted, only Off-White has a black CEO – and this man, Virgil Abloh, is also the founder.

Of the 69 designers or creative directors at these companies, only four are black. (One of them, Mr. Abloh, runs two brands: Off-White and Louis Vuitton menswear; the others are Olivier Rousteing of Balmain, Rushemy Botter, co-designer of Nina Ricci and Kanye West.) That number has only shrunk by one when LVMH and Rihanna took a break from their Fenty fashion house. A black woman was at the helm of a major Parisian luxury brand. Now there aren’t any.

Five top designer jobs have been created since the summer. Four went to white men and one to Gabriela Hearst, a Latina woman from Uruguay.

And of the brands we looked at, only six and three of their parent companies partnered with the Black in Fashion Council. These companies are all American, although the Council works with other international organizations.

Of the 15 listed companies in this group, seven have board members with at least one black director. Of these, two (Capri and Ralph Lauren) have more than one.

Retail companies and magazines are also absent from the black representation in the leadership.

Two of the seven retailers who responded or whose C-suite information was publicly available have a single black member of the executive team. The rest have none.

Two out of nine magazines we examined, including international editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Elle, are run by black editors-in-chief.

Of the retailers we surveyed, two had joined the 15 percent promise: Bloomingdale’s and, this month, Moda Operandi. One company, MatchesFashion, published its own breakdown of how designers reported their ethnicities themselves – out of 715 designers, 223 had not responded.

From the magazines, Vogue and InStyle have signed the pledge and pledged to hire at least 15 percent black talent, including photographers and writers.

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Business

May Brexit Destroy British Style?

Could Brexit Destroy British Fashion?

Not long before the latest fully digital London Fashion Week kicked off on February 19 – with a scaled-down schedule reflecting the ongoing impact of the pandemic on the sector – there were more than 450 industry leaders, including designers such as Paul Smith, Katherine Hamnett and Roksanda Ilincic sent an angry letter to 10 Downing Street.

In it, the signatories claimed that the new Brexit trade terms negotiated between the European Union and the UK could jeopardize the survival of hundreds of fashion companies that were “disregarded” by the last-minute deal. The local industry, so the letter, may be confronted with a “decimation” due to the redrawn geography of Europe.

Fashion “contributes more to Britain’s GDP than the fishing, music, film, pharmaceutical and automotive industries combined,” says the letter addressed to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and organized by the Think Tank Fashion Roundtable.

“The agreement with the EU has a loophole in which the promised free movement of goods and services for all creative people, including the fashion and textile sectors, should exist.”

Even Samantha Cameron, the wife of former Prime Minister David Cameron – who chaired the 2016 referendum that led to the UK’s decision to leave the European Union at all – said in a BBC radio interview that her contemporary fashion label, Cefinn, was going through “teething problems.” “after Brexit.

“If you bring goods into the country from outside the UK and then try to sell them back to Europe,” said Ms. Cameron, “it is very challenging and difficult right now.”

It is no surprise that the majority of the British fashion industry continues to rail against Brexit. For the past five years, domestic start-up brands, international luxury houses, leading London design schools and rural textile manufacturers had raised concerns about whether Britain would maintain its reputation as a creative and commercial hub for fashion after Brexit.

More recently, in the last year, as the time drew nearer December 31st, fears about the possibility of no agreement grew, bringing new ones at a time when the UK economy was already under pressure Taxes on merchandise and stalled ports with them in the pandemic.

This scenario was avoided in the eleventh hour. But as the UK adapts to its new position outside of the bloc, a chorus of voices from across the fashion industry are expressing increasing concern about what to do next.

Take John Horner, CEO of Models 1, a London-based modeling agency that represents Naomi Campbell and Lara Stone. For decades he has been booking models for runway shows or magazine shoots abroad with less than a day’s notice, with at least a quarter of all income generated from European jobs. However, free movement between the UK and the EU ended on January 1, which resulted in new visa requirements. Mr. Horner believes the extra layer of paperwork and costs will have a dramatic impact on the business.

“Models now need one of 27 visas to work in European countries – it’s going to be an ongoing administrative nightmare,” Horner said, noting that the UK creative industries are banding together to put pressure on the government to negotiate visa-free work arrangements for artists and professionals. “I think we will also see a number of international players avoid London as a filming location and choose European cities instead.”

According to the industry association Walpole, 42 percent of all British luxury goods are exported to the EU. Now British fashion brands are grappling with piles of new customs procedures and taxes where a wrongly ticked box or stroke of a pen can mean time-consuming delays or fines.

Jamie Gill, CEO of Roksanda, said the fact that the deal was closed in the final moments of 2020 meant no one had time to adjust to the unfamiliar bureaucratic hurdles and penalties, from brand employees based in the UK to to their small artisan suppliers and manufacturers in Europe.

“There is so much to learn about new rules for us as well as for large logistics partners like FedEx and DHL,” said Gill. “Right now there are delays in every way, everyone is doing something wrong and it costs both time and money. The industry breathed a sigh of relief when no business was avoided and we ran out of tariffs. But the pandemic means it’s pretty tough out there and every brand wants to get goods to the shop and online as soon as possible. “

Last week, the British Fashion Council, the industry’s lobbying body, said it was “live and ongoing discussions” with government officials about travel restrictions and working with designers and brands to help them familiarize themselves with paperwork and the customs of understanding rules on rules of origin for products.

Not to mention import issues. Many EU consumers who buy goods from UK fashion retailers’ websites receive customs and tax bills for 20 percent or more of the cost of the goods, and UK customers who shop in the EU are also charged additional bills.

Adam Mansell, head of the UK Fashion & Textile Association, warned that it is currently “cheaper for retailers to write off the cost of goods than to take care of everything, either abandoning them or possibly burning them. A lot of large companies don’t have this under control, let alone smaller ones. “

Another blow to many fashion brands and retailers is the UK government’s decision to end its retail export program on January 1st. The program, which allowed international visitors to reclaim 20 percent of VAT on their purchases, had long allowed wealthy foreign tourists to make expensive purchases tax-free in the UK. Now luxury power players like Burberry, Harrods and the Oxfordshire Bicester Village shopping center believe the new laws will reduce the UK’s attractiveness as a luxury shopping destination at a time when such bait is most needed.

In December, 17 luxury and retail companies estimated that planned £ 1 billion investments in infrastructures such as branch expansions and distribution centers would be lost due to lower demand as buyers went elsewhere, something not just felt by ordinary British marquee luxury names.

“It is wrong to see this as a problem that only affects the West End. Over £ 500 million of tax-free shopping is happening locally, including Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Glasgow and Liverpool, ”said James Lambert, vice chairman of Value Retail, which owns Bicester Village. The outlet center, which is supposed to look like a small town home to Burberry, Gucci and Dior, among others, has become one of the UK’s most popular tourist attractions.

“The impact will have an impact on the entire retail and hospitality supply chain across the UK,” said Lambert.

Still, not all companies are so pessimistic. While some UK silk and thread suppliers said the feedback from their European customers was that they would buy from European suppliers instead of accepting additional costs and hassle, Brian Wilson of cloth maker Harris Tweed Hebrides felt the short-term hurdles were nothing what could not be overcome.

“We are not in the same position as grocers or those with perishable stocks who are clearly having a terrible time,” he said.

Harris Tweed is a durable, all-weather textile handwoven in their homes by islanders in the Hebrides. While 14 percent of the fabric is exported to fashion makers in Europe, Wilson said the American, Korean and Japanese markets have remained resilient and that trade with these countries has remained stable in order to minimize the Brexit disruption.

The cabinet office, which had not officially responded to the Fashion Roundtable letter by February 19, said it had offered helplines, webinars and support for companies in the fashion industry. However, this may not be enough for companies already decoupling from ongoing lockdowns and a year of pandemic.

Katherine Hamnett, the veteran fashion designer long known for her simple speech, summed up the situation for her colleagues.

“Unless there is a radical overhaul,” she said, “British brands are going to die.”

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Business

Why Is Fb Rejecting These Trend Advertisements?

Why Is Facebook Rejecting These Fashion Ads?

Here’s how it works: a company creates an ad or creates a shop and sends it to Facebook for approval, an automated process. (If it’s a storefront, the products can also arrive through a feed, and everyone has to follow Facebook rules.) If the system indicates a potential violation, the ad or product will be returned to the company as non-compliant. However, the exact word or part of the picture that caused the problem is not identified. This means that it is up to the company to effectively guess what the problem is.

The company can then either challenge the ad / listing as it is, or change the image or wording it hopes will meet Facebook rules. In either case, the communication is sent back through the automated system where it can be verified by another automated system or an actual person.

According to Facebook, it has added thousands of reviewers in the past few years, but three million companies advertise on Facebook, most of which are small businesses. The Facebook spokeswoman did not identify what would result in an appeal being made to a human reviewer or whether there is a codified process by which this would happen. Often times, the small business owners feel trapped in an endless machine-controlled loop.

“The problem we keep running into is communication channels,” said Sinéad Burke, an inclusivity activist who consults with numerous brands and platforms, including Juniper. “Access has to mean more than just digital access. And we need to understand who is in the room when these systems are created. “

The Facebook spokeswoman said there were employees with disabilities across the company, including senior management, and that there was an accessibility team that worked across Facebook to embed accessibility into the product development process. While there is no question that the ad and store policy rules Facebook created were in part intended to protect their communities from false medical claims and counterfeit products, these rules, albeit inadvertently, block some of those communities from accessing Products made for you.

“This is one of the most typical problems we see,” said Tobias Matzner, Professor of Media, Algorithms and Society at the University of Paderborn in Germany. “Algorithms solve the problem of efficiency on a large scale” – by recognizing patterns and making assumptions – “but when they do, they do all sorts of other things, like hurting small businesses.”

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World News

Rihanna and LVMH Hit Pause on Fenty, Their Style Line

Rihanna and LVMH Hit Pause on Fenty, Their Fashion Line

Is this the end of the experiment with celebrity high fashion designers? It turns out that even Rihanna can’t do one thing: sell high fashion clothes during a pandemic.

LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury group, announced the Fenty fashion house in 2019 as a big fanfare. However, today they announced that together with Rihanna they had “made the decision to discontinue the European-based clothing activity until conditions improve. “

Translated, this means that the luxury fashion arm of the Fenty empire (an empire that includes the Savage X Fenty lingerie line and Fenty cosmetics and skin care lines separately) no longer produces collections even though it is not officially closed, and Rihanna remains a part by LVMH.

Talks are currently ongoing with the brand’s employees about their future, although Bastien Renard, the label’s managing director, is still in the position. The news was first reported by Women’s Wear Daily.

Though it is shortly after a successful $ 115 million donation round to Savage X Fenty by L Catterton, LVMH-affiliated private equity firm, the exposure of the Fenty ready-made clothing is a rare failure for the World’s Greatest Luxury Group , which also includes Louis Vuitton, Dior and Celine. It’s also the rare misstep of one of the world’s most effective celebrity polymaths: a reflection of both the market’s tepid response to the Fenty collections and the ongoing impact of the pandemic on the luxury sector.

And it’s a reminder that someone who has a tremendous cultural following and unparalleled taste doesn’t mean they’ll be making great, original clothes.

Only the second luxury fashion house LVMH ever attempted to build from scratch (the first was Christian Lacroix, who opened LVMH in 1987 and sold in 2005), Fenty was initially introduced as the group’s foray into the future: a new brand Who is run by a black woman with great style and popular influence but no formal, old-fashioned design training, who eschews the calcified system of runway shows for regular drops and focuses on digital direct sales and communication.

What could go wrong?

A lot of.

Starting a new luxury fashion house from scratch is enormously expensive for any investor and usually takes time. But 2020 was the worst year for the luxury industry in history. While LVMH, the top-selling luxury group, has seen sales surge in recent months, largely driven by Chinese consumers, lockdowns continue to create persistent disruptions and dampen net income. LVMH announced last month that its profit in 2020 was 4.7 billion euros, down around a third from 2019.

And unlike some other LVMH brands that proved resilient during the downturn, like Louis Vuitton and Dior, the Fenty clothing line’s daring experiment struggled to find its booth, prompting Jean-Jacques Guiony, chief financial officer by LVMH, alluded to last October The Group’s third quarter 2020 results were reported during a news call.

“At Fenty Fashion we are obviously still in the start-up phase and have to find out exactly what the right offer is. That is not easy. We started from scratch, ”he said. “Of course we have the great help from Rihanna, but I would say there is still work to be done if it comes to really defining the offer.”

Indeed, “the offer” was unclear from the start. When the house was founded, a statement from LVMH said that the new brand would “focus on the Rihanna she created” and “take shape with her vision”.

While Rihanna built her profile in part on her own strategic and adventurous embrace of high fashion, she received the 2014 Council of Fashion Designers of America’s “Fashion Icon” award in a see-through crystal-speckled gown, thong and white fur boa – she seemed often better at choosing meaningful looks for themselves than creating new ones for their followers. In general, clothing ranged from oversized to body-hugging, with curved streetwear, and came across as derivative rather than pioneering.

They were also potentially more expensive than many of Rihanna’s fans expected (albeit less than the usual LVMH deal): $ 940 for a padded denim jacket; $ 810 for a corsetted shirt dress.

Meanwhile, Savage X Fenty made headlines with Song-n-Dance-n-Celebrity-filled lingerie extravaganzas filmed live and then streamed on Amazon, positioning itself in a post as the most capable, comprehensive answer to Victoria’s Secret -MeToo world.

This time out, granted to clothing brand Fenty, could allow it to reposition itself and refine its offerings to grab a better moment to return – perhaps after the pandemic’s pent-up party desires are unleashed. There’s a reason they didn’t shut it down completely.

On Wednesday, as news of the LVMH partnership spread, Savage X Fenty issued a statement detailing the new funding round in which Jay-Z is an investor through its Marcy Venture Partners. Last year the brand saw “explosive sales growth of over 200 percent,” the statement said, and the “heavily drawn” round would spur investment in customer acquisition and expansion into retail.

“The brand strikes a unique balance between affordability, fashion and comfort, represents inclusiveness and diversity, and has differentiated itself through an exceptional level of affinity and unsurpassed customer loyalty,” said Jonathan Owsley, partner in L Catterton’s growth fund.

Neither the Fenty line nor the suspended experiment with LVMH was mentioned.

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World News

Trend Mogul Peter Nygard Denied Bail by Canadian Choose

Fashion Mogul Peter Nygard Denied Bail by Canadian Judge

Mr Nygard appeared in court via video link from prison and looked like the shell of the man who was once plastered on billboards in New York’s Times Square and Winnipeg Airport. His gray hair, usually covered in a lion’s mane, was tied in a messy bun. He was wearing a face mask and gray-blue shirt while in jail and stared straight ahead without reacting to the judge’s decision.

Updated

Apr. 5, 2021 at 4:14 pm ET

Denied bail is relatively rare in Canada, especially for those with no criminal record like Mr Nygard, said Seth Weinstein, a Toronto criminal defense attorney who co-authored a book on extradition cases.

Mr Prober said he would wait for more information on the charges from the US prosecutor’s office before deciding on his client’s next steps. It is very unlikely that a challenge from Mr Nygard to his extradition would be successful, experts said.

“In Canada, it is almost impossible not to be extradited, especially to our good friends the US,” said Robert Currie, professor of international criminal law at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He added that wealthy people, using all legal means, could prevent extradition for a few years.

In Canada, the bail system is largely based on community trust and connections and does not involve large cash deposits and commercial bail-borrowers as is the case in many US states.

Instead, in most cases, the defendant needs to find one or more “guarantees” – usually a family member or lifelong friend who pledges collateral, often in the form of property. More importantly, they also agree to supervise the accused, make sure the accused keeps bail set by the court, and notify the police of any violations.

In Mr. Nygard’s case, none of his 10 children, ex-girlfriends, or longtime businesspeople who helped set up his business appeared in court as a proposed surety. Instead there were two employees: one a former site manager with a criminal record of cocaine trafficking and a previous association with the Hells Angels motorcycle club, and the other a former director who still works for Mr Nygard overseeing the company’s bankruptcy proceedings.

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Pierre Cardin, ground-breaking designer, dies

Pierre Cardin, ground-breaking fashion designer, dies

Designer Pierre Cardin poses during the launch of the new Haute Couture collection by Pierre Cardin Paris at Maxim on November 26, 2013 in Paris.

Richard Bord | Getty Images

Pierre Cardin, who in his more than seven decades in fashion brought geometric shapes to haute couture and named everything from clothing to furniture and perfume to pens, died Tuesday. He was 98 years old.

“It is with great sadness that the members of the Academy of Fine Arts announce the death of their colleague Pierre Cardin,” tweeted the French Academy of Fine Arts.

Cardin died in a hospital in Neuilly, west of Paris, his family told Agence France-Presse.

Cardin switched from the world of bespoke high fashion for private customers to ready-to-wear designs for the masses.

“You said Pret-a-Porter would kill your name and it saved me,” Cardin once said.

Cardin was born on July 2, 1922, the son of a wealthy wine merchant near Venice. When he was two years old, he and his family moved from fascist Italy to France.

Cardin was only 14 years old when he started as an apprentice tailor. At the age of 23 he moved to Paris, studied architecture and worked at the Paquin fashion house and later at Elsa Schiaparelli. In the French capital he met the film director Jean Cocteau and helped design masks and costumes for the 1946 film “La Belle et La Bete”.

He switched to Christian Dior in 1946 and worked as a pattern tailor on the female “New Look” fashion of the post-war period. Four years later he opened his own fashion house and designed costumes for the theater.

In 1953 he presented his first women’s collection and the following year he opened his first women’s boutique, Eve, and unveiled the Bubble dress. The garment, a loose fitting dress that gathers at the waist and hem and balloons on the thighs, has been recognized internationally. Soon his fashion was worn by such bold names as Eva Peron, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau, Mia Farrow and Jacqueline Kennedy.

Pierre Cardin at the opening of the Musee Pierre Cardin on November 13, 2014 in Paris.

Pascal Le Segretain | Getty Images

In 1957 he traveled to Japan and was one of the first European designers to explore Asian influences. He later pioneered China to break out of its drab, militaristic Mao Zedong look.

Also in 1957, he opened another Parisian boutique, this time for men by the name of Adam, with colorful ties and printed shirts. He later made the iconic collarless suits for the Beatles and helped attract clients like Gregory Peck. Rex Harrison and Mick Jagger.

“Before me, no designer made clothes for men, only tailors,” Cardin said in an interview with Agence France-Presse in 2009. “Today, the image of designers is more focused on men than women, right or wrong. So I was right 40 or 50 years ago. “

In 1959, he shocked the fashion world by presenting a ready-to-wear show at a department store, Printemps in Paris. After the show, he was expelled from the Elite Chambre Syndicale, the French association of haute couture designers. (He was later reinstated.)

The French fashion designer Pierre Cardin opened his own fashion house in 1950.

Reg Lancaster | Getty Images

Over-the-top fashion from out of this world

With the advent of the US-Russia space race in the late 1950s and 1960s, he launched the “Cosmocorps” collection – exaggerated unisex fashions from around the world. His space age look included helmets, google, tunics and over-the-knee boots.

“My favorite piece of clothing is what I invent for a life that doesn’t yet exist, the world of tomorrow,” he said.

Or as he put it in an interview with AFP 2009: “Fashion and design are not the same. Fashion can be worn. Design can be uncomfortable and unpopular, but it’s creative. So design is the real value.”

He pioneered branding in the 1970s, giving his name to virtually everything, including automobiles – Cardin AMX Javelin from American Motors Corp. from 1971 – perfume, pens, cigarettes and even sardines. He has been called a “Branding Visionary” by the New York Times. A 2002 article found that around 800 products bearing his name were sold in more than 140 countries for $ 1 billion in annual sales.

In 1981, he bought one of Paris’ most iconic names, Maxim’s Restaurant, for more than $ 20 million.

“I’ve done everything! I even have my own water! I make perfumes, sardines. Why not? During the war, I would have rather smelled the scent of sardines than perfume. If someone had asked me to make toilet paper, I would do it. Why not? ”he said in a 2002 interview with The Times.

He loved using geometric and strange designs. He developed a fabric, cardine, to emboss abstract shapes on garments. One of his residences was the Palais Bulles (Bubble Palace), a bizarre collection of circular structures – a la “The Flintstones” meets “The Jetsons” – overlooking the Mediterranean Sea near Cannes.

In May 2003, Pierre Cardin celebrated his 80th birthday and 50 years of fashion design in his Palais Bulles.

Alain Benainous | Getty Images

He also owned and restored the castle of the Marquis de Sade in Provence, where he held concerts and opera performances. “Cardin has a perfect angle,” said Architectural Digest in a 2007 story of the restoration of the castle, which was originally built in the 15th century.

Although Cardin was gay, he had a five-year affair with Moreau, “the queen of French new wave cinema”. During the affair, according to The Hollywood Reporter, he had a relationship with longtime artistic director and life partner Andre Oliver. Oliver died in 1993.

Cardin’s fascination with space led him to NASA, where he tried on an Apollo 11 spacesuit in 1971, two years after the first moon landing. In 2019, 50 years after the first moon landing, the Brooklyn Museum hosted a Cardin retrospective. In the catalog he was asked about his vision of fashion half a century in the future:

“In 2069 we will all be walking on the moon or Mars with my ‘Cosmocorps’ ensembles. Women will wear plexiglass bell hats and tube clothing. Men will wear elliptical pants and kinetic tunics.”

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