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WWD
PHOTO BY GEORGE CHINSEE; STYLED BY MAYTE ALLENDE
By RACHEL STRUGATZ
DIGITAL BRANDS want to get physical.Brands that were born online are pushing into the
brick-and-mortar space. Bonobos, Warby Parker and BaubleBar are all e-commerce-first companies that opened physical stores. Even the industry’s giants are eyeing brick and mortar: Amazon chief execu-tive officer Jeff Bezos has said that he would “love to” open retail stores one day, while Google already has stores in Australia and Europe and is said to be eye-ing opening units in the U.S.
The latest to expand its brick-and-mortar offering is accessories e-tailer BaubleBar, which will launch Nordstrom Loves BaubleBar pop-up shops in 35 Nordstrom doors and nordstrom.com starting today in cities like San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tampa, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Seattle. Located on the main floor adjacent to footwear, the 150- to 200-square-foot pop-ups will serve as an entry point into the jewelry section of each store. About 60 different styles of necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings from the jewelry brand will retail from $24 to $68, with an additional 15 styles that will be online-only.
The brand, which launched online in 2011, has flirted with retail concepts for some time, but this is the first time that the company will embrace brick and mortar with a department store.
Nordstrom built custom fixtures to outfit the spac-es, and the brand developed a packaging compo-nent different from what it offers online. Everything comes prepackaged, and there are displays that serve as tutorials for consumers.
SEE PAGE 6
IPO STILL ON TABLE
Chinese Group Eyeing U.K.’s House of Fraser
Online’s New Frontier:Brick-and-Mortar Retail
SEE PAGE 9
Warm and cozy, sure, but fall’s knits are also ultrasophisticated when shown in layers of neutrals. Here, Nellie Partow’s wool and cashmere cardigan worn over Dominic Louis’ wool crepe bodice and pants and BP Studio’s angora, nylon and wool sweater. Helen Yarmak fox stole. For more, see pages 4 and 5.
MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014 $3.00 WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY
Neutral Zone
By SAMANTHA CONTI
SANPOWER GROUP, the Chinese conglomerate with a portfolio that spans IT, finance, media, real estate and retail, is in advanced talks with House of Fraser, although the British department store re-tailer continues to lay the groundwork for an initial public offering.
Sanpower is said to have tabled a bid that values HoF at 450 million pounds, or $750 million at cur-rent exchange. The retailer has 61 stores in the U.K. and Ireland and annual sales of 1.2 billion pounds, or $2 billion.
A House of Fraser spokeswoman declined to com-ment on the news.
However, an industry source said that conversa-tions between the two parties are “advanced, al-though nothing has been signed,” and added that a deal could happen very soon. The source stressed that an IPO could still be in the cards.
Sanpower is based in Nanjing, China, and run by its fouder, Yuan Yafei. It has two publicly listed sub-sidiaries, including Nanjing Xinjiekou Department Store Co. Ltd., which sells general merchandise in-cluding clothing. Its other holdings include China Newsweek and China Business Times. According to its Web site, the group owns or controls more than 100 companies and has a workforce of nearly 30,000.
Although House of Fraser has never actually con-firmed its future plans, it is no secret in Britain that the retailer has been pursuing a dual-track strategy of readying for an IPO, and holding talks with potential buyers at the same time. Earlier this year, advanced talks with Galeries Lafayette broke down, and indus-try sources said an IPO was on track for this summer, with Rothschild handling the process.
Last December, sources told WWD that House of Fraser was looking for an enterprise value of up to 450 million pounds, and that both options — IPO or
FASHION BRANDS AND RETAILERS SAY THEY SEE LITTLE IMPACT YET FROM GROWING TENSIONS WITH
RUSSIA OVER UKRAINE, BUT THEY REMAIN ON EDGE. PAGE 7
WATCHING WARILY
GOING LUXEDEE OCLEPPO
HILFIGER LAUNCHES A LUXURY LINE OF
HANDBAGS. PAGE 2
THE DUO BEHIND THE BAG SNOB BLOG
LAUNCH THEIR OWN BAG LINE ON HSN. PAGE 6
SNOB APPEAL
WWD.COMWWD MONDAY, MARCH 31, 20142
TO E-MAIL REPORTERS AND EDITORS AT WWD, THE ADDRESS IS [email protected], USING THE INDIVIDUAL’S NAME. WWD IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2014 FAIRCHILD FASHION MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.VOLUME 207, NO. 64. MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014. WWD (ISSN 0149–5380) is published daily (except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, with one additional issue in March, April, May, June, August, October, November and December, and two additional issues in February and September) by Fairchild Fashion Media, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Shared Services provided by Condé Nast: S.I. Newhouse, Jr., Chairman; Charles H. Townsend, Chief Executive Officer; Robert A. Sauerberg Jr., President; John W. Bellando, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer; Jill Bright, Chief Administrative Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 886549096-RT0001. Canada Post: return undeliverable Canadian addresses to P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill, ON L4B 4R6. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, P.O. Box 6356, Harlan, IA 51593. FOR SUBSCRIPTION, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to WWD, P.O. Box 6356, Harlan, IA 51593, call 866-401-7801, or email customer service at [email protected]. Please include both new and old addresses as printed on most recent label. For New York Hand Delivery Service address changes or inquiries, please contact Mitchell’s NY at 1-800-662-2275, option 7. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your subscription term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable, you are ever dissatisfied with your subscription, let us know. You will receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. For permissions requests, please call 212-630-5656 or fax the request to 212-630-5883. For all request for reprints of articles please contact The YGS Group at [email protected], or call 800-501-9571. Visit us online at www.wwd.com. To subscribe to other Fairchild Fashion Media magazines on the World Wide Web, visit www.wwd.com/subscriptions. Occasionally we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 6356, Harlan, IA 51593 or call 866-401-7801. WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IN WRITING. MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND OTHER MATERIALS SUBMITTED MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE.
Dee Hilfiger Enters Luxury Handbags
Stylus Media Group Acquires Decoded Fashion
Stuart Goldblatt Retires From Macy’s Position
By NINA JONES
LONDON — Stylus Media Group, which provides business intelli-gence to consumer lifestyle, con-sumer product and consumer en-gagement companies, will today reveal its acquisition of Decoded Fashion, the New York-based firm that creates events that aim to connect emerging technologies with decision-makers in the fash-ion, beauty and retail sectors.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Decoded Fashion’s founder Liz Bacelar will continue to lead the com-pany, taking the title of founder and president, with Stylus Media Group’s founder, chairman and chief executive officer Marc Worth taking on the ceo role at Decoded Fashion. Decoded will continue to be based in New York, with a smaller office in London.
“Decoded Fashion has a well-earned credibility amongst the fashion industry for staging
events that matter,” Worth said. “Stylus Group is expected to be an all-seeing source of consumer behavior, design trends, innova-tion breakthroughs and business understanding,” he said. “The synergy between these two com-panies is clear.”
Before starting Stylus in 2010, Worth founded the trend forecast-ing service WGSN, which he sold to EMAP — now known as Top Right Group — for 150 million pounds, or $250 million, in 2005. In 2012, Hearst took a 20 percent stake in Stylus Media Group.
The companies said that fol-lowing the acquisition, Decoded Fashion will accelerate the expansion of its event series in the U.S., Europe, Asia and South America. Recent events that Decoded Fashion has orga-nized include last year’s Fashion Hackathon in New York, a com-petition to create a B2B fashion app, which carried a $10,000 prize, and Decoded Fashion Milan, a forum that took place
in October. The Milan event fea-tured speakers including Vogue Italia’s editor in chief Franca Sozzani, along with executives from Salvatore Ferragamo and Ermenegildo Zegna.
Next up, Bacelar will host a Decoded Fashion London con-ference on May 13, which will follow a Fashion Hackathon contest in the city on May 10 and 11. Decoded will team with the British Fashion Council to present the five best tech ideas that have emerged from the Hackathon event at the Decoded Fashion conference. “The mes-sage is, ‘Does the tech make sense to the fashion industry?’” said Bacelar of the judging cri-teria. “The tech [created] needs to woo the industry. It’s not just about cool tech.” Bacelar also has Decoded beauty events planned for Paris and South Korea in 2015. In addition, Decoded Fashion will help Stylus build on its own fashion industry event offering.
LONGTIME men’s merchant Stuart Goldblatt has retired as executive vice president of men’s and children’s for Macy’s Private Brands, a role he has held for the past 15 years.
He will be succeeded in that position by Molly Langenstein, who had been executive vice president and general merchan-dise manager for the Millennial family of business at the depart-ment store chain, according to a Macy’s spokesman.
Goldblatt, whose retail career spanned 35 years and includ-ed stints at Carson Pirie Scott, Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, G. Fox and Hecht Co., is a fixture in the men’s business and had also been active in the Father’s Day Council, the YMA and other industry organizations.
Reached by phone, Goldblatt said he feels “very fortunate to have worked with the best re-tail minds in the industry, and I feel lucky to have had such a
long career doing what I love. My hope is to start a new career, but this one won’t last 35 years. But I’ve got another 10 years in me to do something.”
Goldblatt said his next chal-lenge has not yet been determined, but he expects to find something soon. “I won’t be Allen Questrom and take a year off to bicycle through Europe,” he said with a laugh. “But I have the luxury of time to decide what I want to do.”
— JEAN E. PALMIERI
By LAUREN MCCARTHY
NEW YORK — “Original.” That was the word Dee Hilfiger
chose to describe her new line of handbags, simply titled Dee Ocleppo. After a brief hiatus, the designer, and wife of Tommy Hilfiger, is reentering the accesso-ries market with a new objective: luxury. Hilfiger introduced a line of customizable handbags on HSN in 2011, under the name “Deesigns by Dee Ocleppo.” Inspired by her first childhood bag, a vintage purse with a cotton cover that could be buttoned off, the line featured bags with removable swatches of revers-ible, decorative fabric. Despite selling well, with retail prices around the $100 mark, Hilfiger wasn’t quite satisfied.
“I wanted to do luxury,” she said. “I had this dream that I wanted to do it in Italy, so I did go over and start making samples for myself.”
After reworking the bags, now with reversible covers in exotic skins and furs, she went to her friend Marigay McKee, then chief merchant of Harrods, for feedback. To her surprise, McKee placed an order for spring 2014 for Harrods on the spot. “I wasn’t pitching. I just wanted her advice,” said Hilfiger. “She was like, ‘Great, I love them, I’ll take them.’ It caught me a little off guard. All of a sud-den, I found myself in business. It wasn’t exactly how I expected to do it, but I dove in headfirst.”
Following the exclusive run at Harrods, Hilfiger is gearing up for her first full-fledged season with a new showroom in the Trump
Tower on Fifth Avenue, and a new collection. For fall, Hilfiger is showing a full range of new styles, including shopper totes, clutches and cross-body bags, with “jack-ets” in materials such as fox fur, python, crocodile, ostrich and suede. Bags are sold with the reversible jackets, essentially giving consumers three different looks in one. “I feel, definitely, that we found an original voice to come into the market,” she said.
“There’s a reason that we’re here. It’s not because I’m bored and we’re making bags.”
With a larger retail push in sight, Hilfiger is learning the challenges of entering an already saturated market. “I have a whole new respect for my husband, and anybody in design. It’s a tough grind, whether it’s dealing with the factories or buyers,” she said. “It’s a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. A lot of times when you’re new to the industry, you have to convince people why they should be in your store. The
tendency is to go with whatever is safe, or a big brand. I’m a small brand. I’m not a Balenciaga, I’m not a Louis Vuitton.”
Therein, she notes, lies the beauty of offering something origi-nal. “We all love a Hermès bag, but a lot of women have them. These are kind of fun because they are just as luxurious and made in the same factories, but they are differ-ent. You’re not going to have the same bag, and by the way, if you walk into a party and someone has the same bag, you can just flip the cover,” Hilfiger said.
She hasn’t hesitated to turn to her husband while dealing with the unfamiliar landscape. “The best advice he’s given me is to keep it small and stay focused,” she said. For his part, Tommy Hilfiger defers any creative input, saying that he only offers business advice. “She knows exactly what she likes and what she doesn’t,” he said during a quick stop in the showroom to examine the newly finished space. “There is noth-ing like them. You can find exotic bags, but not with reversible cov-ers. It’s like three bags in one.”
Dee Hilfiger will preview the fall collection to select press today. The line, which ranges from $595 for a clutch to $12,000 for a croco-dile tote with python and fox fur, will hit stores in late August and early September. Confirmed re-tailers include Harrods and select Saks Fifth Avenue locations, as well as saks.com. E-commerce on Deeocleppo.com is also planned to roll out around this time. “Last season we were just dipping our toe in the water,” Hilfiger said. “Now I have a real business.”
ON WWD.COM
THE BRIEFING BOXIN TODAY’S WWD
Sanpower Group is in advanced talks with House of Fraser, although the British department store retailer continues to lay the groundwork for an initial public offering. PAGE 1 Brands that were born online, such as Bonobos, Warby Parker and BaubleBar, and even industry giant Amazon.com, are pushing into the brick-and-mortar space. PAGE 1 The duo behind the Web site Bag Snob — Tina Craig and Kelly Cook — will launch a handbag line on HSN. PAGE 6 Adidas on Thursday launched a new global Adidas Originals Neighborhood flagship concept in Berlin. PAGE 6 The deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West is no laughing matter, and the mood among businesses with interests in Russia remains warily watchful. PAGE 7 Marilyn Kawakami, a pioneer in the bridge business and leader of several American and European women’s designer labels, died Wednesday at 71. PAGE 8 The book accompanying the upcoming “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” exhibit demonstrates how inspiring James was, and how much “beyond” clothes that influence goes. PAGE 8 Edward White, author of the new biography “The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America,” discusses the book and its subject. PAGE 10 Nick Wooster is designing a capsule collection for Lardini, an Italian tailored clothing brand that is working to expand its presence in the U.S. PAGE 11 Bon Appétit may be getting back into the e-commerce game in a possible deal with AmazonFresh. PAGE 11
Nathan Stewart-Jarrett at the “Dom Hemingway” screening. For
more, see page 10 and WWD.com
EYE: Jude Law, Lena Dunham and Madalina Ghenea attended a New York screening of the movie “Dom Hemingway.” For more, see WWD.com.
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cashmere sweater; By Malene Birger’s wool, viscose and
polyester skirt, and Tse’s cashmere scarf.
Smythson clutch; Reed Krakoff shoes.
photos by george chinsee; styled by mayte allende
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Houghton’s cashmere coat, M. Patmos’ merino
wool and cashmere sweater, Sally LaPointe’s silk and wool pants and
Allude’s viscose and metallic polyester scarf. Carolina Amato gloves.
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6 WWD monday, march 31, 2014
By DAVID YI
TheY’Ve become the go-to blog for bags, and now they’re translat-ing those sensibilities into their own handbag line. on may 15, the duo be-hind the Web site bag Snob — Tina craig and Kelly cook — will launch a bag line on hSN.
The collection, called Snob essentials, follows the duo signing beanstalk Group as their licens-ing agent last year. The agency later sealed a deal with Artisan house to produce the entire line for two years, which will be sold exclusively in the U.S. to hSN for the spring 2014 season; it will expand distribution to other retailers for fall. hSN has already ordered 6,000 bags for the American market. The european e-commerce site Luisa Via Roma has or-dered 700 pieces in all styles. The col-lection will range in retail price from $68 for a smaller bag to $108 for a tote.
For fall, the collection will fea-ture a magazine tote, circle bag and shoulder bag, among others. craig said it will be all about texture block-ing — putting two different textures together, like faux pony hair and faux croc. The collection will also feature the brand’s signature quilting. It will range in price from $68 to $128.
Anne martin-Vachon, chief mer-chandising officer at hSN, said, “Snob essentials provides us the op-portunity to broaden our reach, while offering current customers something that is distinctive and new. The line’s classic and modern silhouettes are affordable, trendy and functional — and exactly what our fashion custom-ers are looking for.”
“bag Snob’s power and credibility allows them to promote their brand, Snob essentials, to a large, loyal following on all social media plat-forms,” michael Stone, chief execu-tive officer of beanstalk, said.
“It’s almost a very selfish line that we made for us,” said craig, who launched the bag Snob blog in
2008. “We see thousands and thou-sands of bags every month because that’s our business. With this line we’re not trying to compete with Givenchy or chanel or even Rebecca minkoff. We want to be a great value to the 99.99 percent of women who shop at Zara or Forever 21, but those bags are now $150 dollars. We want to offer something to women for a great price.”
“We always said that money can’t buy you taste,” said cook. “obviously we’re bag snobs, but it’s unfortunate that meaningful designs are only at one set price point.”
The handbag line for spring will include crocodile-embossed back-packs in vegan leathers in gray and red, black-and-white paint-splattered totes and cross-body bags in pink and teal, with custom-made gold silver-plated hardware on all items.
both craig and cook emphasized that while they wanted the line to offer value, it is not fast fashion.
“It’s a designer collection, and we’re serious about the business; we’re already showing our finished resort next week,” craig said.
As for the design process, craig, based in Dallas, and cook, based in Los Angeles, relied heavily on Skype and Fedex-ing samples back and forth. They then met up in New York city twice a month for meetings.
The two began sketching earlier last
year, sorting through samples in may, and went into production in December.
Though neither has a degree in fashion — both graduated with a business degree from the University of Southern california, where they met — they said they learned hands-on while working with DKNY in 2011 when they launched a joint collabo-ration with the brand. craig also has experience custom-designing a name-sake bag with hermès.
“It was a great experience work-ing with them and other people’s money,” said craig, laughing. “We learned so much from them from coming up with inspiration boards, choosing swatches and hardware.”
Speaking of hardware, craig said they focused their energy and re-sources to find the best they could, which was metal-plated in nickel sil-ver and gold. For their bag line, they custom-designed the hardware to match every bag.
“When we look at bags, we always turn the bag inside out to see if the interior is superb, the stitching and the hardware — if it zips easily and is great, we know it’s worthy to be on our blog,” she said.
come may 15, with craig and cook on hSN’s prime spot at 9 p.m. in front of 96 million viewers, the duo will see whether their designs have appeal.
“There’s absolutely so much pres-sure,” said craig. “every time I have meetings, people are always look-ing and asking what bag I’m carry-ing. but I feel like I have an unfair advantage being in this for so long, since we know so many and so many people are supporting us. We’re in this for the long haul, and it’s good to know that there are good people behind us.”
The two bloggers see the brand expanding into denim and jewelry, and perhaps even expanding from online to brick and mortar.
“I’d love to see a Snob essentials brick-and-mortar retail store on every other block,” said cook. “That’s the plan, that’s the dream.”
The Bag Snobs Launch Essentials
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beRLIN — In a move to keep it original, Adidas launched a new global Adidas originals Neighborhood flagship concept here Thursday. It did so right where the 12-year-old label made its retail debut 11 years ago: at number 13-15 münzstrasse.
“We didn’t want to move. It’s where our consumer lives,” noted originals head Arthur hoeld of the hackescher markt area. “but the new interior, which was completely changed, is about setting a new tone and freshening it up.”
Along with the new interactive homecourt format, which bowed in beijing in February, the Neighborhood flagships represent the German sports-wear giant’s first new retail concept in six years. Why now? “There’s a normal life cycle of retail formats. It’s a natu-ral thing,” hoeld said. “It’s time and we were ready to give the brand a new buzz. The brand has grown up.”
The Neighborhood flagships will be rolled out to both new and exist-ing originals venues in London and Shanghai this spring and summer, with New York, Paris and Seoul to follow sometime later this year. Tightly edited to display “the very best of the brand,” such as sneaker highlights and limited-edition releases, the originals store en-vironments will be tweaked to reflect each respective city. “No location will look the same,” hoeld said. “each will
blend into its neighborhood.”In berlin, that means retaining a
raw edge, with concrete the material of choice for the floors, walls and ceilings of the 3,200-square-foot space. At the same time, there’s a cleaner polish to the in-terior. more space has been left between the more clearly defined display units, each dedicated to one of originals’ col-laborations, such as with Topshop, The Farm, opening ceremony or Jeremy Scott, or product ranges such as Soccer World cup series. hang tags with a photo of the key image identify each, accompa-nied by a short synopsis of the story be-hind the collaboration or product line.
The footwear wall, according to hoeld, is the heart and backbone of the space. marked with a bold three-stripe slash, the zigzag shelves hold the latest models, while a smaller zigzag unit will spotlight special or limited editions, like the new ZX Flux. To mark the berlin opening, one ZX Flux style has been printed with satellite photos of berlin streets, and on Saturday, the full ZX Flux photo print pack for spring 2014 hit the shelves.
one key difference between the new berlin Adidas originals Neighborhood flagship and its predecessor is the gen-der split. men’s and women’s occupy opposite ends of the sales floor; the dis-play units are in white wood and bronze-toned metal for women and darker wood and metal for men.“We split it in order to better focus on the different genders,”
hoeld explained. “We have specific col-lections for women, which we would like her to enjoy in a dedicated and com-pletely merchandised environment.”
The berlin store design has a strong urban undercurrent, the lighting system bringing to mind city transit grids, while the brand’s signature Trefoil has been rebooted and crossed with a 3-D map of the area.
each of the Neighborhood stores will work with local talents. In berlin, it was graphic designer Saskia hahn, who scratched the brand’s berlin manifesto across the windows to celebrate the open-ing, and photographer oliver Rath, who
visually translated the manifesto’s love letter to berlin into photographs that will appear around the city as well as in the store’s new multimedia back lounge.
Throughout the year, the store will host special events, from prod-uct launches to artist collaborations or sneaker breakfasts, with a person on board “dedicated to energizing the store,” hoeld said. In addition, the brand’s Tumblr site will include a spe-cific berlin flagship area with store-related content as well as more general news about what’s happening in the German capital. “We want to be able to tell that neighborhood story,” he said.
Adidas Unveils New Originals Concept
The Adidas Originals store in Berlin.
Tina Craig and Kelly Cook
sale — were attractive. Sources earlier this year said a bid from a chinese company was possible, although noticing it had been tabled at that point. The chinese see the potential to expand house of Fraser into china and also to have hoF advise Sanpower on how to upgrade its chinese depart-ment stores.
News of the current talks was first reported on Sunday by The Sunday Times of London.
As reported, house of Fraser has been seeking to rationalize its fragmented shareholder base and seek new, strategic investors that will add value to the business and help it evolve as a multichannel retailer. The chain is looking to leverage its retail network and name abroad.
house of Fraser has also built up a successful e-commerce business, houseoffraser.co.uk and a houseoffraser.com concept store, a mobile Web site and mobile app, while click-and-collect has become a rapidly expanding distribution channel.
house of Fraser, which stocks fashion brands including michael Kors, Tommy hilfiger, Kenneth cole, Alice by Temperley and Phase eight, as well as hermès, Gucci and other luxury labels in some of its flagships, has a broad shareholder base. Its chairman is Don mccarthy and his family holds nearly 20 percent of the company’s shares.
The management team is led by chief executive officer John King, who has turned the chain around and pushed hard into the digital space.
Around 49 percent of shares are still held by representatives of the failed Icelandic banks linked to hoF’s former owner baugur, which went bust during the financial crisis. other shareholders in-clude british retailers Sir Tom hunter and Kevin Stanford and Lloyds bank.
If a deal were to go through, hoF would be the latest in a string of british fashion brands to be purchased by the chinese. Two years ago, the hong Kong-based YGm Trading, owner of Guy Laroche, purchased Aquascutum.
That same year Trinity Ltd., part of the Li & Fung Group, bought the Savile Row tailor Gieves & hawkes in a deal valuing that company at $95.3 million. Trinity Ltd. also owns the british brand Kent & curwen.
Last September, Fung capital, the hong Kong-based Fung family’s private investment vehicle that owns hardy Amies and other luxury brands, purchased the Savile Row tailor Kilgour for an un-disclosed sum.
Sanpower Eyeing House of Fraser
{Continued from page one}
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WWD.COM7WWD MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
By WWD STAFF
LONDON — There’s a joke going around Russian circles in London that says if you are not someone on the Western nations’ sanctions list, then you are clearly not doing enough for Mother Russia.
While the full impact of sanctions for wealthy and prominent Russians has yet to take hold, the deteriorating relation-ship between Russia and the West is no laughing matter, and the mood among businesses with interests in Russia re-mains warily watchful.
Russian economic growth is slowing and the ruble has lost more than 10 percent of its value against the dollar over the past year. Last week, the World Bank warned that Russia could see a record amount of money — some $150 billion — flow out of the country if the crisis in Ukraine gets worse, while gross domestic product could contract 1.8 percent this year. For now, re-tail brands in Russia and the West say busi-nesses are operating as usual, and most are forging ahead with their plans for 2014.
In the U.S. late last week, the Senate and House passed slightly different bills, authorizing $1 billion in loan guaran-tees to Ukraine and providing broader authority to President Obama to impose sanctions on Russia. The two bills must be reconciled before a final bill can be sent to Obama for his signature.
Both of the measures call for sanc-tions, including freezing assets and banning travel visas of Russian officials suspected of leading the invasion into the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea. The legislation in both chambers essentially codifies sanctions that Obama announced on March 19 against 20 Russian govern-ment officials and a large Russian bank. Obama also threatened to target “key sectors” of the Russian economy, includ-ing financial services, energy, metals and mining, defense and engineering.
Also last week, Gian Giacomo Ferraris, chief executive officer of Gianni Versace, said that “fortunately,” the company is “not superpenetrated in Russia or Ukraine.” The firm does not have big investments in those areas, he said, and the existing ones are through partnerships. “I am more con-cerned about the Russian customers that travel. This embargo could have an impact in the long run,” noted Ferraris. “I hope the situation will clear soon.”
In late March, during Hermès’ full-year results presentation, chief executive officer Axel Dumas waved off a question about the brand’s Russian clientele, given the politi-cal crisis. He noted the nationality accounts for “well below 5 percent” of the firm’s business, and a company spokeswoman later added there had been “no impact” on sales so far. According to Luca Solca of Exane BNP Paribas, Hermès is one of the European luxury companies that is most exposed to the Russian domestic market.
On Tuesday, Harrods will unveil a grand-scale homage to Russian heritage and design in the form of a monthlong cel-ebration of the former jeweler to the czars, Fabergé. The Russian socialite and digital media entrepreneur Miroslava Duma, founder of the online magazine Büro 24/7, will be hosting a breakfast at the store and unveiling a digital mirror that allows visi-tors to “try on” the Fabergé jewels.
The brand plans to decorate the store’s 20 windows facing Brompton Road; open a pop-up shop and Egg Bar, selling bejeweled gold pendants, and dis-play one-of-a-kind high jewelry pieces designed for Fabergé by the artist-jewel-er Frédéric Zaavy.
On the flip side, earlier this month, Fabergé closed its Kiev boutique due to “heightening security fears in Ukraine.” The store is not expected to reopen before June.
Other jewelry firms don’t see this situ-ation impacting growth. In a telephone interview from Baselworld, the annual watch and jewelry show in Switzerland, Anastasia Webster, international p.r.
director for the London-based jeweler Stephen Webster, said business is thriv-ing. “There’s been a positive reaction to the collections and our customers — in-cluding the Russians — are ordering up.”
Webster’s Kiev store remains open for business as do its units in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. “We are also planning our 10-year anniversary event in Moscow for later this year,” Webster added.
According to the British property com-pany Savills, Russian buyers’ share of prime sales in London — classed at prop-erties valued over 3 million pounds, or $4.98 million, currently stands at two per-cent. That figure has remained constant since 2012, and has not changed as a re-sult of the events in Ukraine or the sanc-tions on Russia, according to the company.
Edward Cowell, project director at Eventica, a communications company that specializes in Russian-related events, said while his team is monitoring the situation in Russia, there have been no changes to strategy. “Our work deals with business and cultural — rather than political or diplomatic — engagement,” he said.
Cowell added that Eventica is cur-rently working closely with the British Council to organize events marking the 2014 U.K.-Russia year of culture, and plans are still in the works for the Russian Winter Festival, which will take place in December in London.
In Russia, many of the mass-market re-tailers interviewed said that sales remain steady. “So far we haven’t noticed any sig-nificant change in consumer demand,” said Regina Rodnyanskaya, a spokes-woman for M. Video, Russia’s largest con-sumer electronics chain by revenue.
A spokesman for Russia’s X5 Retail Group, Russia’s largest retailer in terms of sales, said: “Everything is normal. There’s an expected rise in prices on imports due to the current economic situation in Russia, namely the rise of the dollar against the ruble.…In addition, the ruble has started to improve, but it’s difficult to make predic-tions for the coming months.”
The ruble has fallen a little more than 12 percent against the dollar this year, and is currently trading at 2.8 cents.
Viktor Lukanin, vice president of commerce at Euroset, Russia’s largest mobile-phone retailer, said consumer activity has been steady so far. “What happens next depends on the Russian economy, and what happens with the dol-lar. Nothing has changed since last year: The main trends are a growing interest in smartphones and tablets, and a decrease in sales in other products such as cam-eras and DVD players.”
According to the latest global consum-er tracker issued monthly by Bernstein Research, Russian consumption is slow-
ing. January retail sales decreased to 7.7 percent from 9.6 percent, while the latest unemployment rate is flat at 5.6 percent.
Not all the mass-mar-ket retailers are holding steady: Earlier this month, Germany’s Metro Group, a cash-and-carry depart-ment store, hypermarket and electronics retail business, put its plan to float about 25 percent of its highly profitable Russian cash-and-carry business on ice due to the crisis. In late February, the company had suggest-ed that an initial public offering in London could be in place before Easter.
Fashion, too, has felt the pain of shrinking de-mand and rising inflation. Anna Lebsak-Kleimans, head of Moscow’s Fashion Consulting Group, said the outlook for clothing and accessories isn’t ex-actly rosy.
“Retailers noticed the downshift in their sales during the post-Christmas sale period in January and in the be-ginning of February,” she said, blam-ing rising inflation and the falling ruble for price increases. “Over 80 percent of Russian fashion retail is imported prod-uct, and even apparel that is manufac-tured in Russia is still made of imported fabrics and furnishings. There will be price growth, as almost all raw materials
are still imported,” she said.Lebsak-Kleimans said the long-term
story for Russian fashion could be very different: “This drastic political problem with Ukraine led to the growth of a na-tional idea of consolidation. The whole idea of national spirit, national pride is very much in the air right now, so it’s re-ally making people talk more about local designers, local fashion, local names.
“We have some designers who are able to interpret national ideas, someone like Alena Akhmadullina, or Vassa, who is having her seasonal runway show today. Her mini-malistic shapes and bold, clear palettes are based on the idea of Russian Constructivism in art and design. Akhmadullina does Russian myths and folk stories interpreted in Russian design in a very interesting way. It’s global thinking with a local touch.”
Last week, Global Blue, which offers in-ternational tax-free shopping services for tourists, reported that tax-free spending by Russians visiting the U.K. had decreased 17 percent year-on-year for February.
Global Blue was quick to add that Russia remains one of the top global shopper markets in the U.K., with high net worth individuals drawn to its luxu-ry brand offer. Shoppers pay an average of 669 pounds, or $1,102, per transaction.
Global Blue also said the long-term pic-ture — for the U.K. at least — is not nearly as bleak as the February numbers. In a statement, it quoted the government tour-ism agency Visit Britain, which expects growth in spend by Russian shoppers to grow 75 percent by 2020. It also noted that many U.K. luxury retailers are introduc-ing services to attract and accommodate the Russian shopper, including Russian-speaking staff and marketing materials.
Brands Deal With Russian Uncertainty
The World Bank warned that Russia could see a record amount
of money flow out of the country if the crisis in Ukraine gets worse.
8 WWD MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
a mermaid’s yet permit large reckless movement.”
Ralph Rucci provided the prologue. “Charles James had nothing to do with fashion,” he stated. “Rather, he applied himself to the rigors of mathematics in the creation of fashion.
“[His designs] are not merely clothes, or ‘shapes,’ as James would call them,” Rucci added. “They are three-dimen-
sional sculptures that come alive once on a woman’s body, because James was ever mindful of the woman wearing the shape. He was the couturier.”
The cover of the book, which is dis-tributed by Yale University Press, fea-tures the famous 1948 Cecil Beaton
photograph featuring eight women wearing James gowns in an opulent mirror and panelled setting.
The exhibition runs through Aug. 10. It will kick
off with the annual Costume Institute gala benefit on May 5, with Aerin Lauder serving as the evening’s chair. Bradley Cooper, Oscar de la Renta, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch and Anna Wintour will serve as cochairs.
By DAVID MOIN
MARILYN KAWAKAMI, a pioneer in the bridge business and leader of several American and European women’s de-signer labels, died Wednesday night in Los Angeles after succumbing to cancer. She was 71.
Kawakami was being treated in Los Angeles, where her sister lives, but was a resident of New York.
Kawakami started as a buyer at Bonwit Teller, became design and merchandising director for Gloria Vanderbilt, and in the Eighties, started the bridge business at Anne Klein & Co.
and eventu-ally became president of its bridge lines, Anne Klein II and A Line.
“ M a r i l y n was a warm, generous and caring friend and family member,” said J e a n n e t t e Chang, se-
nior vice president, international pub-lishing director at Hearst Magazines International. “She loved travel, dance,
politics and the simple pleasures of life, especially her friends. Her passing leaves a hole in our hearts.”
Kawakami also was with GFT at the company’s headquarters in Turin, Italy, working on all the GFT collections, in-cluding the bridge lines Sahza, Si You and Essence. Her responsibilities in-cluded opening and operating a fashion marketing and merchandising office for GFT in Italy. Kawakami was originally hired by GFT Donna SpA, based in Turin, in 1990 to expand the Giorgio Armani Le Collezioni White Label by integrat-ing American marketing ideas. She also served as president of Ralph Lauren Womenswear and Bill Haire.
Later, Kawakami became a partner at Songmasters LLC for merchandis-ing and apparel. She was also a found-ing member of the Belizean Grove, a prominent professional organization for women.
Among her affiliations, Kawakami served as a board member of both the New York Fashion Council and the Fashion Round Table, and as a cochair of the New York Chapter of the Women’s National Museum.
Kawakami is survived by her 101-year-old mother, Mary; a sister, Smiley Sciume, and two brothers, Ben and Paul. Memorial services will be scheduled in New York City in the near future.
By MARC KARIMZADEH
NEW YORK — “Charles James: Beyond Fashion” is opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 8; its accompany-ing book of the same title, by The Costume Institute’s Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder, demonstrates just how inspir-ing James was, and how much “beyond” clothes that influence goes.
It chronologically details the life of the Anglo-American couturier, from his 1906 birth into a life of privilege at the family’s Surrey, England, estate through his suc-cess and later years when he served as a
consultant to Halston. It also, through il-lustrations, photography and detail shots of garments that will be on display, gives a view into the designer’s complex mind and how, aesthetically, he was a pre-cursor to Christian Dior and Cristóbal Balenciaga. Many of the looks, particu-larly the evening gowns, still feel contem-porary — a blueprint, one could say, to today’s red carpet dressing.
Various chapters focus on the de-tail of James’ craft, including “Spirals & Wraps,” “Drapes & Folds” and “Architectural Shaping.” As James himself put it, “My structures...look as if the body is no more ambulatory than
INTE
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BY J
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Pages from “Charles James: Beyond Fashion.”
A Look Inside the Charles James Exhibit Book
OBITUARY
Former Bridgewear Executive Marilyn Kawakami
By SOFIA CELESTE
MILAN — Berlin-based avant-garde eye-wear maker Mykita and French fashion house Maison Martin Margiela have en-tered into a long-term licensing agree-ment for an upscale eyewear collection.
The contract started early this year and has an indefinite end date, Mykita founder and chief executive officer Moritz Krueger told WWD at the Mido eyewear fair in Milan.
Mykita said they first met with Maison Martin Margiela in June 2012 and discussed the “reinterpretation of historical forms and radical experimen-tation with constructions and an uncon-ventional approach to materials.”
“For us, a collaboration is like an exothermic reaction, where we are mix-ing the DNA of two companies as ingre-dients together in a test glass. It was incredibly thrilling to merge Mykita and Maison Martin Margiela in the test tube, because we knew something ex-traordinary had to come out of this,” Krueger said.
“Now seemed the right time for Margiela to take a step further into the world of eyewear design by creating an even more distinctive and complete op-tical range,” Maison Martin Margiela said.
The ad campaign was shot by French artist Charles Fréger.
The collection has already been pro-duced and includes two retro styles: Essential and Dual. Essential is focused on the concept of functionality and is comprised of ultralightweight stainless steel frames void of any additive com-ponents like nose pads.
The Dual styles include two pairs of frames born of one form and come in four unisex styles and various color schemes.
The pre-release of the overall col-lection is scheduled for mid-April at selected Maison Martin Margiela boutiques and Mykita shops world-wide. The worldwide release of the Mykita+Maison Martin Margiela is scheduled for May 1 and will be avail-able at selected opticians and multi-brand stores.
Mykita and Martin Margiela Ink Eyewear License Deal
Marilyn Kawakami
CELEBRATING BRITISH ARTISTRY & HERITAGE—AND REACHING DECISION-MAKERS WORLDWIDEMADE IN britain
For information, contact [email protected] or +33 1 44 51 07 61
IN PRINT & ONLINE: JUNE 5AD CLOSE: MAY 23
MADE IN BRITAIN
WWD.COM9WWD MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
“When you go to the section, you will see necklace spots that show you how to layer and bracelet bars that show stacks you can build. You will see prepackaged product in BaubleBar branded packag-es,” cofounder Amy Jain said.
In January, BaubleBar quietly became available at Anthropologie doors across the country and on anthropologie.com through a “BaubleBar x Anthropologie” collaboration. The pieces, which retail from $28 to $86, are available in the ma-jority of the retailer’s 188 doors. Last June, a 4,000-square-foot temporary store opened at 131 Greene Street in Manhattan, while in February the com-pany unveiled “BaubleBar Unwrapped” in New York’s Meatpacking District to celebrate its two-year anniversary. BaubleBar also opened a shoppable-by-appointment-only showroom, “The Bar,” next to its headquarters on Fifth Avenue in New York’s Flatiron District.
Cofounders Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky declined to reveal the com-pany’s sales, but they said monthly traffic is growing “substantially” to more than 1 million visits currently — compared with just 340,000 monthly visitors last year. Off-line sales grew more than 475 percent last year as a result of initiatives like the Greene Street pop-up shop and partner-ship with Anthropologie, and physical re-tail now accounts from 20 percent of the overall business. Order volume growth has increased 20 percent month-for-month for the past year, and the business has more than 120 employees. The com-pany has raised $6 million to date, fueled by firms like Accel Partners, Greycroft Partners and more.
“We had tested offline in a few differ-ent pop-up concepts, but that last sum-mer we saw a couple of customer behav-iors that made us realize we needed to move fast in terms of offering physical retail to customers. A lot of online-first brands have seen this happen,” Jain said, calling the Greene Street store the cata-lyst for the Nordstrom partnership.
The two founders deliberated about what the quickest way to deliver the physi-cal experience to consumers would be — and opening retail doors on their own in the time frame they wanted to offer wasn’t realistic. “Could we do it? Yes. Is that the most effective way? Maybe not.”
A key lesson learned about the off-line world was that the average order value in-store is about three times what it is online.
Yacobovsky stressed there is a difference between a third-party retailer selling one’s product and building one’s own brand. In order to create a stand-alone brand, an e-tailer must have an in-person, off-line component to the business.
Sumit Chandra, a partner in the re-tail and consumer division and fulfill-ment lead at A.T. Kearney, said that the space has seen successful examples of e-tailers being sold at brick-and-mortar, third-party retailers. It’s taking that to the next level and opening branded stores (and supporting that infrastruc-ture) that will determine exactly how successful these online players can be-come with respect to retail.
“The physical guys are moving towards online, and online towards physical. Where they meet is not necessarily in the middle — it’s going to be where the consumer finds it to be the most convenient for them,” Chandra said. That meeting point will differ by segment of retail, depending on whether the industry is fashion, consumer electron-ics or groceries, he said.
Bonobos, considered industrywide as a pioneer in the online-to-off-line space, launched its Web site in October 2007. It broke into brick-and-mortar retail in 2012 via Nordstrom, which also took a stake in the brand, and by this summer, in addition to strong growth year-on-year, the collection will be sold at all 117 Nordstrom doors.
In February, the company kicked off a retail partnership with Belk to bolster its presence in the South. The depart-ment store opened seven Bonobos shops-in-shop in cities like Charlotte, N.C.; Raleigh, N.C.; Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Huntsville, Ala., and Nashville. Dallas will open next month.
Currently, Bonobos has eight Guideshops, in New York (in SoHo and the Flatiron District); Boston; Chicago; Washington’s Georgetown neighbor-hood; Bethesda, Md.; San Francisco, and Austin — with leases for two addi-tional locations signed in Los Angeles and Brookfield Place in New York, set
to open this summer and in spring 2015, respectively. Each space allows consum-ers to see the range of product, try items on and place orders. To maximize space and production efficiency, Guideshops aren’t stocked with inventory; orders are shipped to the consumer’s home.
Founder and ceo Andy Dunn said that the jump to retail took place when he was having a discussion with someone about not being able to try on Bonobos’ pants before purchasing. Dunn acknowledged that the site had superior customer ser-vice — a 365-day no-questions-asked re-turn policy, “ninjas” that can live chat with consumers and free shipping and returns — but shoppers lacked the ability to touch and feel what they were buying. He personally started to feel like the com-pany wasn’t offering a great experience if shoppers couldn’t try on the product.
“I had this great debate at a board meeting: Is Bonobos an e-commerce com-pany or a brand? The debate was that if we’re an e-commerce company, then we need to be like Asos — e-commerce to the moon. But if we’re a brand, we can think about e-commerce as our core and primary point of distribution but not be limited to e-commerce,” Dunn explained.
In 2011, Bonobos set up two fitting rooms with two salespeople in the lobby of its space in the Flatiron District — and within 90 days, they were doing $90,000 in sales a month (or $1 million of annual-ized revenue).
Dunn learned that people like to touch and feel the clothing — and the key was the “try-it-on” moment. Even though peo-ple don’t walk out with the product after placing an order at a Guideshop, Dunn said this doesn’t matter. He was warned
that instant gratification was paramount to the retail equation, but he found
something fundamentally different. “Great product and great ser-
vice far overwhelm instant grati-fication,” Dunn said of the “aha” moment when he realized that a brand can maintain clothing retail
stores without having to stock inventory.
“We weren’t smart enough to envision this. It was something
we discovered. Innovation is funny;
sometimes you have brilliant people who can
see the future and create something. I’m not one of those people, but I do like to experiment and like to learn,” Dunn said. “I realized we hadn’t innovated a thing. It was all Apple.”
Warby Parker, the eyewear brand that celebrated four years in business in February, saw business take off from the get-go. Its e-commerce site at warbyp-arker.com, hit its first year’s sales target within three weeks, and after 48 hours, cofounder and ceo Neil Blumenthal said that the at-home, try-on program had to be suspended because the company ran out of samples. It now operates five free-standing doors nationwide.
When the brand moved to its first of-fice in summer 2010, the team deliberately chose a space with characteristics that would lend itself to doubling as a show-room. This included being a loft with high ceilings that was also centrally located near Union Square in downtown Manhattan.
“It was an actual store because we weren’t doing any wholesale sales. We
ended up getting kicked out of that of-fice because we got so much traffic,” he recalled of the office located on the sixth floor of a “non-retail” block. From there, Warby Parker relocated to the Puck Building, where it was soon doing several million dollars of sales out of a 300-square-foot space in the office.
Even though Warby Parker has execut-ed several innovative pop-up concepts — like the Holiday Spectacle in December 2011 or the “Warby Parker Class Trip,” where the company transformed a yel-low school bus into a mobile store that visited 15 U.S. cities from October 2012 to December 2013 — it was while at the Puck Building that the company started looking for a “proper store” in SoHo.
In April 2013, the brand’s flagship opened on Greene Street in SoHo, and it now has doors on Washington Street in New York’s Meatpacking District and on Lexington Avenue and 82nd Street on the Upper East Side, as well as Los Angeles and Boston.
The brand revealed a $60 million round of funding in December, and has raised $100 million to date. Blumenthal said that the company has more than doubled in size every year since incep-tion and expects the same growth trajec-tory for 2014.
Blumenthal maintains that the “vast majority” of sales come from online. He believes “that the opportunity online is synergistic with our retail strategy, and that creating beautiful, profitable free-standing stores just complements our Web business in several ways.”
Birchbox, a monthly subscription ser-vice dedicated to beauty, will open its first store on West Broadway in SoHo. Nasty Gal’s founder and ceo Sophia Amoruso also has been vocal about want-ing to venture into the physical retail space. She said she plans to open her first brick-and-mortar store later this year. Nastygal.com saw about $130 mil-lion in retail sales in 2013, according to industry experts.
For Amoruso, a benefit to being an on-line technology company first is that once the brand ventures into retail, it won’t be burdened with the legacy systems that big department stores have to contend with. She wants to provide a “next-gener-ation retail experience” for the brand’s active online community.
The e-tailers are finding exactly what brick-and-mortar companies are discov-ering as they in turn push into the digi-tal space: Consumers today want to buy a product where they want to and when they want to. As Blumenthal of Warby Parker said, “When we think about what we do, we’re not just eyewear designers; we design experience. We’re medium ag-nostic — we just want you to have which-ever medium you prefer to shop with us at. That’s what we’re going to provide, whether in-store or online, and we de-sign these experiences holistically.”
E-tailers Make Major Brick-and-Mortar Play
’’
’’
Great product and great service far overwhelm instant gratification.
— ANDY DUNN, BONOBOS
{Continued from page one}
Warby Parker’s store on New York City’s Upper East Side.
The Bonobos shop inside Belk in Charlotte, N.C.
A collar and earrings from the BaubleBar x Nordstrom collection.
FOR MORE IMAGES, SEE
WWD.com/retail-news.
10 WWD MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
AT THE Thursday night screening of the new Jude Law movie “Dom Hemingway,” there was an interloper on the red carpet. Lena Dunham was
stepping and repeating.The movie is a dark comedy
that stars Law as a safe-cracker just released from prison and takes place in London, far, far
from Brooklyn. Dunham wasn’t totally crashing the party. She had come to support the film’s director, Richard Shepard, who has directed episodes of Dunham’s “Girls.” Law and Dunham made for an odd couple at the Cinema Society- and Links of London-hosted screening at Manhattan’s Landmark Sunshine theater, but they seemed to have warmed up to each other quickly. Dunham even gave Law bunny ears during photos on the red carpet.
Dunham stayed just to pose for photos and share a quick chat with Law near the concession stand; she was off to the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, where her boyfriend Jack Antonoff was playing his first New York show for his solo project, Bleachers.
Law, who described himself as a “weekly watcher” of “Girls,” gained 20 pounds for the part.
“It was just bad food at wrong times of the day,” he said of his weight gain. “Ice cream, Coca-Cola, lots of red meat.”
At the after party at Hotel Hugo’s Il Principe, an impossibly slender, statuesque beauty posed for a selfie with Karen Elson. The Romanian actress Madalina Ghenea, who is featured in the film, wore a very va-va-voom Emanuel Ungaro sheer blouse that was unbuttoned just to
there, and easily upstaged the phalanx of supermodels and socials around her — Dree Hemingway, Elettra Wiedemann, Genevieve Jones and Allison Williams — not to mention Salman Rushdie.
“I actually had a very special moment on set,” Ghenea cooed, sipping a vodka martini. “I had to sing in front of Jude, Demian Bichir and Richard E. Grant, and I’m not a singer. I don’t really know how to deal with my voice.” Certainly, no one minded.
“Anyway,” she added modestly, all but batting her eyelashes, “it didn’t have to sound amazing. And it certainly didn’t sound amazing in the
movie. But it was a weird, funny moment to deal with.” “Dom Hemingway” is the actress’ first English-language film — she has two previous Italian films to her credit and also has a role in a European TV series, “Borgia,” not to be confused with the Showtime series “The Borgias.”
“I come from a little town in the south of Romania,” she said. “My mother always dreamed to be an actress, and then she always wished
that for me. She wanted to see me on the big screen, and this just happened and it’s unbelievable.”
— KRISTI GARCED
CARL VAN VECHTEN was a polymath whose various careers included music and dance critic, novelist, essayist and portrait photographer.
An inveterate enthusiast who was tirelessly social, a great host and raconteur, he knew everyone who was anyone in the arts of his time and promoted the careers of Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Ethel Waters, Paul Robeson and other writers and performers of the Harlem Renaissance. He also helped cement Gertrude Stein’s status as a major cultural figure and eventually became her literary executor. His substantial contribution
as a cultural impresario would seem to have guaranteed him a measure of immortality but, unlike, say, H. L. Mencken (who was born in 1880, as he was) and Edmund Wilson (who was 15 years younger), he is almost unknown now. Why?
Edward White, author of the new biography “The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), has some ideas. “To me, probably the best reason is that he doesn’t really fit into what’s become the established narrative of the Twenties,” White says. “He was such a contradictory figure. He’s this kind of semi-out gay man, but married [he was married twice, and his second marriage, to actress Fania Marinoff, lasted 50 years]. His novels are sort of
this strange concoction of up-to-date themes, but his prose style is obviously indebted to people like Oscar Wilde, and he loves the decadent movement of Europe of the 1890s. If you compare his writing to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s — he was part of the same social world — it just seems odd, just really weird. There’s no way to fit him into the established canon; he roves around too much.”
Van Vechten, who grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, came from a family of successful businessmen, and he never lacked self-confidence. He was also a lifelong dandy. When he decided to become a journalist,
after graduating from the University of Chicago, his career quickly took off. He began working at the Chicago American, a Hearst newspaper, but before long, he had moved to New York and joined the staff of The New York Times. There, he became an assistant music critic, then Paris correspondent and later a dance critic. He went on to publish nine collections of essays, beginning with “Music After the Great War” in 1915 and “Music and Bad Manners” in 1916, and seven novels, starting with “Peter Wiffle: His Life and Works” in 1922 and “The Blind Bow-Boy” in 1923, and the latter became a bestseller.
“His music essays are the best kind of creative work he did,” White says. “They are astonishingly farsighted and brilliant. There are essays about Stravinsky, Nijinsky and Strauss, essays about Bessie Smith, blues and jazz. They are urgent and alive and streets ahead of what other music critics were writing at the time.”
Van Vechten became obsessed with the cultural contributions of African-Americans during the Twenties, and he did everything he could to promote the work of black artists. It was he, for instance, who introduced Hughes to Alfred and Blanche Knopf, who published his first book, a collection of poetry called “The Weary Blues.” White writes, “Van Vechten’s work as a publicist and dealmaker was one of the furnaces that fueled the Harlem Renaissance. When
the theater producer Caroline Dudley wanted to export to Paris the sort of black stage entertainment that was all the rage in New York, it was to Van Vechten she turned for advice.” The result: the Paris revue that launched the career of Josephine Baker; he was a consultant on the production.
After he was 50, when he inherited a substantial estate from his brother, a successful banker, and became financially independent, Van Vechten took most of the portrait photographs of famous writers and performers for which he is best known today.
Throughout his life, Van Vechten had sexual and romantic relationships with men. “He’s living at a time when it’s nigh-on impossible to state boldly his opinion on that kind of thing,” White
says. “There’s lot of coding in the novels, and in the essays about it. He writes very playfully about it. I get the sense that he was strikingly untroubled about his attraction to men in a way that I think many of his close friends were not.”
White admits to feeling some ambivalence about his subject. “I would love to go for a drink with Carl Van Vechten, but he can be difficult to like, extraordinarily selfish and self-centered,” he says. “He wasn’t particularly kind to his wife. He was capable of the most stunning generosity, at the same time as he often goes out of his way to insult
people. His motto in life is that one should only do ‘what one is forced by nature to do.’ That line appears in one of his novels. He doesn’t really care what other people want from him. In that sense, he is a difficult man.”
Until the end of his life, White points out, Van Vechten, who died at 84 in 1964, maintained his interest in cultural currents. “He never stopped being excited about new things,” his biographer says. “He liked Philip Roth; thought he was terrific. He loved being in the thick of whatever the new thing was. For example, he suddenly gets an obsession with airplanes, and any chance he gets, he gets on an airplane. And when he got excited about things, he’d make these strange barking noises.”
— LORNA KOSKI
Eminent Contradiction
PHOT
OS B
Y SC
OTT
RUDD
A Carl Van Vechten biography by Edward White.
’’
’’
His motto in life is that one should only do ‘what one is forced by nature to do.’
— EDWARD WHITE
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Madalina Ghenea in Emanuel Ungaro.
Lena Dunham
Jude Law
A Tallulah Bankhead photograph by Carl Van Vechten from 1934.
eye
WWD.COM11WWD MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
truly embrace beach culture in a fun and colorful way.”
The Brazilian footwear brand has previously collaborated with Valentino, Matthew Williamson and Missoni. “All of our collaborations start first and foremost with a mutual admiration for each other,” said Carlos Zepeda, vice president of marketing for Havaianas U.S. The Havaianas + Mara Hoffman Collection will hit stores in April and retail for $44. — LAUREN MCCARTHY
RELAUNCH MODE: Following the departure of designer Alessandra Facchinetti in February 2013, Pinko is relaunching its Uniqueness women’s brand with a new format. Instead of tapping a new creative director, the label will become a flexible platform for the introduction of different projects and product categories. For fall, Uniqueness tapped Italian stylist Viviana Volpicella, who created a collection of 12 looks. “I edited some pieces from Pinko Black collection and I reworked them with pearl embroideries, sequins and special details,” Volpicella said.
The Uniqueness collection will be available from June in a number of Pinko hybrid shops, the company’s units mixing brick and mortar with the Web shopping experience — customers can try the pieces, finalize their purchases on tablets and receive the clothes at home. — ALESSANDRA TURRA
MAKE A WISHBONE: Paul Smith is marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of
Danish designer Hans J. Wegner — the man who created the
Wishbone Chair in 1949 — with a limited-edition furniture collaboration that will make its debut at Milan’s Salone del Mobile next month. Smith chose his favorite Wegner pieces, and had them upholstered in his “Big Stripe” and “Stripes”
worsted wool fabrics. Smith’s home textiles are made by Maharam, while the Wegner furniture is manufactured by
Carl Hansen & Son.The capsule collection
also includes a Wegner Shell Chair, Wing Chair and
two sofas, all of which are covered in Smith’s design: an irregular lineup of fat, skinny and medium-size stripes. Smith said that working with Carl Hansen & Son was a no-brainer. “It was like my collaboration with Leica [cameras]. You know immediately that you want to work with them, and that the collaboration makes sense,” Smith said. He referred to Wegner’s designs as “magical,” and to the Shell Chair as a “designer’s designer chair — just ask Tom Dixon and John
Pawson,” Smith said.The capsule collection
will be on display from April 8 to 13 at Paul Smith’s Milan store on Via Manzoni and at Carl Hansen & Son’s Milan showroom and booth
at the city’s annual furniture fair. — SAMANTHA CONTI
FUN AND GAMES AT TOMMY BAHAMA: Tommy Bahama, the island-inspired lifestyle brand, has signed a licensing agreement for outdoor games with Aqua Leisure. The games will launch in April at tommybahama.com, select Tommy Bahama retail stores and other specialty store retailers.
Priced from $79.99 to $249.99, the games include Beach Rollo, Bean Bag Toss, Ladder Ball, Paddle Ball, Surf Toss and Washer Royale. Each game comes with custom recreational accessories, and is easy to assemble and transport to the beach or backyard. Most come with a carry bag with a padded shoulder strap and an embroidered or printed Tommy Bahama logo.
“For over 20 years Tommy Bahama has invited everyone to enjoy the island-inspired lifestyle,” said Rob Goldberg, senior vice president of marketing at Tommy Bahama. “And a huge part of that lifestyle is having fun in the sun. These outdoor games are the ultimate in summer fun — a new take on some old favorites and some new ones.”
Tommy Bahama, which prides itself on bringing relaxation to a fine art, has the logo “Make Life One Long Weekend.” The outdoor games complement Tommy Bahama’s lifestyle products, which include apparel, footwear, accessories, home furnishings, restaurants and bars and retail stores. — LISA LOCKWOOD
BON APP’S SECRET PARTNER: Bon Appétit may be getting back into the game of e-commerce, following a somewhat unremarkable partnership with HSN under which the magazine sold kitchenware on the TV shopping network. That deal, which was launched in 2012, quietly fizzled at the end of 2013, which had Bon App back on the prowl for another gig.
Apparently the magazine has found just that — and it appears its newest deal will be with Amazon.
According to an invitation obtained by WWD, Bon App vice president and publisher Pamela Drucker Mann will host a breakfast on Tuesday with April Lane, the head of marketing for AmazonFresh, the Web giant’s food site, which is a kind of riff on FreshDirect. AmazonFresh, which is currently available only in Los Angeles, Seattle and San Francisco, boasts same-day delivery of fresh, locally grown produce and other foods. There is speculation that AmazonFresh is readying to expand to other markets, including New York.
The seated breakfast, which will take place at the Refinery Hotel Rooftop in New York, is essentially a presentation on the “unique new partnership” between the two companies, according to the invitation. Everyone attending the breakfast will have to sign non-disclosure agreements.
The Amazon partnership would fill
the e-commerce void left from HSN. According to sources, that deal wasn’t a great fit for Bon App. The agreement was in place before current editor in chief Adam Rapoport took the magazine’s helm, the sources pointed out, and it was hard for Bon App, which helped choose and design the wares, to control the quality of products manufactured by HSN.
Bon App’s other brand extensions include an ongoing partnership with Spotify to create music playlists from top chefs, as well as a content-based deal with OpenTable around the magazine’s “Feast or Fashion” event.
— ALEXANDRA STEIGRAD
OUT OF TEXAS: The New York Times Magazine has found itself an editor. Jake Silverstein, editor in chief of Texas Monthly, has been named editor of The New York Times Magazine, the newspaper said Friday afternoon.
Silverstein, 38, became editor of Texas Monthly in 2008. He succeeds former NYT magazine editor Hugo Lindgren, who departed The Times in November. Lindgren eventually resurfaced in January as The Hollywood Reporter’s acting editor for a three-month period.
Since Lindgren’s departure, The Times has been on the hunt for a successor, with T: The New York Times Style Magazine’s Deborah Needleman and Times managing editor Dean Baquet working with the magazine’s current staff to put out weekly issues.
Executive editor Jill Abramson said the magazine will be redesigned under his watch.— A.S.
WOOSTER’S CAPSULE: Nick Wooster is designing a capsule collection for Lardini, an Italian tailored clothing brand that is working to expand its presence in the U.S. “I’m doing a collaboration,” he said. “By no means do I think I’m a designer like Rick Owens or Thom Browne, but I’m a retailer and somewhat of an editor.” He said the capsule will include “things I love today. I’m not saying it’s original, but it’s my take on what’s interesting out there.”
Wooster said Lardini, which recently brought him on board as a consultant, asked if he would “do a small capsule that would summarize my style, and I jumped on it.” He said the line will encompass 12 to 15 looks and will be focused around tailored clothing, the company’s specialty, with “a few sportswear elements. They make perfect clothing and this will be imperfect,” Wooster said.
A Lardini spokesman confirmed that Wooster will be designing a special collection for spring 2015 that “will be focused on the U.S. market,” but said it’s unknown at this point where it will be presented. It is expected to be shown in June, either at Pitti Uomo in Florence or in Milan during the men’s shows. Wooster said he will be going to Italy in two weeks to finalize all the details.
Wooster, whose background includes fashion director stints at Bergdorf Goodman and J.C. Penney, connected with Lardini after the ending of a short stint as partner and creative director of Atrium stores. — JEAN E. PALMIERI
FANCY FEET: Nicholas Kirkwood made the most of his two-day jaunt to Los Angeles with a trunk show and luncheon at Saks Fifth Avenue Beverly Hills and a dinner at Hotel Bel-Air on Thursday. “There are always plenty of events here to wear my shoes to,” he said, noting that dinner cohost Emma Roberts was wearing his S sandal and Rachel Zoe, China Chow, Jaime King, Liz Goldwyn and Katharine Ross were also sporting his designs. “I hope to be getting back to L.A. more in the coming
months because it’s an increasingly important market for us. I also feel that the city’s art market is getting a really great reputation, which is exciting.”
Kirkwood had hoped to attend the weekend’s Museum of Contemporary Art gala, but his mother’s 60th birthday beckoned him back after a one-night stay. My mum would never speak to me again if I missed it,” he said.
— MARCY MEDINA
BENZ JUST PEACHY: Savannah Fashion Week organizers will honor Chris Benz with its first Savannah Fashion Visionary Award for his “love of Savannah and support of the local fashion community.” Having spent a great deal of time in the Georgia city, the designer has taken inspiration from it to the degree he named his fall 2011 collection “Spooky Savannah.”
Heather Burge, president of Savannah Fashion Week, said, “Chris’ affection and respect for Savannah is apparent. He caught the essence of Savannah with his collection — its inherent romance and its sly sense of eccentricity. He’s the perfect choice for this inaugural award.”
Benz recently introduced a capsule collection for London Fog. He is still working with eBay and consulting on the Japanese brand Synchro Crossing.
— ROSEMARY FEITELBERG
SUMMER SHOES: Havaianas and Mara Hoffman have teamed up to produce a limited-edition collection of colorful flip-flops. The collaboration will feature four prints from Hoffman’s most-recent resort collection in an arrangement of kaleidoscopic hues. “I’ve been a huge fan of Havaianas for years so it was an amazing opportunity to see them in some of my favorite prints,” said Hoffman. “Brands
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A pair of flip-flops from the Havaianas + Mara Hoffman Collection.
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