The Growing Global Good Guy Brand Ralph Lauren Soars in Asia
Ralph Lauren Corp revenues for quarter ending Sept. 26, 2026 rose 9% to $2.2 billion, beating Wall Street estimates. Net income rose a staggering 43 percent to $296.6 million, or $4.87 a diluted share. Adjusted EPS hit $4.64, coming in 38 cents ahead of the $4.26 analysts forecast, according to WWD.
The Ralph Lauren performance in Asia is stunning. Checking for China only, Ralph Lauren’s quarter ended with a 35% increase, writes ‘Morning Star’.
AOC believes that in Asia, Ralph Lauren now paces itself in revenue comparable to — perhaps more than — the revenue of LVMH brand Christian Dior.
Rather than just reporting cold numbers, Anne of Carversville is turning a new and fresh lens on brands of similar revenues and scale globally. The success of Ralph Lauren in Asia is a growing threat to Dior in Asia. In fact, AOC sees Dior as caught in a three-way pincer with Chanel bearing down on Dior from the top and Ralph Lauren putting competitive pressure on Dior from the bottom up.
Models Elodie Guipaud, Frauke Nijs and Imane Benkaddoue pose in the Zara Studio Collection [IG] A/W 2026 Campaign, which dropped on Thursday, October 22. Karl Templer styled the shoot with long-time creative partners, photographer Steven Meisel [IG] and creative director Fabien Baron.
The Inditex strategy of positioning Zara to step up as a rich fashion resource for luxury lovers who simply must scale back spending is designed to help them feel nourished.
In recent years Zara CEO Marta Ortega Pérez has beautifully and successfully evolved Zara’s mission to offer a more democratic vision of designer-level interpretations of runway-looking clothes. Their proficiency is paying off in truly impressive ways.
Lensed by Julien Martinez Leclerc [IG], Chanel's Coco Neige 2026 Collection [IG] delivers modern, snow-style Chanel luxury for snow bunnies. I may be clueless about all the performance fabrics in the collection, but to me Chanel Coco Neige 2026 is winter getaway clothes, Aspen style. Coco Neige models include Elodie Guipaud, Geng Jiao Long and Lia Marie Mielke.
Anne of Carversville contends that brand values are consistently undervalued in the financial world. So, while AOC and Morgan Stanley are frequently in sync with our views around a brand’s performance and overall brand health, our reasons are different.
Perhaps that’s a good synergy, one worth discussing. It was Brunello Cucinelli the man’s website that made him a force in the world of luxury. AOC was literally stopped dead in our tracks on my first visit.
Guest in Residence [IG] introduced its inaugural women’s denim collection on Sept. 10. The new key item collection is a collaboration with designer Benjamin Talley Smith, whose other clients include Helmut Lang, Khaite, Madewell, Rag & Bone/Jean, Re/Done Originals, Reformation and Ulla Johnson Denim.
In the inaugural campaign, Guest in Residence founder, supermodel Gigi Hadid works with her sister Bella and model Malika El Maslouhi, styled by Margherita Moro in campaign images shot by Lukasz Pukowiec [IG]
Photographer Carlijn Jacobs [IG] shot this gorgeous fashion story for AnOther Magazine [IG] Autumn/Winter 2026 issue. Katie Burnett styled the all-Chloé, New Romantics fashion story featuring models Faith Johnson, Gertrud Rose, Grace Van Petten, Mila Beer, Maya Nazaraer and Sophie Jaudinaud./ Hair by Laurent Philippon; makeup by Lucy Bridge
My state of being increasingly impressed with Celine creative director Michael Rider shows no sign of subsiding. And now, I am over-the-moon obsessed with the Celine ‘Infinite Possibilities’ Campaign.
The designer’s background is different from Pharrell’s for certain, but even I shook my head over how Rider got off a quasi-activist, values-driven teaching in Oakland schools career track, to end up as creative director of Celine after great success at Ralph Lauren Polo.
Key words that describes the LOEWE SS 2026 campaign and collection, are more important for Loewe’s Fall/Winter 2026 Collection. Creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez continue to deliver bold shapes, infused with vibrant colors.
A new attitude at Loewe infuses product design with new technologies that reinvent old materials and processes. Modernity is key. The designers continue their firm embrace of Loewe’s heritage, but . . .
Loewe is looking to partner with technology as Pharrell Williams is creating new materials and finishes at Louis Vuitton Men.
Models Francisco Henriques, Liam Kelly, Mauria Caetano and Rayssa Medeiros gather for the Brunello Cucinelli F/W 2026 Campaign, [IG] initial drop. Michela Buratti styles the ensemble in images by Denis Boulze [IG], who has a slim but stellar portfolio that includes Cartier and Hermès. Don’t assume Boulze is a newbie; that would be an error in your thinking. / Director of photography Jan Vrhovnik; hair by Werner Amort; makeup by Fabiana Clavario
Celine is out with their winter 2026 campaign today, the same day that Givenchy by Sarah Burton releases their new Fall 2026 Campaign shot in Croatia.
These new Celine Hiver 2026 campaign images feature models Alaina Rae, Faith Johnson, Frej Larsen and Milo Flaviani, with styling by Brian Molloy. Zoe Ghertner [IG] shoots the campaign in Paris./ Hair by Duffy and Holli Smith; makeup by Lucia Pieroni and Thomas De Kluyver
Jonathan Anderson delivers one of the sweetest, loveliest, most poetic, tranquil, untroubled, innocent, painterly ad campaign reveries to have sprung from his fantabulous imagination.
We are in the land of sweet damsels Dru Campbell, Laura Kaiser, Sunday Rose and Zhao Ziqi drifting like angels into the ethereal safe space of young women with trust funds.
Perhaps they are Stepford wives, only appearing to be human. Anderson’s distaste for strong, in-motion women has become deeply troubling after a decade of Chiuri’s women.
Not to knock on the door of their collective consciousness, but perhaps these lovelies are suffering from ennui, a deep, weary boredom and listlessness, a grey feeling where life’s routines feel dull and meaningless.
The institutional investment community, led by Morgan Stanley, is actively baking a steep "management and creative risk premium" into Dior's valuation, explicitly losing faith in the brand's near-term trajectory.
Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel is in high gear, manifesting clarity of vision, intention, artistry and modernity expressed in the Coco Beach 2026 Campaign.
Creative director Sheila Single [IG] and photographer Julien Martinez Leclerc [IG] deliver an atypical summer campaign that is driven by graphic composition and precise placement.
Blazy’s women are so on the move — much like Coco Chanel herself or Chanel’s fabulous CEO Leena Nair — that being suspended in stillness, lying motionless on black sand — they are out-of-predicted behavior mode.
AOC’s Mycelium Man outsmarts us with a hard stop. I know; I know. Here she goes again with the mushrooms. Get used to it.
In late May, 2026 LOEWE creative directors Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, founders of New York-based Proenza Schouler, shared one of their first major high-profile, non-runway cultural projects since stepping into the helm of the LVMH-owned Spanish luxury house after Jonathan Anderson’s move to the creative director’s position at Dior.
This is the first time in LOEWE’s 180-year history that the brand is serving as an official tailor for a national sports federation. The initial four-year agreement with the Royal Spanish Football Federation secures LOEWE’s spot as the official off-pitch and travel wardrobe partner through 2030.
AOC knows that it annoys the hell out of Jonathan Anderson that women like Anne keep reminding him about the facts of history in his House of Dior. He complains that we are “boxing him in”.
Not really, because it’s not about him. It’s about our erasure from Dior’s history and the expectation that we will just fall in line with his alleged, Sun King genius that calls for such erasure.
The real Cafe Society heroines were true-grit women, many of them wealthy women involved in espionage with the French resistance. Christian Dior’s sister Catherine was one of its leaders; and the designer offered her and her co-conspirators refuge in his prominently-situated apartment in Paris.
Taking a well-established historical term and innocently [or not] trading it for these lovelies enjoying giggles and milkshakes is exactly how erasure works.
Watching the campaign film, I did process it through the lens of current New York Knicks madness. In the new Nike film celebrating the New York win, it’s the gritty joy of everyday New Yorkers that is celebrated by that young man with his front teeth knocked out running into one giant block party across the city.
Without trying to make urban grit glamorous, and the challenges of New York prices for everyday New Yorkers a minor problem, it’s the comeback story that is one giant, symbolic fist pump that is inspiring many of us.
When it comes to sports marketing, capturing the crowd is as important as capturing the athletes. Even more so now when we see the near-impossible achieved before our very eyes. There are several important stories to tell coming out of the big Knicks victory.
Casablanca’s Charef Tajer has joined the global, good-vibes, marketing movement. Speaking of “a natural synergy” with the French patisserie Ladureé in light of “a shared attention to detail, a classic yet colorful palette . . . ” the founder closes in on what is hopefully a beyond-this-season moment with “ . . . and above all, an appreciation for beauty and joy.”
AOC is not moved at all by the new Dior. But if Dior looked like Casablanca, it would be more akin to Karl Lagerfeld’s vision of Chanel, but without the cynicism. Anderson’s sweet Dior young ladies would never take a full-frontal bite of the cotillion cake.
Ready to write “ . . . and neither would Blazy’s”, AOC is suddenly in a rare retreat.
Blazy and Nair have so blown out the rafters with fashion mantras of joy, positivity and confidence that Chanel women are proud of being so versatile. Even a little-bit of a renegade when it comes to eating cake.
The Louis Vuitton Resort 2026 Campaign follows an established tradition of its straight-forward, sophisticated, lighthearted and occasionally sensual embrace of summer. This year’s campaign photographer Cass Bird [IG] distills the vision across a range of compatible models including Brazilian beauty Ana Beatriz Cortes, who leaves scorched earth wherever she passes.
The rest of the cast pales by comparison [sorry, but we had to do it] and includes Noor Khan, Sara Caballero,Sascha Rajasalu and Xinye Wang. Marie-Amélie Sauvé styles the photoshoot, with Mitch Ryan as director.
LVMH brand Loro Piana [IG] taps New York/Amsterdan-based photographer Annemarieke Van Drimmelen [IG] for their Resort 2026 Campaign, shot in Palm Springs, California. Models Ida Heiner, Just Verhoeff and Selena Forrest are styled by Aleksandra Woroniecka, with creative direction by Thomas Persson. / Hair by Diego Da Silva; makeup by Fulvia Farolfi
In a moment where unique fabrics are key to VIC [Very Important Customer] demands in luxury market fashion, Loro Piana’s most recent innovation comprises both a yarn – a blend of silk and merino wool – and a fabric, which combines silk and cashmere, writes Wallpaper.
Liu Wen joins Prada ambassadors Bella Hadid, Damson Idris and Louis Partridge in fronting the growing trend of ‘urban beaches’ in global cities worldwide. David Sims [IG] photographs the campaign with creative direction by Ferdinando Verderi.
AOC doubts that Prada is prompting an intellectual discussion on ‘cool roofs’ as a highly-effective way to reduce summer heat and energy consumption. But if any luxury brand wants to advocate for that inquiry, Mrs. Prada and Prada co-creative director Raf Simons are at the head of the pack.
Miuccia Prada ‘Titan’
Miuccia Prada was first on the global TIME 100 list in 2005; she returned to the list in 2025, recognized as a ‘Titan’ for influencing fashion, identity and culture. Anne is optimistic that finally we have found a word — ‘titan’ — that fashion and culture writers are using sparingly and only for those who deserve the title by accomplishment and not hype. Fantastic!
Philo [IG] releases Collection E, a series of lookbook images captured by Alasdair McLellan [IG]. Phoebe Philo models include Amanda Parker, Athiec Geng, Binx Walton, Dionne Poolo, Esme Cornelius, Jacqui Hooper, Lina Zhang, Noor Khan, Saar Mansvelt Beck and Valery Sergeeva. / Hair by Kim Rance; makeup by Mel Arter
