Category Archives: BREAKING MODE

CHANEL THE FALL

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The French luxury house reported on Tuesday that revenues totaled $10.1 billion in 2020, down 18 percent at comparable rates.

This was in line with the forecast by Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, who said in June 2020 that the company was expecting a double-digit drop in sales for the full-year. Chanel underperformed competitors such as luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which saw revenues decrease 16 percent at constant exchange rates in 2020; Kering, which reported a 16.4 drop in organic sales, and Hermès International, which recorded a 6 percent decline. Continue reading →

SACAI AND JONES IN DIOR RESTAURANT

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The Dior men’s artistic director tapped Sacai designer Chitose Abe to work on a capsule line of 57 items that will bear a logo fusing the identities of both labels, with the Sacai name written inside the “i” in Dior a first for the French fashion house. The collection, dropping in November, is sure to be one of the most anticipated this year.

Abe is part of a loose collective that includes Jones, Virgil Abloh, Matthew Williams and Yoon Ahn who are responsible for transforming streetwear into a luxury category.

Both Abe and Jones are serial collaborators. Sacai has partnered with brands ranging from sportswear behemoth Nike to emerging designers like Tomo Koizumi, but Abe said it was important that the balance of power should be equitable.

“Dior is a very respected heritage brand which I’ve admired ever since I decided to become a designer, so it’s a huge honor. It’s also a brand that has historically demonstrated the importance of innovation, but I’m sure that for a maison like this, the decision to add another brand name to its own is not taken lightly. Continue reading →

FERRARI DIVERSIFICATION

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In an exclusive preview, creative director Rocco Iannone and chief brand diversification officer Nicola Boari mapped out their vision and strategy as Ferrari prepares to hold its first luxury fashion show on Sunday.

Ferrari is mythical, said the brand diversification creative director. Ferrari’s community recognizes itself in a series of values that is unique to the label and that need to be understood to be translated into fashion.

First runway fashion show in Maranello, at the headquarters of the storied luxury sports car maker. Iannone, who was tapped to the role in November 2019, will present the brand’s fashion manifesto with a collection for men, women and children. We will see.

VUITTON DANS QUEL MONDE ?

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Nicolas Ghesquière will unveil Louis Vuitton’s cruise 2022 collection with a livestream scheduled for June 15 at 2 p.m.

Perhaps far from the most famous Parisian monuments, the Expiatory Chapel allows us to explore one of the darkest facets of Paris: the French Revolution and the Terror. Built on the very spot where Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were buried, it is one of the most secret monuments of the capital. Hotel Cheval should be a good idea.

The French luxury brand is keeping the location and other details under wraps, although it is understood the collection has already been paraded and filmed somewhere in the vicinity of Paris. The content will be viewable on Louisvuitton.com and its main social media. Continue reading →

COURRÈGES BACK IN 1986

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Courrèges is marking its return to men’s collections, joining the official calendar of the next edition of Paris Fashion Week for men’s wear.

Under new artistic director Nicolas Di Felice, the brand will present a dedicated men’s in a show without guests, due to be unveiled online on June 23 at 2:30 p.m. CET.

Among the returning brands are Dunhill, Facetasm and Gamut, according to the provisional calendar published on Friday by the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, French fashion’s organizing body. The men’s shows, debuting collections for spring 2022, are scheduled for June 22 to 27.

As France progressively lifts pandemic-related restrictions, the men’s wear week has been cleared for physical shows and presentations, although the calendar did not specify the format of each show.

MILAN MEN’S FASHION WEEK

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Milan Fashion Week is expected to make a major comeback with a rich schedule of physical events in September only. For the time being, Dolce & Gabbana, Etro and Giorgio Armani are the only brands hosting physical runway shows during the week, on June 19, 20 and 21, respectively.

The week, which will involve a total of 63 brands, will also see the official debut of Glenn Martens as creative director of the Diesel label, as well as the launch of a capsule designed by Andrea Pompilio for casualwear brand Harmont & Blaine.

Ermenegildo Zegna will kick off the week with a digital event on June 18 and, among others, Fendi and Prada will also continue to opt for the digital format, scheduled on June 19 and 20, respectively.

TRUSSARDI NEW DIRECTION

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Trussardi the Milan-based company has appointed Serhat Işık and Benjamin A. Huseby as new creative directors of the brand, tasked with overseeing all aspects of design, image and branding. Their first collection for Trussardi will bow for fall 2022.

Işık and Huseby are known for their own label, the Berlin-based GmbH, launched in 2016, and which they plan to continue to design.

Işık is a first-generation German of Turkish descent and Huseby, of Norwegian-Pakistani heritage, grew up in Norway. Işık, who had been teaching fashion at the university in Berlin, was making collections on a noncommercial basis. Huseby had been a photographer and artist, who as a child sketched fashion looks and made his own clothes as a teenager. Cultural mixes and a sense of otherness have informed GmbH, and the city and cultural scene of Berlin have also shaped their approach. Continue reading →

RICHEMONT AND KERING

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With a surge in fourth-quarter sales and Compagnie Financière Richemont in recovery post-pandemic, the last thing on Johann Rupert’s mind is selling the company he founded more than 30 years ago.

Rupert, chairman, founder and shareholder of reference, said the group has invested and reaped far too many rewards for the company to sell or merge now with a competitor. If that happened, he said, then all of the shareholders would suffer.

Profits climbed 38 percent to 1.29 billion euros, with the company confirming a “strong start” into the new financial year, “with accelerating trends across all business areas. Continue reading →

DIOR 2022 BY KIM

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Kim Jones for his resort collection, skipped forward a decade to Dior’s successor Marc Bohan, whose graphic patterns inspired the laid-back, sporty lineup.

Roomy pants that pooled around the ankles anchored most of the looks, from relaxed tailoring in a warm palette of chocolate, forest green, caramel and dusty pink, to casual pieces in tactile materials.

Subtle variations on the Dior Oblique pattern, perhaps Bohan’s most lasting contribution to the house’s visual identity. But the former Dior designer’s lesser-known logos also provided fodder for inspiration: the CD initials, shaped like a heart, came embroidered on jackets and shirts.

As the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, that pragmatic approach felt both grounded and optimistic: packing a suitcase never felt so good.

FRANCOIS PINAULT’S MUSEUM

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More than 20 years after first floating the idea of creating an art institution in Paris, billionaire François Pinault will finally open the doors of his private museum to the public on Saturday. The Bourse de Commerce is the latest venue to house the Pinault Collection, after the Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana in Venice, Italy.

The museum is housed in a historic building in central Paris that can trace its roots back to the 16th century. At one point it served as a grain exchange, with an imposing circular floor that is the centerpiece of a renovation led by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, who has erected a concrete cylinder in the central rotunda.

Project began in 2017 and was completed in March 2020, the new museum features more than 75,000 square feet of exhibition space, in addition to a restaurant, the Halle aux grains, run by award-winning chefs Michel and Sébastien Bras. Continue reading →

HEARST AND THE EARTH

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I wanna see bags and dresses, not bees reads one comment on Chloé’s Instagram account, which was recently scrubbed clean to make way for a radical visual narrative, so far focused on insects, plants, fruits and the occasional freckled nose.

To be sure, some of the French brand’s 9.5 million followers on the photo-sharing platform wondered if its account had been hacked, with users describing the nature closeups as super strange, stupid or weird.

Over Zoom on Friday, Chloé’s creative director Gabriela Hearst cited a deep and ambitious reason: A wish to rewire people’s brains and reconnect them to all the things the planet gives us.

It’s healing, she said. I feel that it’s doing something we never thought we could do on social media. It does have this healing vision for the eyes, as we go through the journey together of understanding where things come from. Continue reading →

AIR OF TIME BY PUIG

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Nina Ricci Closes Historic Flagship Boutique in Paris, owned by Spanish fragrance and fashion group Puig, the brand is pivoting to a digital-first.

The brand, founded in 1932 and known for its bestselling fragrances, including L’Air du Temps, is expected to launch an e-commerce site this fall. Ricci is carried by around 80 retailers worldwide, including Le Bon Marché, Printemps, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, Isetan, Joyce and Lane Crawford. It is also sold online via Net-a-porter, Farfetch and Ssense.

The store, opened in 1979, will be taken over by Paco Rabanne which, like Nina Ricci, belongs to Spanish fragrance and fashion group Puig, the parent company of brands including Carolina Herrera, Jean Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten and Penhaligon’s.

The boutique at 39 Avenue Montaigne, across the street from Dior, is closed and its windows are covered with stickers bearing the Paco Rabanne logo. Continue reading →