Golden Goose differentiates itself in the global marketing universe, leading with action and real product, not only words. As a brand, it has always respected and tapped into a universal creative impulse of humans wanting to make things. ‘Golden Happens’ is a deeply personal message, within this reality and context.
Among creatives, there are varying degrees of an understanding that customers, clients and VICs increasingly act as the ultimate authentic intermediaries who reject the ‘empty words’ of corporate disruption, based on old models of the luxury brands business.
Today’s VICs are often traveling alongside us in their own minds. They want to experience synchronicity first hand, and not by reading fashion magazines or attending designer fashion shows.
The traditional concept of star designers and their — but usually HIS — muses is giving way to a much more creative and often democratic process that is horizontal and not vertical.
In the world of haute couture, VICs desire to know the makers, not only the designers. In the words of Maria Grazia Chiuri:
A trial underway in Hong Kong’s High Court has indirectly drawn attention to how Chanel handles unsold and discontinued inventory on a seasonal basis. Court documents reveal details of Chanel Hong Kong’s once-routine destruction practices.
Yes, it’s staggering to read that the house reportedly destroyed between 10,000 and 20,000 discontinued Chanel products every six months as a matter of standard business operation.
This allegation is not fake news! But it’s old news and should be treated as such.
AOC has covered this topic extensively and is pulling from the archives to give us all a reality check on the facts. Generally-speaking, all the major luxury houses have stopped destroying unsold products.
Legislation went into effect in the European Union on July 19, 2026, that not only puts a legal stop to the destruction of luxury house products but requires all the major houses to file regular documentation on how they have handled the issue of unsold goods every year.
Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion and president of Chanel SAS, put the success of Friday’s announcement that Chanel has acquired the heritage shirtmaker Charvet, squarely on the shoulders of Chanel artistic director Matthieu Blazy and the almost immediate rapport that Blazy kindled with siblings Anne-Marie and Jean-Claude Colban, who today run Charvet, bought by their father in the 1960s.
There’s major romance in this Chanel buys Charvet business story, spring-boarded by the intense love affair between Coco Chanel and Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel. As a stand-alone human relationship story between the couple, the facts are cinematic.
Like Anne before him, Matthieu Blazy knew nothing of this love story until he began going throughn the Chanel archives. Armed with the knowledge that Coco Chanel bought shirts for her lover Boy Capel at Charvet — and probably borrowed them regularly — Blazy decided to introduce himself to the famous shirtmaker, then owned by siblings Anne-Marie and Jean-Claude Colban.
Writer Christopher Bollen takes a walk in the gardens of the Palais-Royal — and a predictable new attitude emerges to discuss Michael Rider’s newly-found fame as artistic director of Celine. That descripter calls Rider’s Celine “joyous and (even in our current moment) wildly optimistic.”
Given the supersonic success of Chanel, is it time to take a fresh look at feelings of joy and their impact on the brain and wellbeing? It’s a sacrilege among upper crust people to speak of joy in fashion, but maybe . . . just maybe New Humanism thinking is having an impact.
Anne believes that the list of Americans in Paris, housed by LVMH and other big names in fashion, may be ruffling more than a few French media and PR feathers in fashion world. Put it this way, AOC has added that filter to the context lens through which we process fashion criticism generally and, most definitely, in Paris.
Zendaya covers the May 2026 issue of Vogue Brasil [IG], styled by Law Roach at a photo shoot at Los Angeles’ Hollyhock House. Built in 1921 by Frank Lloyd Wright, it was the home of American oil heiress Aline Barnsdall.
Photographer Nicole Heiniger [IG] captures the Jazz Age images with fashion direction by Rita Lazarrotti. Hollyhock House is LA’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site
Anne Shreds & Trashes Lauren Sherman Gross Attack on Pharrell Williams
When an editor bills themselves as the definitive fashion voice of a generation, the industry expects rigorous, fact-based journalism. Instead, Lauren Sherman over at Puck News has developed a predictable, cynical but also clever habit of throwing stink bombs on Pharrell Williams, creative director of Louis Vuitton Men.
Her June 2026 "Line Sheet" briefing, titled Pharrell Inc., is a prime example. In it, Sherman attempts to paint Pharrell as a slick operator taking LVMH for a ride. In her columns, Sherman treats Pharrell’s creative output as a distraction and a sideline hustle that comes at the expense of Louis Vuitton.
It is a lazy, superficial take on Pharrell Williams that collapses under the slightest scrutiny. A closer look at the actual corporate timelines, contract structures, and cultural contexts that swirl around Pharrell’s everyday life reveals that Sherman isn't just missing the point—she is entirely failing to do the homework. Sherman deserves every stink bomb we throw right back at her — except ours contain platinum level facts and analysis. She should try using some.
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.
