Stella McCartney’s double-win at last night’s British Fashion Awards, where she was awarded both Designer of the Year and the Designer Brand of the Year, capped off a year of non-stop success for her eponymous label.
Success that probably made McCartney’s former boss at Chloé eat his words. According to McCartney, he was pretty positive she, being a woman and all, wouldn’t make it on her own.
It’s been a good year for luxury companies–everyone from Hermes to Richemont have reported gains in 2011–and LVMH is not immune. Sales reached €10.3 billion in the first half of the year, an increase of 13% from 2010. The fashion sector of the company also saw a 13% increase in sales, to 3.97 billion. And what’s more, every single brand gained market share.
Including scandal-ridden Dior, whose creative director, John Galliano, was dismissed in February due to racist comments he made in a restaurant (and other unhinged behavior).
So it seems that the brand, despite the constant negative press it’s received over the last six months, is in incredibly good shape. Whether that’s due to the consumer’s understanding of its rich heritage, or the consumer’s ambivalence toward bad behavior, remains unknown.
So, you’ve probably heard that Prada, the Italian luxury goods company owned and operated by designer Miuccia Prada and her husband, CEO Patrizio Bertelli, finally went public last week and will officially begin trading shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this Friday, June 24.
This is a huge deal, not only because there are very few public luxury goods companies (LVMH, PPR, Richemont, Burberry, and Hermes are the big ones), but because Prada chose the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to stage its IPO. We talked to some of our favorite fashion-meets-finance professionals about the significance of this event.
We stopped by the Chanel fine jewelry showroom the other night to check out some serious bling, like the new chromatic J12 watches that can only be polished with diamond dust. They’re amazing; and if only we could afford that diamond dust, we’d be adding the new J12 to the list of gifts we really, really want.
But while the baubles were, of course, incredible, one of the biggest mesmerizers in the showroom wasn’t propped on a jewelry tray. Instead, it was inside the ipads dotting the floorspace.
The ipads framed a preview of Chanel’s revamped fine jewelry and watch websites, which launched yesterday. Like the jewelry, the sites are stunning– but they’re also smart.
From the weekend emerged more crazy designer gossip.
According to Eric Wilson at the New York Times, Hannah MacGibbon is likely to be exiting Chloe after this season. The label, which is owned by Richemont, is said to have already interviewed candidates for the job. We hope this isn’t true, mostly because we really like MacGibbon‘s work.
But back to that other little situation. Sources inside the house of Dior tell Fashionista that the rumor within the company goes like this: Riccardo Tisci is most definitely in, and Carine Roitfeld will serve as the label’s stylist. Roitfeld was most recently linked to Hedi Slimane’s rumored takeover of YSL, although the Stefano Pilati-directed label’s expertly placed piece in the Times seems to have muffled those whispers.
The financial markets in the US were closed yesterday, which in turn made things in Europe–as well as behind-the-scenes here–much more exciting.
The most critical news: J.Crew is close to settling a lawsuit regarding its takeover. Some public shareholders felt that J.Crew’s Mickey Drexler accepted an offer for the company that was too low–$2.86 billion–and they want to be compensated. Those shareholders will receive $10 million for settling, and J.Crew will entertain other potential offers until February 15. (Although Reuters is reporting that there haven’t been any rival bids, which means the deal is likely to go through next month.)
Over in Britain, the morning’s big stories are Burberry and Net-a-Porter.
Burberry is one of the few independent luxury brands in the world, and it also happens to be one of the most successful. After years of struggling to take back its plaid from British chav culture, CEO Angela Ahrendts and creative director Christopher Bailey have molded Burberry into a label of which everyone wants a piece.
Now, it seems that someone is looking to scoop up the whole thing. Reuters reports a rumor that an undisclosed bidder wants to buy the brand for nearly $10 billion. (It’s current value on the stock market is around $8 billion.)
If it’s true, who could it be?
The world’s two most powerful luxury brands are getting a bit chummier.
My WWD idol, European editor Miles Socha, reports that LVMH has taken a 14.2% stake in Hermes International. The stake is worth about $2 billion.
Hermes is a public company, but the family behind the brand still owns a controlling stake. (Their share is 71%, to be exact.) LVMH will announce on Monday that they’ve invested in Hermes to “be a long-term shareholder of Hermès and to contribute to the preservation of the family and French attributes which are at the heart of the global success of this iconic brand.”
Does this mean they’re going to try and buy all of Hermes?
There’s been lots of talk in the past few months about flash sales sites shilling fake or grey market merchandise. However, we never expected HauteLook, one of the most respectable–and successful–sites around, to be caught up in this mess.
Cartier, which is owned by luxury conglomerate Richemont, is suing the Los Angeles-based company for over $2 million, first reported this morning on SheFinds. According to court documents obtained by Fashionista–some of which you can review below–the Cartier watches sold by HauteLook are secondhand. One of Hautelook’s selling points is that they work directly with the brands, and that they sell new–not used–merchandise, so Cartier feels that HauteLook has made false claims when it comes to the brand.
To be clear, Cartier has not accused HauteLook of selling out-n-out fake products.
One of the few start-ups to have emerged from the carnage of the dot-com implosion of 2000, Natalie Massenet’s vision of an “online magazine-you-can-shop-from,” now the luxury fashion version of Amazon.com, just earned her a neat £50m when she sold her shares of Net-A-Porter to luxury giant Richemont this spring. The reasons for her success and perhaps the failings of others is that in the world of fashion, more than anywhere, “people don’t trust who they don’t know”. As former editor at WWD and Tatler, Massenet put her intimate customer knowledge to use and created the ideal balance of commerce and content.
Following a behind-the-scenes video of their chasmic new headquarters (where 90% of employees surveyed found their boss to be “inspiring”) the lady in red answered questions from The Business of Fashion‘s Imran Amed. Topics included Net-A-Porter’s iPad app (launched that day), her prescription for the breakneck fashion cycle, the best and worst way to get your products on their site, bricks and mortar vs. e-commerce and their soon-to-be-launched menswear site Mr.Porter. The highlights:
LIVE FROM LONDON–Natalie Massenet is the ultimate fashion success story. The entrepreneur launched Net-a-Porter ten years ago, long before people thought it was “okay” to shop for luxury goods on the Internet. She recently sold her chunk of the company to Richemont for 50 million pounds, or about $75 million. Now, as part of his Fashion Pioneers series, Imran Amed–editor and founder of The Business of Fashion–is sitting down with Natalie to talk about business, fashion, and life. Got questions? Send them to the @_BoF_ Twitter account using the hashtag #BoFLive.
Here at Fashionista, we get tons of emails asking us how to break into the industry, as well as how to make that crucial leap from intern to employee. The best way to do it? Through networking. If you prove yourself worthy at an internship, someone will take notice. Even if that person doesn’t have a job for you, he or she might recommend you to someone else.
The other way is through a staffing agency. Fashion companies really, truly use these agencies to scout talent. While putting your resume into a firm’s database may feel like a waste of time, it’s not: Respected agencies staff respected companies. We know plenty of people who’ve scored jobs through these services. Here are three of the best:
