Tommy Hilfiger Summer 2010 | Source: Tommy Hilfiger

Tommy Hilfiger Announces the Opening Champs Elysees Store (PR Newswire)
“The Champs Elysees store will serve as a true flagship for our brand in France and will further anchor our significant retail presence in Europe… It is an important milestone in our continued efforts to establish anchor stores in every major city around the world.”

Balderton invests $9m in My-wardrobe (FT)
“My-wardrobe is also looking to expand its appeal to customers outside of the UK, with a focus on France and Germany. Until now, the French market has been concentrated on online sales of discounted high-end clothes and accessories.”

The grown-up model comes of age (FT)
“Using older models in 2010 is less about the wow factor and more about reclaiming a generation. ‘Brands used to be obsessed with youth. Now they are realising that people in their forties are the customers and they’re addressing that.’”

Mittelmoda fashion awards in Italy (Telegraph)
“A fashion graduate from the National College of Art & Design, Dublin, and two MA graduates from London’s Royal College of Art, are among the prize-winners in the annual Mittelmoda.”

Dior Blooms Brightly (IHT)
“Backstage at Christian Dior, a simple pair of glasses transformed the show Monday into an extraordinary 3-D screen vision of women as flowers. Petals lapped their hips, colors were a hothouse explosion of vivid shades and skirts were shaped like the parrot tulips.”

Sarah Curran, Founder and CEO, my-wardrobe.com

LONDON, United Kingdom — The Business of Fashion can exclusively reveal that my-wardrobe.com, the London-based fashion e-tailer positioned at a mid-level pricepoint between Net-a-Porter.com on the high-end and Asos.com on the low-end, has just closed its second round of investment.

My-wardrobe continues to grow at a rapid pace, having achieved an extremely healthy 169 percent jump in sales in its third year, growing from £1.56m in sales in 2008 to £4.23m in the fiscal year ending March 2009.

It may not be surprising then that a group of high-net worth investors have injected an undisclosed sum of money to further the site’s expansion into menswear and international markets, amongst other initiatives. Perhaps as a sign of the times, the new funding valued shares at the same price as in the first round, as opposed to achieving a higher share price as would have normally been the case in the past. That said, the investment opportunity was heavily over-subscribed, demonstrating the market’s continuing belief in the online fashion retail segment.

It’s been a busy few months for my-wardrobe’s CEO Sarah Curran, who has also just brought in a new Chairman, Jean-Marc Bouhelier and concluded a first-ever shop-in-shop concession deal with BCBC Max Azria, but I caught up with her quickly after our panel discussion in Vienna to bring you this BoF exclusive.

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LONDON, United Kingdom — London, of course, is widely known in the fashion world for its unbridled creativity and superb emerging fashion talent. But, increasingly, it could also be described as fashion’s Silicon Valley, with a growing number of innovative fashion ecommerce startups sprouting in the city, following in the footsteps of the ultimate luxury e-tailing pioneer, Net-a-Porter.com.

During my visit to Vienna for the 9 Festival for Fashion & Photography, I had the privilege of hosting a discussion amongst some of the newest fashion e-tailers on the London scene, bringing together Sarah Curran, CEO of my-wardrobe.com, José Neves, CEO of farfetch.com and Stephanie Phair, Director of theoutnet.com.

Thanks to our easy-to-use Flip Video Mino, we managed to capture some of the most poignant responses from our illustrious panel and are pleased to share them with you in the coming weeks. First up: How are your clients changing their shopping habits in the downturn?

RSS and email subscribers, click here to watch the video.