November 2010

Luxury & Fashion Biz News: Nov. 27, 2010 (Of Hermes, Mergers, Fast-Fashion and Black Friday)

November 27, 2010

1.) An Hermes Kelly So Large You Can Walk Around In It: “The Hermes Kelly … gets a super-size makeover courtesy of Selfridges. The handbag, named after Grace Kelly, has been turned into a 4-meter installation displayed at the London department store as part of its Christmas toy theme . . . The Kellydoscope will [...]

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Mandy Aftel & Andy Tauer: Letters to a Fellow Perfumer (ep. 7)

November 23, 2010

Berkeley, November 19th, 2010 Dear Andy, Thank you so much for sending me your Linden Blossom trial from October 11th. Since we’d been sharing our thoughts as we worked on the same theme of a linden perfume, I opened the box with great anticipation and more than a little fear that, following some of the [...]

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Catch-22: The Perfume Edition

November 21, 2010

So I headed to the World Beauty store on Saturday (World Beauty is a part of the New Zealand based World Brand) to check out the place and see what they carried. I’d read that they stocked a number of niche fragrance brands, and sure enough, among the soaps and skincare products, there were stashed [...]

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Mandy Aftel & Andy Tauer: Letters to a Fellow Perfumer (ep. 6)

November 15, 2010

Zurich, November 14, 2010 Dearest Mandy, I hope these lines find you well, and that you soon receive the sample I sent last week. I write this letter as I’m sitting in the train, leaving for a hike as far away from town as possible, moving forward to silence and the fragrances of nature on [...]

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The Fragrance Biz: An Interview with Franco Wright (co-owner of Los Angeles based Scent Bar/Lucky Scent)

November 13, 2010

Back in August, I conducted an email interview with Franco Wright, one of the owners of the exclusive niche fragrance shop Scent Bar in Los Angeles (along with its associated older-sister website, Lucky Scent). I was originally planning on using his responses as background for the interviews I’m conducting with artisanal perfumers, but I felt [...]

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Luxury & Fashion Biz News: Nov. 9, 2010 (It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World)

November 9, 2010

1.) HERMES vs. LVMH: The big news from the last few weeks is (CEO of LVMH) Bernard Arnault’s acquisition of a 17% stake in the House of Hermes, purchased on the sly through a series of equity swaps back in 2008. Fashion pundits are abuzz, Hermes family members are annoyed and Bernard Arnault is defiant, [...]

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Things to Love About New Zealand: Part 2

November 4, 2010

We spent all morning and most of the early afternoon on our computers, searching through listings of properties available for lease, calling and emailing agents, banging our heads against walls and desktops, etc. Around two o’clock, we figured it was time for a break and some fresh air. So we walked to the ferry terminal [...]

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Mandy Aftel & Andy Tauer: Letters to a Fellow Perfumer (ep. 5)

November 3, 2010

Zurich, November 01, 2010 Dearest Mandy, Your last letter was such a treat. Thank you! It was a great pleasure following your layout — how you tackle a challenge and solve it. I wish I could write the same, but quite often my perfume challenges remain for a while unsolved. In a sense, I have [...]

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Things to Love About New Zealand: Part 1

November 1, 2010

My brain is still in a bit of shock from having so quickly packed up, moved out and jetted off from the U.S. to land seventeen hours away in Auckland, New Zealand, and while we’ve purchased a car (driver’s side on the right) and set up bank accounts and a deposit box, we still don’t [...]

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