The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Alber Elbaz, the widely beloved designer best known for his star turn leading couture house Lanvin, was buried in Israel Wednesday following his weekend death in Paris aged 59 from Covid-19, according to an AFP report.
The funeral was held in Holon, where Elbaz was raised after immigrating to Israel as a child from Morocco, and attended by hundreds of family members, friends and Israeli fashion industry leaders.
In his eulogy, Elbaz’s partner, Alex Koo, said the designer left Israel “with a suitcase and full of dreams, hopes, and your raw and intuitive talent.”
“More than any other contemporary designer, Alber listened and didn’t dictate to women how to dress,” Lea Peretz, a senior lecturer of fashion design at Israel’s Shenkar College and Elbaz’s long-time friend, said in her eulogy.
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“He didn’t try to design us, he didn’t try to change us, not to turn us into fantasies, but to the contrary - to see the complexity and the needs [of] a contemporary woman’s life,” she said.
The group’s flagship Prada brand grew more slowly but remained resilient in the face of a sector-wide slowdown, with retail sales up 7 percent.
The guidance was issued as the French group released first-quarter sales that confirmed forecasts for a slowdown. Weak demand in China and poor performance at flagship Gucci are weighing on the group.
Consumers face less, not more, choice if handbag brands can't scale up to compete with LVMH, argues Andrea Felsted.
As the French luxury group attempts to get back on track, investors, former insiders and industry observers say the group needs a far more drastic overhaul than it has planned, reports Bloomberg.