VUITTON 200 YEARS AGO
Two hundred years after his birth, the Vuitton company is marking the milestone in ways its founder never could have imagined, including a video game with embedded NFTs, a documentary on Apple TV, window installations, artworks, and social media activations galore.
Media is evolving so quickly that every time there’s a new way of communicating, you have to tell your story all over again, said Michael Burke, chairman and chief executive officer of Vuitton. Generations are now defined by technology, not by age.
Vuitton Louis setting off from the tiny town of Anchay in eastern France at age 13. And yet the life story of Vuitton, who eventually reached Paris and apprenticed at renowned trunk maker and packer Romain Maréchal, contains many universal business truths, including the necessity of taking risks, of staying close to the customer, and of passing the baton to the next generation at the right time. Continue reading
MOSCHINO FULL CONTROL
Aeffe SpA on Wednesday revealed that it was raising its stake in Moschino to take full control of the brand. Aeffe shares closed up 6.38 percent at 1.60 euros at the end of trading.
Aeffe already controls the Alberta Ferretti, Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini and Pollini labels. “Moschino is strategic for us and this is an important step in our medium-long term growth strategy, Aeffe’s executive chairman Massimo Ferretti told . Having full control over the Moschino brand, we are now in the best conditions to manage all activities related to the brand’s value chain, from product to quality and with positive effects on image, distribution and communication.
The acquisition will allow Aeffe to take action in a more powerful way, and will help integrate all of the women's apparel collections into Aeffe. We will be able to manage the brand autonomously and decide its strategic positioning, explained Ferretti.
Aeffe’s manufacturing plant is in San Giovanni in Marignano, near the beach town of Italy’s Cattolica, on the Adriatic Sea. Continue reading
WELCOME TO THE BUBBLE OF…
Consumers still appear willing to spend lavishly on luxury clothes and accessories, even as markets reopen and other activities like restaurants and travel compete for their discretionary dollars.
The world’s biggest luxury group, which owns 75 brands ranging from Dom Pérignon Champagne to Bulgari jewelry, said its fashion and leather goods, or FLG, division was once again the star performer in the second quarter, FLG activities posted sales of 7.13 billion euros in the three months to June 30, up 40 percent on an organic basis versus the same quarter in 2019, reflecting the resilience of star brands Louis Vuitton and Dior. Continue reading
FIVE BEACH BOOKS ON PERFUME
Le Dictionnaire Amoureux du Parfum, by Elisabeth de Feydeau
From Adam and Eve to Chanel N°5, from the still to orientalism, the historian Elisabeth de Feydeau, who has already written many books on perfume, wanted to add a novelistic dimension to the words and characters she tells. Historical references and unpublished anecdotes are combined in this book, which reads almost more like a short story than a dictionary.
Editions Plon, 27 €.
Les 5 parfums de notre histoire, by Laure Margerand
No, this is not a book about the five most mythical fragrances, but a novel. An olfactory novel about anosmia and the quest for a taste for life after a family tragedy. Bonus: a bookmark with 6 scents linked to key moments in the story. A card with repositionable stickers designed by Arcade Beauty and put in smell by the perfumer Irène Farmachidi of TechnicoFlor.
Editions J’ai lu, €19.90 Continue reading
FRAGONARD LE ROUGE BERNARD
Fragonard, this month it opened a guest house, called Maison Fragonard, at 7/9 Rue du Palais in Arles with six bedrooms in three apartments each spanning one floor.
Three years ago, Agnès Webster, who serves as chief executive officer of Fragonard, and her sister purchased a collection of traditional Arlésien costumes from a friend of their mother's. They’d decided to create a museum to display them in an old mansion there, and then thought to open a 1,290-square-foot boutique in a house of numerous floors, also in Arles.
They had an idea for the floors above the shop: to make guest rooms that would serve the sisters when they were in town but otherwise be guest rooms decorated to show the brand’s art de vivre and interior decor. Continue reading
IRIS VAN HERPEN 2022
A Mc QUEEN MEN’S 2022
Sarah Burton took the Romantic poet, painter and printmaker William Blake as her inspiration this season, filling the collection with ruffles, shredded tulle and pastel prints inspired by the artist’s work.
The designer said she wanted to “draw on the concept of imagination as a pure form of escapism,” and said the collection was based around lightness, air and water, “and on beauty emerging from darkness.”
Her man has rarely had such feminine flair, what with the single, asymmetric ruffle tumbling down the front of a printed cotton blouse; the long skirts with frills made from shredded tulle, and the tuxedo jackets with shoulders that looked as if they’d been slashed by a swashbuckler’s sword.
YSL 2022
KRIS WU INFLUENCESEX
Several brands, including Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Porsche, have cut ties with top Chinese Canadian singer-actor Kris Wu as controversial claims surrounding his personal life emerged on Chinese social media over the weekend. A young woman who said she’d dated the pop star accused him of targeting young and sometimes underage females for sex. Continue reading
TRACY MAKEUP ARTIST
Eyes dressed up in colorful hues had a moment during the recent winter 2021 couture season. For Armani Privé Couture, Linda Cantello swathed models’ eyelids in an eggshell blue.
To conjure up ideas for the beauty look for Alexis Mabille’s couture presentation, the designer presented makeup artist Lloyd Simmonds the clothes and set for the video and photos.
“My first reaction was that I needed to create something graphic and sharp to unify the different geometries of the clothes,” said Simmonds. “Secondly, I needed to use color in a simple way to intensify each girl in the brightly colored background.
Peepers popped at other brands’ displays this season, too, such as Off-White, Schiaparelli, RVDK Ronald Van Der Kemp and Viktor & Rolf. Continue reading
VALENTINO 2022
Fashion is not art,” believes Valentino’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli. “Fashion always has a practical scope while art is an end in itself.” Ateliers couture collection shown in Venice on Thursday, as 22 out of the 82 designs on the runway.
Andrea Respino inspired a stunning intarsia coat almost trompe l’oeil, said Piccioli made of 150 different swatches of fabrics, from satin to taffeta, laminated and sequined. One could catch glimpses of the painting on the front of the garment, while the back was conceived with the help of Respino, responding with his own creativity to the design.
Another standout was a long, glittering sequined slipdress worn under a floor-length, taffeta bouillonné cape with a pattern reminiscent of poetic images of the moon reflected on a lake by Chinese art curator and photographer Rui Wu.
Fashion and art are creative practices that respond to different purposes one linked to the body and movement, the other completely free from constraints of sorts which nevertheless find a conjunction in the atelier: the place of making, of thinking with the hands, of translating a desire, an idea, a sensation into a tangible object. Continue reading
SACAI GAULTIER AND THE OTHERS
PHOEBE PHILO AND THE LORD
Phoebe Philo is returning to fashion with an independent, namesake house and with LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton as a investor.
The acclaimed British designer would create clothing and accessories "rooted in exceptional quality and design," and would divulge more details about her new brand in January 2022.
With a powerful silent partner LVMH. I have greatly appreciated discussing new ideas with Bernard Arnault and Delphine Arnault and I am delighted to be embarking on this adventure with their support.
The designer has been keeping a low profile since exiting Celine at the end of 2017. In one of her first public projects, she signed on to be a juror for the 2021 ANDAM awards, which were presented in Paris earlier this month.
It is unusual, though not unprecedented, for LVMH to back a new brand. Its core expertise lies in animating heritage brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior and Fendi with buzzy designers, celebrity ambassadors, retail razzmatazz and spectacular press and client events. Continue reading
BALENCIAGA 2022
Fifty-three years have passed since cristóbal balenciaga closed the doors of his house, largely due to the birth of ready-to-wear, which questioned the raison d’être for the concept of haute couture.
over half a century later i see it as my creative obligation to the unique heritage of m. balenciaga to bring the couture back to his house. it is the very foundation of this century-old maison.
couture is above trends, fashion, and industrial dressmaking. it is a timeless and pure expression of craft and the architecture of silhouette that gives a wearer the strongest notion of elegance and sophistication.
couture is the highest level of garment construction, that is not only relevant in today’s mass-productive industry, but even absolutely necessary for the survival and further evolution of modern fashion design.