Of the many contenders for Fall's must-have bag — and there are many — Marni's just-released Sculpture bag makes a pretty strong case . . . literally. Its lines are lean, its colors pure, and — with its structured shape and sleek metal handle — it falls right in line with the season's forward-marching mood. Priced from $1,050 to $2,160, the line is available at Marni stores and Marni.com now.
Those stories and more in our daily news profile.
As Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse starts spending less and less time at headquarters, his employees — who create those highly anticipated issues of Vogue, W, and Vanity Fair, among other magazines — say the once-special workplace is starting to lose a little bit of its magic glimmer.
For example, the Frank Gehry-designed cafeteria on the fourth floor of 4 Times Square is, according to a story about Newhouse in The New York Observer, starting to look a little worse for the wear. "That was the symbol of the luxury of the place," one employee told the paper, who added that the food served there had also become less appealing. "I think they just stopped caring. I think something happened where they were like, 'I'm not spending any more money.'"
That something may be the downturn in the print advertising money the company used to enjoy, which has forced Condé Nast executives to examine other ways of making ends meet. Lucky Magazine, for example, will launch its own ecommerce site called myLucky on Aug. 17. (Vogue is still partnered with Moda Operandi, while GQ has a deal with Nordstrom.) Late last year, the company set up an entertainment division tasked with developing "television and online programming based on Condé Nast personalities, articles, and general brands."
But those new initiatives haven't started to make up for advertising revenue lost. One employee told the Observer that as a result, people who used to apply to the magazine in droves have started looking elsewhere for jobs.
"You do sense that maybe one of the weird by-products of the 'Death of Print' is that girls in sundresses don't all flock here quite as much," he said. "You sense a little bit the loss of that swagger, the feeling that 'I'm working in some special place.'"
Photo: Si Newhouse with Anna Wintour on Fashion's Night Out in 2011.
PPR has partnered with Yoox to help build an ecommerce platform for the fashion group's luxury brands — including Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, and Bottega Veneta — that its CEO Francois Henri-Pinault says will create websites "at the level of the shopping experience in store."
"The idea was to build a new business division at the group level, linked to me, to have a 360 degree vision of the digital world," he explained in an interview with Business of Fashion. "The team here is more about sharing experiences and making sure that the basics of e-commerce are fulfilled for every brand, whatever the size. We are benchmarking all the sites against the best practices in the world and we also have consumers testing our brands and using the sites."
Pinault said he decided to partner with Yoox — which currently powers ecommerce sites for Alexander Wang, Valentino, and Jil Sander, among others — because the retailer is the "best player when it comes to ecommerce and logistics platforms in the world of luxury and technology." While all the brands will build their sites from the Yoox base, each brand will have control over the way its site is designed.
The company hopes to have the other sites live and ready to deliver products to 100 countries by mid 2013. Pinault has even toyed with the idea of adding personal touches — like in-home tailoring — to go along with his efficient, up-to-date fleet of websites.
"Two considerations, your customer is close to a store, so at least you should have a service for making appointments and being received on time, or if you're not close to a store, why don't we think — and it's not done yet — of a network of professional tailors that come to your home, based on an appointment online to do the alteration for you?" he said. "This is the type of service that will be completely inaccessible for mainstream brands, but will make the difference between a luxury brand and an accessible brand."
Photo: The finale of Alexander McQueen's Fall 2012 show.
Some of the industry's biggest names commented on Hedi Slimane changing the name of Yves Saint Laurent to Saint Laurent Paris, but Slimane himself had remained silent until recently. The designer finally explained his reasons for the shift in an interview with Vanity Fair.
"It is interesting to see how much reaction this retro branding has created," Slimane said. "Clearly, this period of the history of the house was not well-known, which I trust was a surprise for Pierre Bergé. I went back to 1966 — just before the events of 1968 [when 11 million workers revolted against the conservative politics of then-President Charles de Gaulle — the biggest general strike in history], but the awakening of youth was in the air, and Yves Saint Laurent wanted to dissociate himself from the clientele of haute couture and embrace this new generation."
Since Slimane announced the name change in June, Arizona Muse, Karl Lagerfeld, and Bergé himself have publicly voiced their support for the change. When the house revealed an image of the new branding on Facebook last month, its followers were not as enthusiastic. One called the new name and logo "an act of disrespect" against the house's founder.
Saint Laurent, who would have turned 76 last week, was considered a pioneer in ready-to-wear when he founded Saint Laurent Rive Gauche in 1966, but he continued to design couture until he retired from fashion in 2002.
