July - August 2025 Brands: How Will Medusa Express Herself in New Versace? | Brunello Cucinelli BC Duo Bag for Today’s Women | Hermès Embraces Assertive Sensuality — Yes, Hermès
/ Anne Enke
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Hailey Bieber's Rhode Rolls into All Sephora USA and Canada Stores September 4, 2025
Hailey Bieber’s sustainable skincare brand Rhode [IG] is in high gear, with less than 3 weeks to go for its Sephora launch on September 4.
The recently-acquired, sensational-success brand Rhode will be carried by all Sephora freestanding stores in the U.S. and Canada, as well as on LVMH-owned Sephora website.
Bieber has expertly walked a business tightrope with plenty of social media dazzle and celebrity PR grounded in product manufacturing expertise and distribution goals.
Focus, or better yet ‘clarity’ has been Hailey Bieber’s middle name since launching Rhode, and she has not faltered. With the acquisition of Rhode by ELF Beauty for $1 billion, Bieber has moved into an exclusive club of successful new business launches
Brunello Cucinelli 2025 Transeasonal Campaign, Good Business Results, Commitment to Italy
Models South Korean heritage Hyunji Shin and Spanish heritage model Pau Ramis front the Brunello Cucinelli summer 2025 Transeasonal Campaign.
Brunello Cucinelli’s Commitment to Italy
Always the philosopher, one of the world’s most important humanists commented about his obligations to shareholders and his equally important obligations to Italy, after reporting a revenue increase of 10.2 percent in the first half of 2025 on his July analysts call.
"The fact is that we have an Italian company pay taxes in Italy... this is our struggle, you know, with regard to improving the profits. We will never bring or transfer our company to the Netherlands, to Luxembourg," Cucinelli added.
Cucinelli explained that his motivation for staying in Italy is in large part to support the wider supply chain. "We are serious Italian entrepreneurs who believe in made-in-Italian manufacturing with high-end craftsmanship, high-end exclusivity, high-end quality. We want to work on a local level in Italy."
Anne Talks Louis Vuitton Men Pre-Fall 2025 Collection and Dior Men Spring 2026
Flaunt Magazine [IG] Issue 199, ‘Fleeting Twilight’ shares key looks from the Louis Vuitton Men’s Pre-Fall 2025 Collection. Creative Director Pharrell Williams previewed the collection in Miami December 2024, with the upcoming Met Gala dandy aesthetic on his mind.
I just reviewed again Jonathan Anderson’s swoon-worthy debut men’s collection for Christian Dior, and like Pharrell, he also tapped the ‘young aristocrats’ trend. Anderson added skirts for men and nipping his waists with overtly-femme swagger and white bow ties.
Louis Vuitton Men Compared to The Absolutely-Brilliant Jonathan Anderson Dior Mens Debut
Pharrell played his ties straight and long, Anderson likes bows. Both designers did white ties and the Louis Vuitton man does go to the office to afford his wardrobe preferences. He’s a working man. Anderson’s Dior man is a trust fund kid — or maybe the growing number of men — at least in America — living at home with parents.
Dandyism is a design key to writing about both collections — Dior Spring 2026 and Louis Vuitton Pre-Fall 2025. Yes, Pharrell was off to India with lean and long fluidity for his Spring 2026 collection, which AOC loved.
Fendi Takes A Modern View of Roman Style in Fall 2025 Campaign by Steven Meisel
AOC loves Paris and the south of France. But we’ve been saying for many months now that it’s an Italian moment, and nothing — not even the king of cashmere’s current Italian sweatshop scandal — will dampen AOC’s love affair with la dolce vita.
Fendi’s fall-winter 2025 campaign film begins with a visual dose of sophisticated retro nostalgia, peppered with modern reinvention. In speaking with WWD about the fall-winter 2025 collection, Silvia Venturini Fendi stressed the reality that the fall 2025 collection presents “a contemporary and comprehensive vision of the brand”.
Fendi is also aiming to convey this modern message with ancient roots with the inauguration of a new sprawling flagship on Milan’s Via Montenapoleone.
Anne Is Swept Away
Depending on your age, the soundtrack will completely sweep you away. OMG! Barry White.
If you have lived a privileged life resulting from family heritage — or are a working girl who made good and led a privileged life based on your smarts — and you regularly kissed the ground landing in Italia, you will be swooning.
Personally, Anne is destroyed with this campaign video.
Nicole Kidman News: Clé de Peau Beauté Ambassador, Portugal Residency, 2015 Playing Gertrude Bell
Actor Nicole Kidman made news last week with her skincare routine under scrutiny, now that the ‘Moulin Rouge’ actor became a new global ambassador for Clé de Peau Beauté [IG].
Clé de Peau Beauté has never pursued a superficial, external approach to physical beauty and the appointment emphasizes the shared values between the beauty brand and Nicole Kidman’s actions as a humanist.
Intelligent, Intentional, Illuminating Beauty
As a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, the actor dedicates herself to advancing gender equality, supporting education, and combating violence against women. Her humanitarian work echoes Clé de Peau Beauté’s core mission: to empower individuals and transform beauty into a vehicle for confidence, purpose, and positive impact.
Actor Eva Mendes Embraces a Sensual Life | What Might Neuroimaging Her Brain Reveal?
Actor, activist, wife of Ryan Gosling and mom to their two daughters, Eva Mendes is a fabulously sensual woman. Much of American culture would call her a sex bomb.
Eva Mendes also calls herself a sex bomb, highly influenced by her husband’s deep appreciation for her sex appeal.
I asked AI to explain how neuroimaging would differentiate brain activity in a person who particularly enjoys fragrant flowers, dancing, and swimming with heightened awareness and intense pleasure. Someone like Eva Mendes.
AOC has been a huge fan of brain science for years because our brains are truthful when different regions are activited.
The basic idea I want to communicate is that our brains are a fingerprint of sorts of who we are. In the case of Eva Mendes, I promise you that she has highly-elevated SPS, as defined in point 4.
She also has elevated Openness to Experience, as defined in my Louis Vuitton analysis from Monday, see final notes in article link.
Louis Vuitton FW25 Offers Express Bag for High Speed, High Performance, High Self-Expectations Lives
Louis Vuitton Women taps House Ambassadors Emma Stone and Hoyeon Jung for the Fall/Winter 2025 Campaign, lensed by Ethan James Green.
Before Speedy Came Express
Bags and luggage are the visual currency of the Louis Vuitton brand. They also ring the cash register at critical levels to support LV’s position in the LVMH heirarchy. The FW25 Campaign is focused on its latest handbag: the Express, a roomy reprise of the original name of Vuitton’s signature Speedy handbag.
Louis Vuitton’s Chairman and CEO Pietro Beccari delivered press comments detailing the important role ‘The Louis’ marks on the new journey the luxury brand is taking into the DNA of Louis Vuitton itself. Reinforcing key buzzwords, Beccari stressed the importance of Louis Vuitton’s spirit of travel being experienced not only by crossing national borders, “but through ideas, emotions and inspiration.”
Anne drills down on exactly what Beccari’s words mean.
LVMH's Michael Burke, New Chairman and CEO of its Americas Division Steps Into the Frenzy
It may be LVMH’s newly-named chairman and chief executive of its Americas division Michael Burke, who first introduced the term ‘hodgepodge’ to the popular press and select financial analysts’ LVMH lexicon.
Anne will explain, but first the latest news.
The Burke appointment comes at a critical moment when the luxury sector is haunted by waning demand and US President Donald Trump’s ever-changing, often daily, tariffs landscape.
LVMH also appointed Burke as nonexecutive chairman of Tiffany’s board of directors. He retains his 2024 appointment as Chairman and CEO of LVMH Fashion Group.
In June and July 2025, AOC has been obsessed with the word ‘hodgepodge’ being bandied about by select financial analysts, with the tangential support of several fashion journalists. Their focus is a lack of branding clarity around Louis Vuitton in particular.
Referring last evening to the issue, I set off again this morning, trying to document the original source of the word. The person may be none other than Michael Burke.
Prada Balm in Banana Yellow Celebrates the 'Days of Summer' Campaign 2025
AOC returns to Prada’s ‘Days of Summer’ marketing campaign, where the Prada pink gozzo is moored beside the Prada Capri boutique, in Via Roma 2, until July 13th.
Prada Beauty Lip Balms in Macaron Colors
This Prada campaign is being executed with such colors of comprehensive precision that Prada Beauty lipstick glosses are the mouth-enticing colors of French macarons. Scratch that. I mean Italian Macaron colors.
Goldman Sachs Adds LVMH to European Conviction Buy List
My case for LVMH got a big boost Monday, July 7th with Goldman Sach’s decision to add LVMH to its European Conviction Buy list. Goldman’s Louise Singlehurst recommends investors "look through Q2 softness and Buy into LVMH" as a clear winner in the next luxury upcycle, noting asymmetric risk reward with potential upside of 69% versus 5% downside.
The Goldman analysis also mentioned that the steep selloff of LVMH shares borders on being irrational. This was welcome news after the June 22, deeply-personal, Bloomberg supplied hit piece on LVMH published on BoF.
I then read — again from HSBC, the same financial institution that financed all of Donald J. Trump’s bankruptcy business messes, when no other bank would — that the current Louis Vuitton brand strategy is a “hodgepodge”. Seriously!
Tyler Mitchell Shoots Ralph Lauren Pre-Fall 2025 Campaign | AOC Talks Values
We’re living in a moment of small victories,and surely photographer Tyler Mitchell [IG] feels great pride — and his family even moreso — over Mitchell shooting the Ralph Lauren [IG] Pre-Fall 2025 Campaign. Ralph Lauren carries great symbolism and respect in the Black community.
Ralph Lauren 2024/25 Business Results
The top leadership got big raises coming off an excellent 2024 performance that resulted in a 16.8 percent increase in the stock price for the year ending March 31. Since March 31, the stock has risen another 20 percent.
Like Hermès, Brunello Cucinelli, and Prada, Ralph Lauren’s Asia business is very strong. In China Ralph Lauren saw 20 percent growth in China in their 4th quarter ending March 2025.
Louvet has definite opinions about why the business is strong in China:
It’s important to keep in mind that Ralph founded this company on values that are pretty universal: optimism, authenticity, timelessness, elegance, family. Those are globally relevant and are resonating wherever we play, including markets where you might be concerned about anti-American sentiment.
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