One of the strangest fashion months on record has drawn to a close, but mounting cases of Covid-19 in cities from New Delhi to Madrid have already taken their toll on luxury brands’ plans to stage Cruise 2021 shows.
Last month, Prada postponed its Tokyo cruise event, Chanel put plans to restage its Métiers d’Art collection in Beijing on hold and Giorgio Armani announced the unprecedented cancellation of its Autumn/Winter 2020 runway show in Milan.
This week, Gucci, Ralph Lauren and Versace called off shows, all slated to take place in the US in April. Armani has also postponed its cruise show and hotel opening in Dubai the back-to-back events, scheduled for April 19 and 20, have been pushed to November.
A Chanel spokesperson told that its May 7 show will still take place in Capri, despite the 3,089 cases and 107 deaths reported in Italy as of March 5. Meanwhile, Dior’s event (billed for Puglia on May 9) and Louis Vuitton’s show (location undisclosed) hang in the balance. Dior and Louis Vuitton respond no comment. Continue reading
Add Hermès to the growing list of fashion brands canceling events due to the coronavirus. The French fashion house has nixed its resort show, which had been scheduled to take place in London on April 28.
Clothing retailer French Connection reported a full-year loss on Tuesday, citing difficult trading conditions on UK’s high streets and said it would continue to hold back paying dividends this year.
The luxury conglomerate, which reported record revenue of nearly $60 billion for 2019, is setting its sights on affordable, “clean” beauty via its investment arm, LVMH Luxury Ventures. In an unlikely pairing, the fund invested in Versed, a fast-growing mass label where most products are priced at or below $17.99, and some under $10. The brand recently closed an $11 million Series A, led by Sonoma Brands with participation from Greycroft and Marcy Venture Partners.
Givenchy, whose perfume business is said to be riding high, has tapped a new president and chief executive officer with experience in fashion and beauty, Renaud de Lesquen, currently president and ceo of Dior Americas, is to join Givenchy on April 1 and it is not a Joke.
This is a more than revolutionary idea, an idea of Francis Menuge, former President of Gaultier and Donald Potard with the complicity of Jacques Mouclier, which they had in their time. A project, which due to the lack of the house of Patou, had never come to fruition because of a sort of human counterfeit. This is how fashion men are made. With such an oversized ego, they take over other people’s ideas to take credit for them. Like D Grumler who takes credit for the creation of the investment bank: idea and realization of Jacques Mouclier, or this Mr. “J Tongue of wood” who would have had the idea of the square courtyard of the Louvre for the catwalks of Haute Couture, but in reality, idea to be attributed to Pierre Berger and Jacques Mouclier.
Satoshi Kondo, Creative Director at Issey Miyake, conceived his collection by the onomatopoeic analysis of Japanese words that describe acts of making processes. Toritori (the state of being different), Konekone (kneading), Goshigoshi (smudging), Kukkiri (the condition of being sharp and clear), spah (the sound of cutting something with a sharp object) are some of the words that are used in the colloquial language to describe these manual actions, and that the designer used to create the collection. 
“But I’m Kanye’s cousin,” said a woman in French at the gates of the Oscar Niemeyer Communist Party headquarters, as the building blinked bright white with light tests. To no avail: Unless she’d been in the car with North West (the real star of the evening), or was on the list, the putative cousin wasn’t getting in on Monday night for the Yeezy 8 show.
Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski decided to pare the women’s wear back to a graphic essence. In keeping with the Hermès 2020 theme, “Innovation in the Making,” she presented a “manifest of purity,” as she called it, on a set of striped vertical bars reminiscent of horse jump poles.
Flashy chain mail knights: no, we’re not in Domrémy and we’re not going to push the English out of the conciergerie. A place probably rightly chosen by Julien Dossena, given my neighbors who do not detonate with the concierges on the nearby rue St-Denis.
The cocktail celebrating the 20 semifinalists for the LVMH Prize for Young Designers is the latest event to fall victim to the coronavirus scare.
Claudia Marcocci has been appointed brand general director of Parfums Christian Dior.
Breaking news: Raf Simons is the new co-creative director of Prada. He is to work in partnership with Miuccia Prada “with equal responsibilities for creative input and decision making,” the company said Sunday.
Silvia Venturini Fendi is in charge now, and on Thursday night she put inclusivity front and center on the Fendi runway with more sizes (Paloma Elsesser) and ages (Carolyn Murphy and Karen Elson), marking a new era for the house.
Smart and real, Michele was humbly asking you to come to the show, if you didn’t have anything better to do. From the thoughtful invitation to the warm welcome, the entrance was directly backstage where makeup was in progress and the designer was greeting everybody.