ISABEL MARANT PARIS 2021

Tonight, Isabel Marant celebrated love, joy, celebration and human warmth. The tent she usually erects in the Palais Royal gave way to an outdoor parade in free placement. No millimetre front row, no hierarchy, just love and a good dose of energy, which devotees like Lena Mahfouf, Kim Chapiron and Tina Kunakey came to celebrate with her. The (La)Horde dance collective shared the podium with a diverse and joyful cast, in an ultra dynamic choreography: the dancers ran, jumped, hugged each other, forming human pyramids that punctuated the passage of the mannequins.

Inspired by the icons of the 1980’s like Debbie Harry or Kim Wilde, the collection was full of shiny pink and silver pieces, micro shorts and mini dresses with ruffles, the perfect attire for the party. American artist Amber Goldhammer signed the print of the season: an accumulation of graffiti-like pink and blue hearts, which blossomed on an oversized jumpsuit or men’s pants. Hearts and stars also hung on the ears of the models, attracting the light like these mini party dresses in lamé agent or these pumps laced at the ankles. Continue reading

CHIURI FASHION VICTIMS FOR DIOR

Spring 2021 show, which was held in a vast white box in the Tuileries Garden. Chiuri has been one busy bee in recent months: creating a couture collection in miniature, and a lavish film that continued her narrative, and staging a massive open-air show in Lecce, Italy, for cruise that involved scores of collaborations with local artisans. Here she continued the thread and the toil for spring, linking with women in Indonesia for original Ikat prints, and turning out 86 exits in a dark room punctuated with stained-glass-like windows bearing magazine collages by artist Lucia Marcucci.

With all the loose shapes duster coats, short kimonos and wide culottes and the scarf prints in dusty colors, the clothes felt like old friends or heirlooms, far from the slick and glossy luxury goods of yore.

Chiuri remains committed to physical runway shows even as restrictions on daily life are mounting along with COVID-19 cases in France deeming them the best way to display haute craftsmanship, and a fashion message.

She had a chorus of women singing a lament by avant-garde Italian composer Lucia Ronchetti that added another somber, occasionally dissonant layer to the proceedings. Continue reading

THE DETOX MARKET

Natural beauty retailer The Detox Market has acquired Clementine Fields, a Canadian natural beauty and wellness e-commerce business.

Clementine Fields was founded by Ingrid Doucet and Tom Barnett in 2013. The business sells beauty and personal-care products from Alpyn Beauty, Captain Blankenship, John Masters Organics, Vapour Beauty and a variety of other brands.

The Detox Market plans for the acquisition to help cement its position as a leader in North American natural beauty retailing, and to bolster its e-commerce business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Continue reading

CELINE NOT TIK BUT TOK

Celine is new to the TIkTok platform, with about 5,000 followers, and livestreamed its spring men’s wear show, a slick production with models hoofing it around an old motor-racing track near Marseille, some wearing sparkly helmets.

Hedi Slimane paraded seemed aimed squarely at Gen Z, no matter if some users of the app don’t seem to have a clue that Celine is a luxury French fashion brand and that Slimane is known for commissioning a single track of music and stretching it over 15 minutes. “Change the song,” countless TikTokers urged as the number of viewers quickly thinned out. Continue reading

INFÉRE PARFUMS URBAN HERO

Inter Parfums Inc. posted an 18.7 percent net sales decline for the quarter ended March 31, the company said on Wednesday. While declines were broad, the Coach and Guess brands still grew.0 During the quarter, Coach and Guess both grew, helping to offset declines from most of the other brands. Coach launched Coach Dreams, which boosted brand sales by 35.9 percent.

Net sales were $144.8 million, down from $178.2 million in the prior-year period. European-based sales were down 20.6 percent, to $114.1 million, and U.S.-based sales were down 10.9 percent, to $30.7 million.

We have taken steps to minimize expenses and protect cash flow said Jean Madar, Inter Parfums chief executive officer in a statement. Our operating cost structure, of which variable costs accounts for over two-thirds, should enable us to minimize the impact of reduced sales until 2021 and moved related advertising and promotion expenses to 2021 as well.  Continue reading

FRANCK SORBIER PARIS

This collection features one of the major characters of the Comedia dell’arte: Il Medico.

Indeed, at the time of the Black Plague, the city of Venice paid doctors to treat the sick, rich and poor. If this mask with its long beak can make one think of a bird, it is nothing more than a filter capable of protecting against the epidemic transmitted by the air. A wooden cane was used to auscultate the patients.

The Statue of Liberty appears bound, wrapped, gagged, a whole symbol … As for the plague aka COVID 19, it is embodied by Ophelia Kolb and Il Medico, by Alexandre Risso, aka the medical corps, to whom we can only pay tribute.

From Haute Couture, here is the elusive poet of the new times, who inserts his Apollonide seeds to transform our world and eventually return it to us all in its original form. It is the sweetest message and the most violent of Fashion Week, but the most real at the same time, like a deity filled with frenzy, the Covid stigmatized in a Franck Sorbier dress, as if to control it better. Continue reading

DIOR FROM SKETCH TO SCREEN

Paris Couture Week kicks off today with an online showcase instead of the usual lavish shows held across the French capital. Even if this could be a strong season in terms of creativity, because everyone is trying to find solutions, I think it won’t have the same splendor as a normal haute couture fashion week, Continue reading

50 PERCENT OFF ON BURBERRY

Burberry’s trading has fallen between 40 percent and 50 percent in the last six weeks due to the impact of COVID-19, the company said in an extraordinary trading statement on Thursday.

The company is expecting comparable retail store sales in the final weeks of the year to be within the range of minus 70 percent to minus 80 percent. This follows the significant escalation of governmental regulations; trading, travel and social restrictions in recent days, "and the inevitable impact this will have on demand; Burberry said.

As a result, the British luxury brand now expects fourth-quarter 2020 comparable retail store sales to be around minus 30 percent in the fiscal year ending March 28. “Since our February update, the material negative effect of COVID-19 on luxury demand has intensified and is now impacting the industry in all regions, said Marco Gobbetti, chief executive officer.Our primary concern is the global health emergency, and we continue to take every precaution to help prevent the spread of the virus and ensure the safety and well-being of our employees, partners and customers. Continue reading

ON AURA TOUT VU

Soldiers disarmed, here is the conquest of the imagination and the mythology of childhood, this couple in perpetual creation deserves to be in the pantheon of fashion, they who dress all the most famous singers of the planet for their concerts, while the Lord of the Arnault pays these same singers to attend his presentations.

Both coming from the Balkans, they are marked by the military. Intimacy is the standard well hidden behind the extravagance of these two creators, a unique vision beyond good and evil, it tells the story of a life, a past that influences their sewing, just as Saint-Saint-Exupéry, in his time, was inspired by his travels in the desert. They are the little Prince of fashion.

Feathers and shimmering crystal sparkles of a lightness of being, when dawn takes flight here are the tightrope walkers of the needle in balance on the rainbow of challenges that invites us to Paradise but Latin. The last pure ones who row against the wind, because true artists are like that: always against the current. We have never seen a great painter being in the usual suitability of Panurge’s sheep. Continue reading

SORBIER THE RIO GRANDE OF HAUTE COUTURE

And the horse rode along my page with his rider and shaded what I wrote. Slowly he turned its head, and as if it was afraid that I would read into its beastly heart, stretching out its muzzle to touch the Mexican sun. It sets off like a king playing with its eternal freedom, galloping even faster without worrying about the world around and brushing against the aficionados of Fashion Week, mixing the wind with its golden hair, but above all coming without knowing how to make Franck Sorbier’s dress undulate in the horizon of Neptune.

Today the space is splendid, without bridle or spur, but above all without restraining our spirit. Like two angels tortured by an implacable silk of organza, in the crystal blue of the morning. Oh, What a beautiful Mexican Amazon! Her young forehead radiates with pride, and the pleasure burns her feet with the happiness of galloping in such a place. Amazons born as daughters of “La Caballera” by Mario Luraschi’s Warrior Nymph, it’s not something you can make up. In the past, they lived near the Rio Grande and here they are alone to defend our poet of Haute Couture, Franck Sorbier.

I keep in my heart the tenacious imprint of the Maestro of Haute Couture, a French cultural exception, of which he remains to this day the sole custodian. You are a Great One, Sir, and no one will be able to take your place, so be it. Continue reading

DIOR, BLAME ON YOU !

He was the eccentricity although there was no snobbery in him. He created his accessories by recycling everything he had on hand; already an ecological visionary. Judy Blame was a sweet, punk London nutter of his own kind. Judy… for Judy Garland and Blame came to cling to his name, laughing about it, he said, because it’s better to laugh than to cry. Here is a wink from Kim John, who has drawn heavily on this legacy for her collection. And, because of the designer’s passion for sewing, the show was a parade of dandies wearing moiré silks cut with large cocards, precious wools both knitted and used for bulky coats, and Opera gloves that complemented every look. The first thing you could see was the jewelry (characteristic elements of Judy Blame’s look). Continue reading

VIKTOR AND ROLF IS BACK

Five years after shuttering their ready-to-wear business, Viktor & Rolf are returning to men’s wear with a new collection that combines their signature dandy style with a more conscious approach to design.

The label, which belongs to Italian entrepreneur Renzo Rosso’s OTB SpA group, has entered into a worldwide licensing partnership with Tokyo-based Shiffon Co. Ltd. for the production and distribution of the new Mister Mister line, which will be presented to buyers from Jan. 15 to 22 during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris.

In addition, Viktor & and loungewear for women and men that is 100 percent compostable billed as the first of its kind. The line is due to be presented at the Salon International de la Lingerie in Paris from Jan. 18 to 20.

ONE BILLION BEAUTY DEAL OVER

Shiseido has acquired Drunk Elephant for $845 million. The deal underscores the Japanese buyer’s ambitions to globalize its beauty offerings, but also indicates that purchase prices for beauty brands may be calming down.

Industry sources had originally speculated that Drunk Elephant, a popular indie skin-care brand that was said to have about $100 million in net sales for 2018, could be sold for $1 billion or even more. The auction process was said to have attracted a slew of big-name bidders, including Colgate, L’Oréal and the Estée Lauder Cos.

Source said it was never clear where the $1 billion idea came from, but that with the Shiseido sale, Drunk Elephant has achieved one of the highest sales multiples for a beauty brand. Continue reading

SIR LAUREN KBE

On Wednesday, Lauren was given an honorary KBE, or Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, for services to fashion during a private ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

Because he’s an American citizen, the title is an honorary one and Lauren won’t be able to use “Sir” ahead of his name unless he becomes a British citizen.

Other honorary American KBEs include Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Bob Hope, Alan Greenspan, Ted Kennedy and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Lauren is the first American fashion designer to receive the accolade.

This isn’t the first time the Brits or the royal family have feted Lauren: In 2016, the British Fashion Council honored the designer with its Outstanding Achievement award at the Fashion Awards in London. Continue reading

HERMES CROCODILE DANDY

There will be color, teased Axel Dumas, chief executive officer of Hermès International, revealing a few details about plans by the French luxury firm to launch a makeup line next year. Color is the only thing he can analyse!

For the moment, we are starting with makeup, it’s a long-term plan, we will launch in 2020, with an announcement when we are ready we still have to finish the products. Nobody launches an unfinished makeup line !

The perfumes division accounted for around 5 percent of the company’s annual sales of nearly 6 billion euros last year.

Asked about conditions for slaying crocodiles, Dumas said that the company has veterinary guidelines that are “much more demanding than local regulation so that animal well-being is respected in each farm it’s essential, part of Hermès’ projects.” Now you understand why Hermès carries on killing crocodile in top secret farm. Continue reading