First Person | Viktor & Rolf say Flowerbomb was their modern day business weapon

First Person | Intelligence | New York

Viktor and Rolf | Photo: Philip Riches

NEW YORK, United States — “We had big ambitions,” says Viktor Horsting on creating fashion house Viktor & Rolf with Rolf Snoeren. “From the very beginning we wanted to start very high,” he says, indicating the absolute apogee of couture elegance: “Start at the top, and everything else would fall into place after that. It was a very emotional ambition, not just in terms of the size of the business or wanting to be like a certain

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Couture’s reality check, Shoppers pull back, Primark scores, Tesco’s F&F coming soon, Renzo Rosso hits India

| Daily Digest

"Under the sign of the lion" Chanel's Couture Show Fall 2010 | Source:

Full Spectrum, Less Spectacle (NY Times) “Don’t be fooled by the giant lion at Chanel… Most of the remaining half-dozen or so houses that show haute couture scaled down their presentations… a nip here, a tuck there and a P.R. man explaining in a hushed tone that the designer wanted to ‘return to couture’s roots.’” Luxury shoppers pull back in June (Bloomberg) “MasterCard Advisor’s

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Maison Martin Margiela | The Cult of Invisibility – Part Two

| Uncategorized

In Part 1, we examined how the Maison Martin Margiela brand successfully adopted strategies of impersonality and invisibility to achieve cult status with consumers. Today, we explore how Mr. Margiela’s exit from the company could have been better managed by adopting strategies learned from real-world cults. PARIS, France — In 2002, in an acquisition that was described as Greta Garbo marrying Harpo Marx, the Maison Martin Margiela

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Maison Martin Margiela | The Cult of Invisibility – Part One

| Uncategorized

Margiela Imagery | Source: Maison Martin Margiela

The industry’s worst kept secret was confirmed this week when Renzo Rosso told Horatio Silva that he was “this close” to appointing a new designer at Maison Martin Margiela. Though Rosso says Margiela will continue to be involved from a distance, the loss of a founding designer at a namesake brand is not an easy transition to make. In the first of a two part series, our friends at Agenda Inc. examine how Maison

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Superfine and Diesel | Jean pool?

| Intelligence

MILAN, Italy - Is Diesel's Renzo Rosso on the prowl again? Word on the street is that Rosso is in talks to acquire Superfine Jeans, the hot London-based premium denim brand, founded in 2003 by Lucy Pinter and Flora Evans. Superfine has become well known for its directional silhouettes and popularity amongst the global style A-list, including Kate Moss, Gisele Bundchen and Mary-Kate Olsen. While Mr. Rosso has been acquisitive in the past, he has tended to focus more on the fashion end of things, acquring stakes in  Maison Martin Margiela, DSquared2, and most recently, Sophia Kokosalaki, through Diesel's Staff International subsidiary. That Mr. Rosso is reportedly looking to acquire another denim brand may suggest that Diesel, which now ranks…

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