A triumvirate of Moncler Genius, Palm Angels and Tod’s drops a blowout bomb of Italian fashion world creativity just in time for the 2022 holidays.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni rails against the EU, mass immigration and “LGBT lobbies”, saying her respect for Mussolini should not be feared.
Like Kanye West’s adoration of Hitler, Meloni ‘s fascist crush should be feared. Mum is never the word on AOC. Never!
The Moncler Genius, Palm Angels and Tod’s mashup has dropped us into ‘90s Miami hedonism with supermodel Naomi Campbell lensed by Quil Lemons[IG]
Unlike the stars of Gucci’s Holiday 2022 campaign, shot by Jordan Hemingway, Gucci’s former creative director, Alessandro Michele, is probably not heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the holidays.
Gucci ‘Valigeria’ train travel also makes an appearance in the December 2022 issue of Vogue Greece. Model Vika Reza is styled by Nicholas Georgiou in images by Panos Davios [IG].
Unlike Nike’s Michael Jordan standalone partnership, where the two groups are separate but both flying under the Nike banner, the Adidas - Kanye West relationship was run under the Adidas organization. Separate teams were created for the Yeezy business, but the staff was Adidas for the most part.
According to Rolling Stone, the Adidas employees claimed that senior managers were aware of West’s “problematic behaviour” but “turned their moral compass off” and failed to protect its employees against “years of verbal abuse, vulgar tirades, and bullying attacks.”
West appears to have been a rude, crude, demanding, demeaning, controlling, sleezy, misogynist provocateur in his role as a critical Adidas partner.
Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele has left the Kering-owned luxury brand. Note:
The former accessories designer is credited with reviving Gucci's popularity with undeniably Gucci flamboyant and gender-fluid styles. That can be part of the problem in a fashion culture that is always on the move.
François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering, said of Michele: “His passion, his imagination, his ingenuity and his culture put Gucci centre stage, where its place is. I wish him a great next chapter in his creative journey.”
Balenciaga shifts into luxury-brand, boss-lady mode, with actor Nicole Kidman calling a board meeting to order. An uber-platinum blonde Bella Hadid, Han So-hee, Isabelle Huppert, and Khadim Sock take their seats at the table.
Balenciaga’s new Garde-Robe collection was first presented at the brand’s resort 2023 show. The May 2022 event took place at the New York Stock Exchange in Wall Street.
Isabelle Huppert sits with pumps crossed on her cluttered with boss-lady brilliance credenza. Her oversized Hourglass bag holds a masterplan for becoming the next billionaire genius — and it doesn’t involve buying Twitter at a bargain basement price from Elon Musk.
In truly splendid news, Tom Ford has sold his brand to The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. for $2.8 billion. The sale takes one of the world’s biggest beauty companies into the world of luxury fashion.
In this moment when American voters have beaten back — but claim no victory over — the winds of Republican-party authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, we are joyous to celebrate the business marriage of a working class daughter born Josephine Ester Mentzer to Hungarian Jewish immigrants in Queens, New York in 1908 and Thomas Carlyle Ford born August 27, 1961 in Austin, Texas to realtors Shirley Burton and Thomas David Ford.
Fendi [IG] has popped into New York City for a holiday celebration of the Winter Capsule 2022 - 25th Anniversary Baguette Collection. Located at 90 Prince Street in Soho, the shop will be open until December 23.
Created by Silvia Venturini Fendi in 1997, the baguette bag became a phenom attached to Sarah Jessica Parker and ‘Sex and the City’, who famously said “This is not a bag—it’s a Baguette.”
In addition to providing color inspo, the LVMH Tiffany & Co brand was brought into the anniversary celebration to provide diamond baguettes for the Fendi baguettes. The constant cross-pollination of the LVMH brands always adds an extra bit of verve to these events.
The new fragrance boutique at Bergdorf Goodman showcases the full collection of LOEWE Botanical Rainbow fragrances and the LOEWE Home Scents range.
Center stage in the installation is fine art such as an installation of Japanese artist Kunié Sugiura’s conceptual photo-painting artwork ‘Mum Above Orange’ (1978).
In August, 2022 Anne of Carversville took a deep dive into the world of LOEWE Perfumes with a special focus on parfumer Nuria Cruelle’s background and fragrance philosophy.
It’s almost as if the LOEWE images are speaking to us directly, with no intermediary in this brand relationship. The approach feels so very private and personal. Cruelle uses the phrase “modern equlibrium’, and it resonates.
Adidas announced that Bjørn Gulden will take over as CEO on 1 January 2023, after leading a successful Puma rerival. The announcement should help to stabilize financial markets’ perception of Adidas, given Gulden’s leadership at the brand as senior vice president of apparel and accessories in the 1990s,.
“We are very pleased to welcome Bjørn Gulden back at Adidas. [He] brings almost 30 years of experience in the sporting goods and footwear industry. As a result, he knows the industry extremely well and draws on a rich network in sport and retail,” said Thomas Rabe, chairman of the supervisory board. “Bjørn already served Adidas successfully for seven years in the 1990s. As CEO of Puma, he reinvigorated the brand and led the company to record results.
Luxury jeweler and gift-creator Tiffany & Co. shares holiday-loving images from its 2022 campaign, Hailey Bieber, model, talent, and businesswoman, plays host in a campaign celebrating Tiffany’s deep artistic roots with American visual artist Andy Warhol.
Shot by Mario Sorrenti [IG] in New York City with still photography by Raymond Meier, the Tiffany & Co. x Andy Warhol campaign film greets the holiday season in a larger-than-life party filled with diamonds, Tiffany Blue Boxes and no-rules attitude.
The Tiffany & Co x Andy Warhol collaboration includes a treasure chest of limited-edition designs that include tableware and holiday tree ornaments, holiday cards and more. As always, Tiffany steps up to generously support the larger mission of its collaborators.
While we associate the campaign’s silvery blue mood with the sea, let’s also remember that Hanukkah begins Sunday, December 18 this year and ends on December 26.
Whether she intended to make a subliminal statement or not in the Tory Burch Holiday 2022 Campaign, I appreciate blue in this moment. It’s refreshingly ecumenical, when brands are exploring exactly what traditions mean within the context of today’s world.
Hands down, Ralph Lauren has no peer in this realm of recasting the truth of the American experience. But Tory Burch is traveling on the same moonbeam — with an added emphasis on women’s lives and achievements. I love her for that long and sincere contribution to telling women’s stories.
Kanye West and his desire to rip America apart as a MAGA lover — and now Hitler, too — has gotten people up off the sidelines.
That would NOT be AOC, btw. We are never on the sidelines, when the focus is stopping hate.
Many of us are determined to start publishing good stories about black, brown, yellow, red, white, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and everybody else living together in America. And this is a GREAT story!
Civic Cipher is a nationwide show that started in 2020 to create a space for Black and brown people to have courageous conversations.
West will give them the finger and do what he wants, while ranting on Parler that Ja and Ward stole his designs. But facts matter, and Kanye West would be violating their trademark.
The trademark was filed the day Kanye West dropped his WLM clothes in Paris. The original owner of the trademark is a listener of their show. The original filer was so disturbed over the implications of Kanye West’s marketing of the divisive and race-baiting merchandise that he moved immediately on a filing. That individual wishes to remain anonymous.
For Fall 2022, Tom Ford added a new eco-conscious design to his timepiece collection with the 004 series, a slender new model with universal appeal to men and women.
The Swiss-made watch is housed in a 27mm x 48.5mm case in either black and white. It, and its braided strap, are made from 100 percent recycled plastic reclaimed from the ocean.
French luxury powerhouse Chanel shares its Cruise 2023 campaign starring rising French model Loli Bahia and top model Vittoria Ceretti. Bahia first walked the fall 2020 Louis Vuitton show when she was still in high school.
The campaign, shot by Mikael Jansson [IG] pays tribute to Monaco and Karl Lagerdeld’s ties to the principality. Designer Virginie Viard highlights Monte Carlo’s cosmopolitan elegance, and glamour in her designs.
Coming on May 5 through July 16, 2023 ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’ will be on view — and the focus of — The Metropolitan Museum’s of Art’s Spring 2023 The Costume Institute Benefit [also known as The Met Gala®].
Adidas, the German sportswear giant had faced pressure from the public and its own employees to cut ties with Ye, who said on a podcast on Oct. 16: “I can say anti-Semitic things, and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”
Adidas said in a statement: “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
“After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. Adidas will stop the Adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.”
My own takeaways from this extraordinary Dior Cruise 2023 show in Seville is the idea that LVMH, in particular, with its Arnault family really represents the 21st century House of Medici.
Dior is the leader of the pack, presenting a cruise 2023 show that celebrated flamenco artist Carmen Amaya, the first female flamenco dancer to wear men’s clothes, in the 1950s; and centuries of intellectual learning and advancement — much of it closed to women. Chiuri unleashes her history lessons always in her collectons.
The layers of cultural influence in the Dior show are staggering. But this visionary attitude is on display in many LVMH brands.
Their direct support of the artists and creative talent gives the Arnualt family enormous power. Given the alternatives, I am all for it, because the world of rich people is not going anywhere. AOC admits we try to influence this world.
It’s no exaggeration to say that luxury fashion has fallen in love with the countryside. The Sunday Times Style [IG] tells us to ‘Grab your Chanel wellies’ thanks to a fashion story featuring Ukrainian model Anastasia Netrebiuk.
Barbour does set the stage about this slow living, back to the land vision, humanistic-values, brand-integrity-rich clothing company — describing the ‘Barbour Way of Life’.
Creating Beauty As Purpose
Brunello Cucinelli’s landing page, a brand also featured in The Sunday Times Style fashion story, has a pre-entry message, one I was discussing this morning with my closest human friend: Kant’s philosophical observation that “Beauty is the symbol of the morally good”.
I’d say it’s very Ralph Lauren — especially now that Ralph Lauren is officially a cultural creative, and I’m loving him to death for it. But Barbour preceded Ralph by about 50 years.
Veronica Leoni has been the Genius vision behind womenswear since 2018, adding her sophisticated design eye to the confines of the puffer-centric codes of Moncler. The adaptation required by the design-vision fence in which the Jil Sander and Philo-era Celine alum had to create was challenging at best.
She perservered and now celebrates the fact that the fall /winter 2022.23 collection contains her “favorite puffer ever”. In a word AOC must credit to Luke Leitch, Leoni’s silhouettes are typically ‘unlumpen’. Perfectly stated!
Much of the materials used in the fall /winter 2022.23 2 Moncler 2 1952 is Como-warehoused deadstock. Additionally, Moncler will go fur-free after the fall 2023 collection
All of these advancements and learnings with Moncler help Veronica Leoni advance her personal project QUIRA, a brand apart from Moncler, named after her grandmother, the seamstress Quirina.
After removing all visible references to Ye, known to the world as Kanye West, from their own websites on Thursday — along with any products sold on third-party websites carrying an association beween Balenciaga and the rapper/creative marketer of all things Ye or Yeezy — Balenciaga has issued a statement Friday saying that the luxury label no longer has "any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist.”
On Oct. 17, the Kering-owned luxury label fashion giant announced that saying Kanye’s runway imagers was removed from Balenciaga’s Spring 2023 Paris fashion show and also from Vogue Runway, as well as the Balenciaga website.
Balenciaga’s severing of any association with Kanye West is due to his recent anti-Semitic statements and threatening behavior, as expressed on the podcast Drink Champs. Kanye has threatened to go death con 3 on Jews in recent days.
Additionally, West’s right-wing, conspiracy-theory assertion that George Floyd died of a drug overdose — and not because of the nine-minute, knee on his neck, no-mercy murder that the entire world watched live — was stated as a reason why Balenciaga has severed all connections to Kanye West, legally known as Ye.
The Fall 2022 campaign with models Mica Arganaraz and Sam Mallos, shot by photographer Henrik Purienne in Palm Springs, CA was described by the Etro family creatives as “our road to nowhere towards faraway worlds, sun-drenched as far as the eye can see, strong in the nomadic and curious spirit that has always pushed us forward, because it is never the destination that counts, but the journey itself”.
There’s a rich taspestry of Italian DNA roots at play in Etro in this moment, even if the brand is now majority-owned by LVMH-backed L Catterton. So goodbye to the Etro family and hello to Marco de Vincenzo.
Given the times we are living in and the storied history of the Etro brand, including the legendary timing of its birth [and a quick Google search] give that brand DNA a big hug. Note that I’ve also learned that brands have made conscious efforts to wipe Google clean of certain aspects of their history.
But you, dearest Etro with your magic-carpet ride, global-nomad, people-loving history, you have riches in 2022. Honor them, because you look good to go, Etro.
