July 2011

Luxury & Fashion Biz News: July 29th, 2011 (More Halston news, Wealthy shoppers spend less, and How an easily recognizable brand can be a blessing and a curse)

July 30, 2011

1.) Big Wheels Keep On Turning at Troubled Halston: “After months of chaos and infighting that culminated in the recent departure of Harvey Weinstein and Sarah Jessica Parker, the flailing fashion label said yesterday that Ben Malka, the former president of BCBG Max Azria, will become Halston’s new chairman and chief executive . . . [...]

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When PR Smells Like Misrepresentation

July 25, 2011

I received an email on June 21st from a PR company representing the publishing house of St. Martin’s Press for a new mystery novel coming out from author Joseph Finder: ********************************* Dear Nathan, What does a bestselling thriller author care about perfumes? For his second Nick Heller novel, BURIED SECRETS, Joseph Finder wanted one of [...]

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Luxury & Fashion Biz News: July 22nd, 2011 (The Marc Jacobs company is slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit, the Halston revival collapses, and what’s to become of Dior?)

July 23, 2011

1.) LVMH — A Luxury Conglomerate in Crisis: “‘Arnault suggests it’s time for change, time to recast his global, glittering, status-laden empire as something else,’ writes Robin Givhan …’The watchwords are: intimate, Old World, artful’ . . . The huge success of Céline, with Phoebe Philo taking the reins in 2008 — the label has [...]

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Letters to a Fellow Perfumer: Mandy Aftel & Dawn Spencer Hurwitz (ep. 1)

July 20, 2011

July 6th, 2011, Berkeley, CA Dear Dawn, I enjoyed talking on the telephone, and going back and forth about our plans for the project that we’re going to work through together. I’m glad that we decided to focus on creating a Classic Floral perfume. Nathan had suggested this idea, but it seems that both of [...]

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La Via del Profumo Sharif

July 16, 2011

I received an email last week from AbdesSalaam Attar, the self-taught perfumer behind the Italian La Via del Profumo brand, announcing that he was getting ready to launch a new fragrance called “Sharif” (an adjective meaning “noble” or “highborn”) — the first in a planned series of seven Arabian-influenced perfumes. I’ve written about Mr. Attar [...]

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Luxury & Fashion Biz News: Enduring Beauty vs. Disposable Prop

July 11, 2011

In the middle of an email conversation back in May of this year with “Accountant by Day, Beauty Blogger by Every Other Spare Moment” Louise at Get Lippie, she dashed off a comparison between Tom Ford and Edward Bess that neatly illustrates two distinct approaches that 21st century designer brands exhibit toward the women who [...]

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Luxury & Fashion Biz News: The New Dior Haute Couture (Part 2)

July 6, 2011

***This is a continuation of the discussion started in yesterday’s post: The New Dior Haute Couture (Part 1) The swift and mostly negative reaction to the new Dior haute couture collection — designed by long-time Dior employee Bill Gaytten after John Galliano was promptly sacked by LVMH executives once a video surfaced on YouTube that [...]

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Luxury & Fashion Biz News: The New Dior Haute Couture (Part 1)

July 5, 2011

The Fall 2011 season haute couture shows are flowing down the runways in Paris (the Spring 2012 Ready to Wear shows will fire up in NYC shortly after), and the biggest anticipation has been over what the house of Dior will do, now that Galliano is out of the picture (and permanently out of the [...]

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Luxury & Fashion Biz News: July 1st, 2011 (How Shaky is the Retail Landscape?)

July 2, 2011

Analysis – Retail bloodletting has only just begun: “A string of retail failures in Britain could be the tip of the iceberg as shoppers cut back dramatically on non-essentials . . . The past few months have seen the collapse of a raft of well-known retail names, including wine seller Oddbins, home improvement firm Focus [...]

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