Fashion goes live on line (AP)
“The fall-winter 2010-2011 preview presentations, the first shows of the new decade, got under way over the weekend with a new fashion passion: live online showcasing. Gone are the days when house bouncers, trained to spot potential copycats, blocked any unauthorized person who dared snap a picture during a show.”

Defiant Armani rules out sale of empire (Financial Times)
“Giorgio Armani, the doyen of Italian fashion designers, has ruled out a sale of his global empire and has no plans to step back from day-to-day involvement. Mr Armani sought to quash speculation that he may sell the house to a bigger group, saying he had no need or desire to sell and would always have the final say in decisions.”

Thinker, tailor, technophile (Financial Times)
“The potential of customers interacting with a brand online goes way beyond looking at an ad page in Vogue or Vanity Fair,” says Robert Polet, CEO of Gucci Group. “The Gucci app had 340,000 downloads at the end of October, just a few weeks after it launched. That makes those people part of the Gucci world.”

Fashion house Cavalli to boost accessories, expand (Reuters)
“Fashion house Roberto Cavalli is looking to boost its accessories segment and expand in South America and Asia Pacific this year, its chief executive said, adding there were signs of improvement in the luxury market.”

Fashion Designers Respond To Haiti: Find Out Who Did What (Huffington Post)
“The fashion industry has joined forces to aid the victims of this natural disaster, in the form of monetary donations and contributing portions of sales.”

Céline Resort 2010 by Annie Leibovitz, Courtesy of American Vogue

Fast-Forward Phoebe (Vogue)
“Phoebe Philo always had an uncanny gift for defining exactly what cool women want to wear. Now she’s back, reinventing Céline for a new era.”

LVMH in a recession: The substance of style (The Economist)
“The world’s biggest luxury-goods group is benefiting from a flight to quality, but the recession is also prompting questions about the company’s breadth and balance.”

Cavalli Says ‘Pessimistic’ Stores Turn Off Consumers (Bloomberg)
“Roberto Cavalli, owner of the eponymous Italian fashion house, said department stores are being negative and pessimistic in the economic downturn and risk turning off customers.”

New Cyclist Styles Pedal Their Way Into Paris (WSJ)
“An upright bike beats a tinted-window sedan for showing off an outfit any day. A new generation of cyclists, influenced by icons such as supermodels Elle Macpherson and Agyness Deyn, have turned biking from a sport into a fashion statement. Cycle Chic, a popular blog whose motto is “style over speed,” snaps photos of urban riders in Paris and Copenhagen.”

Luxury goods seen to thrive in Asia despite crisis (Inquirer)
“According to a MasterCard-commissioned report conducted with the ESSEC Business School in Paris, “The Luxury Industry: Lessons Learnt from Past Crises,” luxury brands should take advantage of the economic slump to evolve and diversify their distribution channels.”

Rodarte’s Target (Vogue)
“Rodarte will join the ranks of Erin Fetherston, Jovovich-Hawk, Rogan and Jonathan Saunders (among others), as the latest designers to collaborate with American retailer Target as part of its Go International series.”

Clessidra Pulls Out Of Deal With Cavalli (WSJ)
“Italian private equity fund Clessidra SGR SpA has pulled out of a deal with fashion house Roberto Cavalli after disagreement over the value of the company, a person familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires on Wednesday. The talks collapsed just two months after Cavalli and Clessidra signed a letter of intent for the fund to buy 30% of the fashion house.”

Mark Ronson designs trainers for Gucci’s Pop-Up Store (Elle UK)
“Gucci launches ‘Gucci Icon-Temporary’, a pop-up trainer store that will travel the world. The shop will stock 18 trainer designs in all, 16 for men and two for women. And for that extra limited edition-ness Gucci has collaborated with DJ and trainer addict Mark Ronson to design one exclusive, unisex trainer for each city.”

Adidas profits plunge 93% (Drapers)
“Adidas suffered a 93 percent plunge in profits in its second quarter as the downturn continues to take its toll on consumer spending.”

Naomi Sims, the First Black Supermodel (Time)
“A tall, striking, confident, chiseled, brown-skinned beauty, she has forever changed how America defines beautiful.”

Just Cavalli S/S 09 Advertising campaign

Just Cavalli Extends License With Ittierre SpA (WWD)
“Roberto Cavalli has signed a new five-year license with Ittierre.” (Subscription required)

Esprit Appoints Ronald Van der Vis To Replace Krogner As CEO (WSJ)
Esprit Holdings Ltd. will name Ronald Van der Vis as their new CEO, replacing Heinz Krogner as the brand’s top man.

Big Retailers Revamp for ‘09 (WWD)
“After a tumultuous fall – defined by the promotional hurricane that swept through the retail landscape – department stores are going on the offensive this spring.”

When ‘S.V.U.’ Stands for ‘Shopping Victims United’ (NYT)
“They say that gamblers like to ‘play the percentages.’ As the recession drags on, shoppers are doing the same, seeking stores where the signs promise sale prices that are 50, 60, 70 percent or more off regular prices.”

International Leaders at the G20 Summit in London

Change in Bank Rules Lifts Stocks (NYT)
“Hopes that the worst days of the financial crisis are retreating lifted stock markets on Thursday after government leaders pledged huge new financial rescues and a regulatory group moved to rewrite financial regulations and accounting rules.”

Fast Retailing: Uniqlo Mar Same-Store Sales Up 7.9% Y/Y (WSJ)
According to the brand, “same-store sales at its domestic Uniqlo casual clothing store chain in March rose 7.9% on year, extending the string of on-year gains to five straight months.”

Just Cavalli May Extend License (WWD)
“Ittierre SpA may have secured the Just Cavalli license for another five years and perhaps its future as well.”(Subscription required)

Tom Ford Revamps Asian Operations (WWD)
“Tom Ford International has made changes to its Asia business, forming a new retail operation and ending its partnership with Lane Crawford in the region.” (Subscription required)

World’s first Sikh supermodel debuts in GQ fashion spread (Telegraph)
“A San Francisco businessman is set to become the world’s first Sikh supermodel after being picked to feature in top fashion magazines including GQ.”

Cavalli insignia projected on new rue St Honoré flagship

PARIS, France — On Saturday night, at the grand opening fete for Roberto Cavalli’s new Paris flagship on ritzy rue St Honoré, they were giving out large, plastic-coated goodie bags in the bold, signature leopard print for which Mr. Cavalli has become known over the years. Most recently, he used this to great success in his collaboration with H&M, which effectively introduced the Cavalli brand and aesthetic to a whole new generation of consumers.

However, there was one significant oddity about the goodie bags in question: there were no goodies. Except for a glossy white magazine with the brand’s latest, over-styled advertising campaign featuring Daria Werbowy, there was nothing inside.

While this did seem to say something about the state of the economy, as goodie bags are usually teeming with freebies and samples, even more, the empty bags seemed to be a real-life metaphor for the new store itself. Behind all of the sparkle and bling, and even with hundreds of people packed in side, the 8,640-square foot emporium felt a bit empty and soulless.

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Retailers Offer Big Discounts, and Then Pray (New York Times)
Retailers have been offering doorbuster sales before Thanksgiving in order to lure customers in store despite the economic downturn.

Tiffany Profit Drops, Cuts Forecast as Sales Fall  (Bloomberg)
Tiffany & Co. “said profit fell and cut its forecast as sales dropped for the first time in almost seven years amid the global financial crisis.”

Cavalli Cleared of Tax Evasion (WWD)
Roberto Cavalli has been cleared of tax evasion by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation.

Where To Find Small-Store Holiday Sales  (Forbes)
 ”Independent retailers are cutting prices and adding personal touches in order to stay afloat.”

Doorbuster deal at Toys R Us, photo courtesy of the New York Times.

Apax Partners, the London-based private equity firm, has abandoned its bid to take a stake in Escada AG, the embattled German fashion company.  Citing deteriorating market conditions, Apax stated that

“the recent evolution of the stock price and the weakness of the international financial market do not give a basis for pursuing the project.”

This is absolutely the right decision. Not only has Escada become somewhat of an industry basket-case in recent years, on Wednesday the company also revised its earnings projections for year ending October 31 downwards yet again. EBITDA margins are  expected to fall by about 25% compared to 2007. The company cited recessionary conditions in the USA and other key markets as the reason behind the revisions. Escada’s shares fell by 10.8% on Wednesday to 14.35 euros.

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Karl Lagerfeld for H&M. Roland Mouret for Gap. Giles Deacon for New Look. Proenza Schouler for Target. And the list goes on. You’d think by now that consumers would have started to tire of it all. At a Retail and Luxury Conference earlier this year, Peter Som said that he felt the whole thing was played out and that it was no longer a distinctive way of creating brand buzz, which I thought was a good point.

Well, one look at a video from Style.com (see below), which shows the pandemonium that erupted in New York when Roberto Cavalli and Canadian model Jessica Stam unveiled his own H&M collection on Thursday, and it seems there may be some mileage in this strategy yet.  I was surprised by the exhuberant reaction around the world and the amount of money that people were willing to spend. In the video, one girl has 12 bags of clothing which retailed for about $6,000.

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