Daily EDition december 16, 2016 1

Fashion. Beauty. Business.

Getting PersonalIndie fragrance brand Ex Nihilo is banking on personalization to build its niche.

Page 9

On Its OwnOlimpias Group, the manufacturing arm of Benetton, is out to grow as an independent company.

Page 12

Brazil’s BeautyNatura, the country’s largest beauty firm, opens its first store in the U.S., in New York’s NoLIta.

Page 10

Peter Marino gave Louis Vuitton’s SoHo boutique a complete overhaul, redesigning the 10,000-square-foot store as an art gallery. He commissioned Japanese artist

Shuji Mukai to paint three columns, parts of the floor and ceiling within the women’s Universe on the ground level. For an interview with Marino and more photos of

the boutique, see pages 7 and 8.

Arts And Crafts

photograph by DON STAHL

● The current European executive editor will succeed Ed Nardoza, who held the position for 25 years.

by WWD STAff

NEW YORK — Miles Socha, WWD’s execu-tive editor, Europe, has been named editor in chief, succeeding Edward Nardoza, who is retiring from the publication, Penske Media Corp.’s chairman and chief execu-tive officer Jay Penske said Thursday.

Nardoza will be stepping down after 25 years in his role and 39 years overall at WWD’s parent company Fairchild Fashion Media. He will work closely with Socha through January to transition the role and responsibilities.

“It is difficult to leave my WWD family, particularly at such an exciting time with momentum building across the entire WWD organization,” Nardoza said. “The time has come for a plan Jay and I have discussed for the past year, and we’ve got the right leader in place for the future. It feels good to leave my post in the hands of a journalist as capable as Miles, with whom I’ve worked side-by-side for nearly two decades. I know he and the newsroom of talented, dedicated journalists will success-fully steer WWD for years to come.”

In his announcement to the WWD staff on Thursday evening, Penske stated, “Ed is one of the finest editors of his generation. As WWD’s editor in chief for the last 25 years, he has impeccably led and built the top news operation across fashion, beauty and retail.”

Penske continued, “With Miles, we could not have chosen a more capa-ble, talented and innovative leader to continue Ed’s work. For those who have not yet met Miles, you will quickly learn why he is the right leader — he’s a smart, driven and fair journalist deeply entrenched in our industry who also brings with him a progressive digital perspective. I look forward to all we plan to accomplish.”

Originally launched in 1910 as a fash-ion industry daily, and for four decades under the pioneering stewardship of John B. Fairchild, WWD has grown into “the fashion bible” for ceo’s, business owners, designers and other thought leaders in the fashion, retail and beauty industries. Owned by Penske Media since 2014, the WWD brand boasts an award-winning

business

Socha Named WWD Editor in Chief

continued on page 11

A curation of the must-have gifts of the season from jewelry to gadgets and everything in between, brought

to you by Marni Harvey, the NYC based influencer and Creative Director of Style on the Rise

Holiday Gift GuideUltimate

@styleontherise

S H O P H E R E

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Studios

december 16, 2016 3

Tiffany & Co. Partners With NYPD on Branded Barricades Leading to Flagship● In the shadows of Trump Tower, Tiffany cleverly looks to salvage holiday-season sales at its Fifth Avenue flagship.● For Kicks, Alber Elbaz

Is Collaborating With Converse

● Retailers Predict a ‘Super’ Saturday and Rush for Gifts in Season Finale

● A Brand for All Seasons: Manolo Blahnik Tweaks Delivery Schedule

● Joyce Azria’s Avec Les Filles Clothing Line to Bow at 155 Macy’s Doors

ToP 5TreNDiNgOn WWD.COM

nEWSMAKERSThis Week’s Most Talked About names In Our Industry

Antonio Marras

Patricia Field

Peter Marino

Pharrell Williams

business

Facebook Messenger Camera Continues Visual-First Push

● The start-up also has engaged veteran Janet Gurwitch to help guide its growth.

by RAcHeL BROWN

Memebox is headed to the fund-raising stratosphere in beauty.

The start-up specializing in Korean skin care and makeup has raised $60 million in Series C funding mere months after a previous Series C infusion of $65.95 million. The latest round brings Meme-box’s total funding to $160 million in the four years since it started. Investment firms involved include Goodwater Capital, Altos Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Mousse Partners, Formation Group, FundersClub, Pear Ventures and Cota Capital.

Memebox’s accumulation puts it into the territory of beauty players amassing the most venture-capital investment in the industry. Dollar Shave Club raised $163.5 million; Honest Co. has pulled in $228 million, and Tria Beauty has drawn an estimated $210 million. Those well-fueled brands demonstrate the perils and pluses of large war chests. Unilever acquired Dollar Shave Club earlier this year, while Honest and Tria have strug-gled to figure out exit plans.

In a statement, Memebox founder and

chief executive officer Hyungseok Dino Ha said the money would go toward consoli-dating the company’s global headquarters in San Francisco. It has offices in six coun-tries and has focused primarily on building its business in China. The investment will also help Memebox improve its mobile shopping platform, and construct a data-base of beauty ingredients and products.

“What Memebox is doing with mobile and video is unprecedented in the beauty landscape,” said Eric J. Kim, managing partner of Goodwater Capital and a Memebox board member. “Memebox has the heart of a high-end brand, the brain of a deep data company, and the muscle memory of a social network. At its core, Memebox is dedicated to delighting this generation of customers who care deeply about beauty and skin care.”

Kim and Ha are greeting a new adviser to Memebox. Janet Gurwitch will fill the role and has invested in the company. Gurwitch is operating partner at Castanea Partners and founded Laura Mercier Cos-metics, the brand acquired by Shiseido in July that she formerly led as ceo. According to Gurwitch’s biography on Castenea’s web site, she sits on the board of its portfolio companies Drybar and First Aid Beauty.

When Memebox collected its first tranche of Series C investment in August, the company informed WWD it was on

track to generate $150 million in revenues over 12 months, a 280 percent increase from the same period a year ago. In addition to selling third-party beauty brands, Memebox e-tails four brands of its own: makeup labels Pony Effect and I’m Meme; mask purveyor Bonvivant, and skin-care authority Nooni. Memebox revealed the brands have been growing 60 percent on a quarterly basis.

“By combining what we’ve learned from our customer data with the tech-nology available to us in our labs, we’re able to create high quality, effective and affordable products that our customers are looking for,” Ha said. “Our investment in our own facilities, combined with our start-up ethos, has allowed us to quickly evolve to meet market demand for inno-vative and effective beauty worldwide.”

Memebox is beginning to move from online to off-line. It recently opened a holiday pop-up shop in San Francisco’s Union Square and introduced Bonvivant sheet masks at Opening Ceremony. In Seoul, Memebox operates a freestanding store generating approximately $1,000 per square foot. Going forward, Arnold Hur, president of Memebox USA, is bull-ish on Memebox’s prospects at retail with offerings of high-quality merchandise at affordable price points.

“I really believe there is an opportunity to create a $10 billion skin-care market on top of what already exists,” Hur told WWD last month. “It is bigger than Korean beauty. A lot of categories like sheet masks have always been available, but they’ve mostly been available at a high price point. We can take a leading position through our brands in these categories within masstige.”

● The updates seek to support a world where the keyboard is supplanted with an easier-to-access shutter button, new art and 3-D special effects.

by KARi HAmANAKA

LOS ANGELES — Facebook is banking on the camera eventually becoming the keyboard.

The latest updates revealed Thursday to its instant messaging service Facebook Messenger certainly aim to please users with new ways of helping them get their points across via photos and video.

“It’s way more visual. It’s way more expressive. It’s way more of a video-first type of experience,” said Facebook head of product for messaging Stan Chudnovsky. “That will allow the whole internal conversation to switch from text-based, visual augmented [conversations] to visual, text augmented — which is where the whole world is going.”

Chudnovsky was on hand, visiting Facebook’s Playa Vista offices last week as media and influencers were invited in for demos and presentations of the new features.

The new Messenger Camera aims to make it easier to take photos and videos by having the shutter more accessible. More stickers, frames, masks and effects were added that can be layered onto photos, videos and text.

They are largely consumer-facing

enhancements to Messenger. A clear understanding of what this may bear out for retailers is less certain but no less important for businesses to track if they want to better understand how people are communicating with one another.

“We are focusing on users, the people,” Chudnovsky said. “We are not trying to look beyond that right now. We are just trying to enable people to do what they’re already doing every day and let them do it better. That said, we don’t know which form the whole thing will take down the line.”

If a wave of designers or retailers wanted to somehow utilize Messenger for business purposes, it’s a form of communication in much the same way companies use text messaging today to sometimes talk to their customers. That could very well be the case with Messen-ger longer term, Chudnovsky said.

Messenger’s new camera and video capabilities are part of a broader strategy by Facebook being driven by a video-first mindset across its family of apps. That includes the launch of Facebook Live and Instagram Stories earlier this year as the company gears up for a future in which the camera will eventually be the main channel people use to share with one another, chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said during a call last month with analysts. How the company develops those products and businesses around them will evolve across stages, he added.

“I think about our progress here in three phases,” Zuckerberg said during

the September quarter call. “The first phase is building a great consumer experience and getting it to scale. The second phase is about enabling people to organically interact with businesses. And then the third is to give businesses tools to reach more people.”

Messenger with some 33,000 bots now live is early in its second phase and it’s to be determined when it might enter the third, Zuckerberg said.

Monetizing Messenger will no doubt be rooted in advertising as seen with the company’s recent capabilities added to advertise on Facebook’s News Feed feature. A similar capability for Messen-ger could allow for perhaps integration of payments or personalized messaging, if a user allows an advertiser to tap that kind of information, Chudnovsky pointed out.

“We definitely are an advertising company and so the money we make as Facebook is all through advertise-ment,” Chudnovsky said. “The way we are thinking about making money right now is actually pretty simple. People are already buying ads on News Feed and that’s great. It’s working for them and we love that. But we believe that with Messenger we can make help people to make even more money.”

Data on how advertisers are using News Feed and their success with it is still too new to share.

“It’s way too soon,” Chudnovsky said. “We have some — let me put it this way: We have some good data that suggests it is working for a lot of people.”

beauty

Memebox Pulls In $60M, Adds Adviser

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Antonio Marras David Herbert Lawrence’s “Lady Chatter-ley’s Lover” and a Seventies Italian erotic movie are potentially risky inspirations for a designer — beware the line between sexy and trashy. But Antonio Marras would never be so on the nose. He knows the art of nuance. Despite his hot references, his pre-fall collection was all about a chic eccentricity. The sensuality that coursed through the lineup was carefully balanced by mannish accents.

Lady Chatterley’s British origins emerged in a selection of traditional English patterns, such as checks and tartan, all mixed and matched with con-trasting leopard and botanical motifs. For example, Marras’ creative métissage gave an eclectic feel to a patchwork bomber and coat that were embroidered with Asian flowers. The indulgent, sophisti-cated femininity of multicolored lace dresses, and lightweight printed silk cut into fluid, languid dress silhouette was compliment by the edgy modernism of upcycled embroidered military parkas. Marras delivered another rich, expressive collection that articulated his vast imagi-nation. — Alessandra Turra

Tanya Taylor Vivid hand-painted prints are essential to Tanya Taylor’s design process but lately she’s been expanding into more textural surface treatments, such as embroidery and crystal embellishments, as well as knits. For her vibrant, cheery pre-fall col-lection she channeled her exuberant color into bird embroideries on voluminous summer dresses, an embroidered leather dress and striped knit tanks layered over embroidered men’s shirts. “We did a lot of

layering men’s shirts and dresses,” Taylor said. “I’ve been wearing it a lot and it’s so easy to separate the pieces.” Speaking of separates, pants are a big part of her busi-ness. Here, a wide-leg Army green style, slashed up the leg with embroidered trim offered a slightly masculine counterpoint to all of her feminine blouses. — Jessica Iredale

Brooks Brothers Brooks Brothers is, above all, a brand associated with dressing for the workplace. With that in mind, Zac Posen chose as his pre-fall inspiration a photograph by Nine Leen of Eileen Ford that ran in Life mag-azine in the Fifties, and captured Ford’s busy life as a new mother and a career woman launching her agency. In other words, a woman who has it all.

The proverbial day-to-night paradigm guided the collection, with Posen building modernity and even some trends into Brooks Brothers’ ultra classic vernacular. There was a lot of what’s been working well for Posen — printed shirt dresses with full skirts, neat jacquard shifts, cropped jackets and fitted jackets, stretchy knits and updates on his signature dresses with saucy anatomical seaming, here, made office-appropriate. What felt new was denim tailoring with braided trim; twists on shirting and suiting, including a blue-and-white striped shirt and shirtdress that fell off the shoulder, and a riff on a classic pinstripe pantsuit with a tailored top instead of a blazer. With this collec-tion Brooks Brothers also reintroduced its classic oxford shirt program, now made in America, in two styles — point collar and classic button down — and a range of colors. — Jessica Iredale

Pre-Fall2017

Antonio Marras

Tanya Taylor Brooks Brothers

december 16, 2016 5

Neil Barrett Reworking men’s tailoring from a female point of view may have been a tad predictable for Neil Barrett’s pre-fall col-lection. But he put aside the overt sporty references of his recent collection in favor of clothes that offered adult appeal for professional women. Barrett developed a reality-based wardrobe where sharp silhouettes, clean lines and sober colors conveyed a sophisticated, minimal ele-gance. Spencer jackets, blazers, coats and trenches were updated with cutouts at the underarm. Peekaboo slashes on the backs of cotton poplin shirts in masculine pat-terns introduced a sensuality to a classic men’s item. Pants took center stage in the lineup — flared styles with bands down the legs, wide-leg culottes and skinny washed jeans — while skirts and dresses cut just below the knee exuded discreet feminin-ity. — Alessandra Turra

Jenni Kayne In her own words, Jenni Kayne’s pre-fall collection was about “a more refreshing take on nature, which is very much how I live in the summer,” she said. “The idea is grabbing shelter under the trees, being by the fire with your friends or hiking on your own.” Maybe hiking to the nearest farmer’s market. After a walk-through of the collec-tion, it was obvious that Kayne is more of a glamper than a camper. The sexy/sweet look of fresh, lingerie-inspired slipdresses, crop tops and shorts paired with checked flannel shirts was the stuff of a pampered country home existence. Set it in the city and it took on a stylish, Nineties vibe.

There was a lot to work with in terms of casual summer chic: cropped utility jackets and high-wasted twill shorts and pants with horn-like buttons, all done in navy, white and Army green. There were striped knit T-shirts and T-shirt dresses, a polka dot blouse and skirt and elevated sweats, all of it sprung from slightly preppy classics updated for a current, worn-in attitude. — Jessica Iredale

Amanda Wakeley Amanda Wakeley blended her signature fluid silhouettes with Japanese-inspired

elements for her latest pre-collection. “I imagined a woman who has a French mother and a Japanese father, she lives in the West yet also has a longing for the East,” said Wakeley. “But let’s not get too carried away, this is pre-fall so it’s all about clothes you can wear now.”

Japanese influences were subtle, pack-aged as printed wrap dresses, crisp cotton shirts with kimono-inspired sleeves and tasseled belts wrapped around trousers, gowns and pencil skirts. A dramatic black and metallic red cloqué fabric featured on handbags, evening dresses and a light-weight, short-sleeve coat. “To me that is [Asia],” she said of a voluminous, A-line cloqué gown.

Repositioning her brand, primarily known for eveningwear, as a lifestyle label, Wakeley emphasized easy-to-wear separates: oversized cashmere knits with chiffon panels on the back, high-waisted striped trousers, leather joggers and a range of outerwear, including sporty shearling parka and a feminine black coat. Still, she couldn’t abandon her eveningwear core. Her signature lace and silk tulle cocktail dresses were intact. Highlights included a metallic embroi-dered tulle midi-dress and a bold lace, long-sleeve gown paired with a barely there corseted slip. — Natalie Theodosi

Lafayette 148 Pre-fall — Is it summer? Or is it fall? Lafay-ette 148’s creative director Emily Smith split the difference with a pre-fall collec-tion based on travel to a northern city like Copenhagen and a tropical one like Capri. “I think one of the most important con-cepts for us is, you’re packing your bags to go somewhere and you want multiple use out of everything, so everything needs to work together,” said Smith.

With that in mind, the collection was comprised of standard layering pieces

meant to be mixed and matched. Fine wool coats, waterproof silk anoraks, viscose jersey jumpsuits and reversible bombers done in knits and floral prints were highlights from the colder weather fare, which kept to a palette of black, camel and pops of red. Monotone jersey outfits from the “fall” range had the sleek-est sensibility. As for island-goers, a pal-ette of beige and serene blues filtered onto soft dresses, off-the-shoulder tops, washed silks and cashmere tops and wraps. It was all buy-now-wear-now and designed to intermingle. On the accessories front, there were python slides and mixed-media jewelry. — Andrew Shang

Jeffrey Dodd Jeffrey Dodd didn’t have to look far for inspiration: His first pre-fall lineup took cues from the Jean DuBuffet public art piece “Group of Four Trees” near his home in Lower Manhattan. The loopy, amorphous lines of the 40-foot, black-and-white sculpture, installed in 1971, carried over into Dodd’s collection via curved embroideries and textures. It was easy to see the connection on a slinky, three-quar-ter sleeve gown hand-embroidered with silver and violet sequins in a camouflage wave pattern.

Tailored silk suiting and separates have been a Dodd signature, but here, an amped up selection of eveningwear showcased his eye for luxe, modernist craftsmanship. For example, a black strapless jumpsuit with a chiffon overlay and a subtle metallic sheen worn under a belted astrakhan fur coat, and blouses covered in tightly stacked sequins that looked like caviar beading.

Dodd is shifting his strategy to release four tight collections per year rather than two. “It’s about doing more deliveries of smaller collections, so there’s this new-ness factor,” Dodd said. “And I also work better if I don’t get to stop.” — Kristi Garced

Pre-Fall2017

Neil Barrett

Amanda Wakeley

Lafayette 148 Jeffrey Dodd

Jenni Kayne

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Shoshanna Shoshanna Gruss imagined her jet-setting Shoshanna girls perusing spice markets in Indonesia. That explained the pre-fall lineup's richly textured looks — heavy on embroidered laces and peekaboo eyelets — and its earthy palette of saffrons and fiery reds. Comprised of day-to-cocktail mini-dresses and a few evening looks from her Shoshanna Midnight range, the collection skewed ultra-feminine with tiered ruffles, bell sleeves, off-the-shoulder necklines and flirty gingham prints. "All of it has a Sixties/Seventies Talitha Getty feel," Gruss said during a walk-through. Her paisley-printed, blouson-sleeve gypsy dresses and eye-let tunics certainly invoked a bohemian sensibility, perfect to pack for a journey to Southeast Asia — or anywhere, really. — Kristi Garced

SamujiIt’s been a big year for Samuji. Earlier this month, the Helsinki-based label opened its first U.S. store, housing its women’s, accesso-ries and home collections at 12 Prince Street in New York City’s NoLiTa neighborhood. For pre-fall, designer Jenni Väänänen looked to Annemarie Schwarzenbach, the enigmatic Swiss journalist and traveler who was known during her tragically short life for her sense of adventure, her love affairs, most notably with American novelist Carson McCullers and for her staunchly androgynous style.

Rather than replicating Schwarzenbach’s tomboy look, Väänänen mingled a few masculine elements — cropped, cuffed and pleated trousers and oversize grandpa cardigans — with more feminine pieces. Her clever mix of textures ranged from the sensual — printed silk pajamas and a liquid satin orange dress — to raw, such as sandy-colored waxed linen and nubby silk wrap-tops. All of it exuded confidence and ease. — Kristi Garced

rubin Singer Pre-fall was an exercise in logic for Rubin Singer. "For us, it's a precursor to fall, and

at the same time, it delivers in summer," he said. "So, I divided it in two parts." The collection's straight-up summer supply was expressed in light colors and airy dress silhouettes: a gardenia print fit-and-flare, a graffiti printed style with a lace overlay and a multicolor lace dress with puffed sleeves stood out for being wear-able and highly designed. The true fall portion of the lineup came in a predict-ably darker palette and was more struc-tured than the breezy warm weather stuff, relying on the severe shapes for which Singer is known.

There were some nice surprises. A deep-V peplum dress with a double corset sounds tricky but was actually pretty sleek on the bodice. "It's an important silhouette for me" said Singer of the double corset. And lest he be forever pigeon-holed as an eveningwear designer, Singer revealed that a new capsule collection will bow in 16 Neiman Marcus doors, with its focus on a range of ready-to-wear and daywear. "The demand for separates is definitely there," he said. — Mayte Allende

TheiaDon O’Neill’s pre-fall mood board fea-tured the work of Dutch artist Albert Koet-sier, known for his X-ray photography of flowers, animals and sea shells. Koetsier’s photographs worked their way into Theia’s cocktail and eveningwear in subtle ways — a few looks featured an X-ray-inspired tulip print, and one slinky sleeveless column gown, cut to the mid-calf, was dec-orated with contrasting lace embroidery to mimic the transparency and dimension of an X-ray.

Overall, O’Neill’s looks brimmed with the feminine frills that have become signature to Theia: voluminous cape and lantern sleeves, asymmetrical ruffles, cold-shoulder details and sparkle. A red slipdress with a cutaway hemline covered in 3-D floral appliqués exuded playful sensuality. More restrained — and no less chic — was O’Neill’s off-the-shoulder crepe jumpsuit with a Chantilly lace overlay. — Kristi Garced

Pre-Fall2017

Shoshanna

Samuji

Rubin Singer Theia

december 16, 2016 7

● Reminiscent of an art gallery, the Louis Vuitton SoHo boutique was designed by Peter Marino.

by LiSA LOcKWOOD

NEW YORK – Louis Vuitton’s SoHo bou-tique at 116 Greene Street here has gone arty in its redesign.

The store was designed by Peter Marino to resemble an art gallery, a concept that hasn’t been featured in Louis Vuitton stores in the U.S. before but was incorpo-rated in the brand’s St. Germain store that opened in Paris on Oct. 1.

The original SoHo store, which opened in 1998 and also was designed by Marino, has the distinction of being the first of the company’s stores to display its ready-to-wear that was launched that year and has hosted several important global events. In 2011, Vuitton took over the adjoining building that housed a Mont Blanc unit and combined both sites into a store that spans just more than 10,000 square feet. The SoHo store remained open throughout the renovation, closing off one half at a time. The entire project took a year and was completed Thursday.

“The great thing is when these big corporations say, ‘Do downtown, but do it different from the uptown store.’ That’s always the best commission on earth,” Marino said. He said his mandate was to “Make it different from 57th Street.”

Michael Burke, chairman and chief exec-utive officer of Louis Vuitton, addressed the importance of art and design to the brand experience.

“Our clients come to us not just to find a bag, or an accessory, or a luggage — they come to us for a vision, for a dream,” he said. “Luxury is about emotions, so you need to create exclusive, unexpected experiences and tell the story. This is what will happen with the reopening of the SoHo

store. It is a voyage of initiation in a confi-dential place where architecture is strongly linked with art and design and will lead them to the rich universe of Louis Vuitton.”

Marino redesigned the store to reflect Vuitton’s roots as a travel company while giving it an art gallery feel. The renovated store combines modern, minimal and streamlined design, using twisted carbon fiber shelving with a natural rugged feeling with petrified wood and leather. The architecture is designed to support the artwork that is prominently displayed throughout the store.

“Look at those crazy shelves made out of a carbon fiber that’s twisted, totally modern material. It’s all about travel, train speed, horizontal,” Marino said. “You know when you look at things and they look horizontally blurring, because the trains are moving so fast? We made them out of super-lightweight materials.”

Previously, Louis Vuitton products were displayed in boxes or wood cabinets, he said, adding, “Now it’s all out of this super high-tech carbon fiber. It’s freer, younger and hipper, and more high-tech.”

Some of his ideas for the SoHo store sprang from Vuitton artistic director for women’s collections Nicolas Ghesquière’s shows for the brand, “which are so high-tech and have computers and all this speed and are incredibly beautiful and very high-tech,” Marino said.

“There are no more veneers, everything is solid wood that’s sculpted or hit or beat up. I’m dead-set against smooth veneer stuff. It just looks like 20 years ago. It’s all very textured against this super smooth-ness of these carbon fiber shelves,” he said.

Marino chose to work with artists Shuji Mukai and Giuseppe Penone. The princi-ples of the art movements with which each is associated — the Gutai movement for Mukai and arte povera for Penone — have roots in the Sixties and heavily influenced the concept and development of the store. Marino commissioned Japanese artist

Mukai to paint three columns, part of the floor and ceiling within the women’s uni-verse on the main floor.

“The columns were there, we exposed them,” he said. He learned about the Gutai movement because he saw an exhibition on Kazuo Shiraga. “I went to the Venice Biennale two years ago and discovered a huge room painted by Shuji Mukai and I went crazy. And then I read he was part of the Gutai movement. I asked him, ‘Would you do something for us?’ And he said he’d be delighted.” He hand-painted these col-umns with his team of three people on site.

The piece by Penone, an Italian artist, hangs over the staircase and is made of molded leather and bronze. “It was a purchase from an art gallery. It just fit that wall so cool. I had seen the Penone show at Versailles two summers ago and went bonkers. He’s so good. There’s something about the natural leather, and Vuitton is a leather goods company,” Marino said. The store features wide plank oak floors.

Also lending to the art gallery feel is the track lighting. “I don’t usually do that in Louis Vuitton. It’s what you and I, if we moved into a loft, would put track lighting so we light everything. We’re not trying to be hyper-sophisticated. We restored the old metal tin ceilings that were there rather than do a new store sheet rock ceil-ing. It’s very SoHo. We put a lot of money into restoration, and we hung the light track below the old tin ceilings. It’s cool, and it’s something legitimate, it’s real, and we’re not trying to force some uptown design on the beautiful nature of the cast iron building,” he said.

“We’re really doing a lot of historic restoration in these spaces and trying to be legitimate and not so corporate. We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful spaces and then go with a light-handed touch,” Marino said.

The color schemes, he said, are very Vuitton: luggage color of dark brown and parchment and ivory. “Dark brown stands for the masculine side of the business, and the ivory stands for the women. They are one of the few companies that are 50/50. Chanel is all women. Dior has a men’s business, but it’s not one-tenth the size of the women’s,” Marino said.

Marino, who has worked for Vuitton for almost 20 years, is designing over five locations for the brand this year and next. In addition to the new concept store in St. Germain are a pair of stores in Hong Kong (Canton Road and Landmark) that are opening this month, and a new flagship in

Louis Vuitton’s SoHo store at 116 Greene Street.

Shuji Mukai hand-painted the store’s columns.

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Paris at Place Vendome that will open at the end of next summer.

The SoHo boutique carries a full offer-ing of Vuitton products including men’s and women’s rtw, leather goods, shoes, accessories, watches, jewelry and fra-grance. Vuitton’s Objets Nomades collec-tion of travel-inspired furniture and home accessories will also be on display and available for purchase. Highlights include the Maracatu and Cocoon chair designed by the Campana Brothers and the Concer-tina chair and table by Raw Edges.

At the right-hand entrance to the store are women’s leather goods and acces-sories. It then flows into perfumes, fine jewelry, sunglasses, scarves, belts and perfume. The left-hand entrance features women’s rtw and footwear. Downstairs, which previously housed women’s rtw and a stock room, is now completely devoted to men’s wear and accessories, such as eyewear, belts, travel, leather goods and small leather goods.

“I wanted to make a space where you want to hang out on Saturday,” Marino said. The men’s department also features an on-site hot stamping machine for lug-gage and two men’s dressing rooms.

The SoHo store will have several exclu-sives available only at that location. They include a “Capucine Skyline,” ($6,500) that has been created by Vuitton’s artisans to commemorate the store’s renovation. Silver and pink pearls are cut, painted and varnished by hand and then embroi-dered onto the leather Capucine. SoHo will also offer the women’s “Star Trail Ankle Boot,” ($1,490) and the men’s white “Runaway” sneaker ($815) as a worldwide exclusive. The store will also sell the new women’s sunglasses called “The Party,” ($685) two months prior to their global launch date. In addition, the boutique will offer a special women’s cruise 2017 dress ($7,850), embroidered with green sequins. From the Men’s Universe, SoHo will be the only store in North America to offer a men’s spring 2017 Giraffe Chambray shirt ($850). The shirt has a knit collar and sleeve bottoms.

LV RedesignUnwrappedFor Holidays coNTiNueD fRoM pAGe 7

Men’s clothing and accessories encompasses the entire downstairs level.

The perfume area of the SoHo store.

Handbags at Louis Vuitton, including the exclusive “capucine Skyline.”

The entrance to the Vuitton store and handbag area.

december 16, 2016 9

● Indie fragrance brand is relying on personalization to make a mark on an increasingly crowded category.

by RAcHeL STRugATz

NEW YORK — Brands like to talk about giving consumers a buying experience, but Ex Nihilo puts them to work, making them mix their own.

The three-year-old company, which launched in Paris in December 2013 and ambitiously opened a freestanding store at the same time on Rue Saint-Honoré, is sharpening its focus on the U.S. market. One of the buzziest names in indie fragrance to hit the scene since Byredo and By Kilian a decade ago, the Paris-based Ex Nihilo is relying on personalization to make a mark on an increasingly crowded category.

In the U.S., Ex Nihilo is already carried in Saks — the current three doors is set to expand to 30 doors in the next three to five years — as well as The Webster in Miami and as of last month, Forty Five Ten in Dallas. Last fall, Bergdorf Goodman picked up the collection, including a cus-tom-made Osmologue machine that allows for on-site mixing of custom perfume. The goal is to open a second freestanding store in the U.S., too.

Cofounders and best friends Olivier Royère, Benoît Verdier and Sylvie Loday, aren’t looking to do retail theater — they just want to give the customer a special experience.

“It was funny, it was like, ‘Who are they?’” Royère said of the response to the company’s decision to open a store right away during an interview in the brand’s space at Bergdorf Goodman’s beauty floor. “It was walk or die — and we walked.”

“One day we were next to Gucci and Guerlain and we said, ‘Here we are!’”

Verdier interjected.Being privately owned allows founders

to do such things, Royère pointed out, adding that him, Verdier and Loday want to expand their own way — without help from anybody. And although they might be taking an alternative route — simulta-neously launching a high-end fragrance brand and retail store from obscurity that sells $400 bottles of perfume — the three have a clear vision.

“We put experience in the middle of everything,” Royère said. “The challenge was doing something French.”

Rather than a display of splashy theatrics — there aren’t levitating bottles of perfume like the ones Viktor & Rolf have planned for their Magic fragrance collection launch at Saks early next year — Ex Nihilo is using its Osmologue machine to let consumers in on the perfume-making process.

It is a differentiator from the brand’s indie peers, including Le Labo, which has also become known for its personal-ized fragrances. But Ex Nihilo has taken it a step further, coining its use of “demi bespoke” services that are done right in front of the customer.

“[We said] let’s do something that goes back to the roots of luxury and try to reju-venate it to bring an exciting, innovative and entertaining experience…[with] some-thing you should be able to personalize,” Verdier said, pointing to the Osmologue, which he likened to a shrunken, “sexier,” version of the ones that exist in perfumer’s labs and fragrance houses. “Guerlain or Cartier has it [this service], but in France, and it’s so expensive.”

Verdier said there are nine base fra-grances in vases de senteurs, or scented vases, to choose from, including the brand’s best-selling Fleur Narcotique, a fresh floral. During the process, which could cost from $365 to $415 depending on ingredients, each is “mixed, twisted and invented” — but without betraying the original.

Verdier and Royère did a demonstration of the demi bespoke service they offer, which is only available at the Ex Nihilo store in Paris, Harrod’s in the U.K., Saks in Miami and Bergdorf Goodman to keep it “super destination.”

After selecting Fleur Narcotique as the base, Verdier pulled out a tray of tiny bot-tles containing a slew of accords, including Rose of May, orange blossom, jasmine, peony, lychee and Bois d’Hiver, or “Winter Wood.” After much deliberation and input from Royère — a top note of orange blossom would make the scent “imme-diately pop in your face” but jasmine is “quite sunny” — Verdier decided to use Rose of May to put his own spin on Fleur Narcotique.

At this point, an Ex Nihilo associate weighed and poured a quantity of base fragrance into a beaker and put it beneath the spout of the Osmologue. A propri-etary iPad technology then transferred the formula to the machine — all formulas are inside the Osmologue already — and it dispensed the ingredients into the beaker with the concentrate. Next, the beaker

was moved to a magnetic plate and a little magnet was dropped inside the beaker. Once engaged, the magnet started to spin, and within one minute, the liquid was emulsified. The magnet was removed, the finished fragrance was poured into a bottle and a pump placed inside and sealed by hand. Customers who actually experience the service are given the option to select one of four semiprecious caps, including a purple, exclusive to Bergdorf Goodman mother-of-pearl topper.

Lastly, once someone gets their scent, it’s recommended they keep it in the foam box it comes in — that protects from light and air — for at least one week to ensure that the blending is “perfect.” They’re also given a certificate of authenticity, and the customized formula is logged into the brand’s database for easy reordering.

But this is only a slice of Ex Nihilo’s business.

Harrod’s in the U.K. was the first depart-ment store to pick up the line, and a slew of big name, global retail partnerships has fol-lowed, including Harvey Nichols in the U.K., Galeries Lafayette in Paris and Tsum in Mos-cow, to name a few. Entry into the Middle East will take place next year, including Bloomingdale’s and Harvey Nichol’s in Dubai as well as a retail door in Kuwait.

These retailers are seeing success with Ex Nihilo’s stable of a dozen scents, espe-cially Russia, which drives about a third of the overall business. These include the main collection of nine unisex fragrances, priced from $225 to $325, as well as the Les Interdites Collection — the feminine collection. In February, Devil Tender — the third in the Les Interdites range — will be introduced, and come spring, a masculine collection will hit counters. The brand also saw the addition of an even higher priced Amber Sky eau de parfum in July, retailing from $370 to $525, and a Last D’Epices candle and a Les Sublimes Essences collec-tion of two oils, retailing for $75 and $475, respectively, rolled out for holiday.

“We put our balls on the table….We put all the money we had into the flagship we wanted to create. We wanted people to experience the brand in a different way, and it happened,” Royère said.

beauty

The Coming of Ex Nihilo

ex Nihilo founders olivier Royère, Benoît Verdier and Sylvie Loday.

ex Nihilo’s best-selling fleur Narcotique eau de parfum.

december 16, 2016 10

● The Brazilian direct-selling giant has set up shop on Elizabeth Street.

by PeTe BORN

NEW YORK — A bit of the Amazon jungle has been transplanted on Elizabeth Street here as São Paulo-based Natura Interna-tional fine-tunes its first foray into North America with a new 960-square-foot store.

Under its Natura Brasil logo, the com-pany offers products touting a blend of natural biodiversity out of the rainforest married to scientific technology out of the lab. “Our ambition is to promote a new and fresh concept for beauty, which is coming from Brazil and Latin America,” said Andrea Alvares, vice president of marketing and innovation.

“We have the background to aspire to promote a different kind of beauty that’s natural, more at ease with ourselves and a beauty that’s alive.”

The retail beachhead in Manhattan is a pivotal move for Natura, which is the direct-selling king of Brazil with sales of roughly $2.5 billion. But times have been tough at home following the crash of the South American country’s economy. One antidote has been to diversify into six other Latin American countries, plus

opening a store in Paris about 10 years ago. The French venture included a direct-sell-ing operation. But it recently was replaced with another store in the Marais district after Natura decided to concentrate on retail and e-commerce.

Back in Brazil, Natura shifted gears to deal with the country’s economic collapse and mapped out a plan for opening more freestanding stores “We are still fully com-mitted to direct sales but in five years we want to draw 10 percent to 15 percent [of sales] from other channels,” Alvares previ-ously said. That figure is now 2 percent.

In addition, Natura is now generating 30 percent of its revenues from outside of Brazil.

“We want to show that Brazil can bring an energy to the beauty world that maybe doesn’t really exist today, a fresh energy,” said Roger Schmid, innovation adviser and manager of Natura’s The Hub think tank, which is based in SoHo.

“Sustainability” is Natura’s mantra, hav-ing recently won a Champions of the Earth award from the United Nations. Painted on the wall near the store’s entrance is a declaration, “We come from Brazil, the country with the greatest biodiversity. We work with local communities to sustain-ably extracted unique ingredients and combine them with the latest science.”

A line of wooden bowls, hanging along the right wall of the store, are filled with different natural ingredients, which are used in food but also power Natura’s beauty products. For instance, andiroba is related to skin recovery, Alvares said; acai is known for antioxidants, and castanha boosts hydration. That last ingredient is used in Natura’s best-selling product, a $19.50 hand cream. The assortment is mostly personal care with skin and hair care and body splashes. Schmid noted, “We believe there is a lot of potential in hair.”

Prices range from $10 for soap, $30 for shampoos, $35 for candles and $100 for an antiage product that is due out in June. The wall displays are accompanied by maps of Brazil showing where each ingre-dient is cultivated.

A long, primitive-looking wooden light fixture, which originally was a tub used for pounding food ingredients, hangs over a central wooden table laden with products. A bank of video screens beams colorful pictures of the various products, most of which sport recycled packaging. A vintage engine cover of an old Volkswagen Beetle hangs like art on a wall, commemorating the founding of Natura in 1969 by Luiz Seabra, who delivered products around São Paulo in his vintage Bug.

The walls are covered in recycled oak and the wooden floor came out of an old Edison light bulb factory in New Jersey, according to Josh English of Power Shovel, which built the New York shop and also the new Paris store. “They are bringing a traditional Brazil, but in a modern way,”

he said.The New York store opened its doors

on Dec. 11 for a party for about 100 people and will stay open for a two-week preview. It will officially open in late February, after some needed finishing work is done. A door and window will be installed in the back wall, opening onto a roughly 400-square-foot garden.

Also, the long table will be re-topped in concrete with a work sink added. Coincid-ing with the February store opening will be the launch of an e-commerce site.

The company did not provide projec-tions and Alvares and Schmid declined to discuss numbers. But industry sources suggest the Elizabeth Street store could be producing $500,000 to $700,000 in annual sales after two years of operation.

The cost of construction was estimated by industry sources as approaching $500,000.

Alvares said, “We are coming to the U.S. with a different business model. Consid-ering the development of the market, it made more sense for us to start with stores and e-commerce. The mixture of retail for the experience and the trial, with e-com-merce so we can have widespread reach with an effective business model,” she con-tinued. “We are prototyping this concept with the idea to scale it once we’ve got it nailed down.”

Schmid added that Natura could have as many as five stores “for the prototype. Once everything is fine-tuned, then we can scale it up,” he said, noting that the trial period will run for 18 months to two years.

On Wednesday afternoon, Schmid said of the store, “It is going very well.” The hottest item so far has been a kit including a hand cream, a soap and a small hand-made raffia bag, priced $29.50.

Schmid said he is looking forward to see-ing how the sales trend over this weekend, the last full holiday shopping weekend. But there is no complaints about the location. “It’s a neighborhood that’s bursting with energy, new ideas, new concepts,” Alvares said. Schmid added, “If you look around, there must be a dozen beauty stores.”

Another point of appreciation is the neighborhood vibe. In particular, Schmid has become friendly with the next-door neighbor, a 92-year-old butcher, who regaled him with stories of how Martin Scorsese grew up on the block, skipping around from shop to shop as a precocious six-year-old.

beauty

Natura Enters the U.S. Market

Andrea Alvares and Roger Schmid at the

Natura store opening.

inside the Natura opening.

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by J

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december 16, 2016 11

● Aerie and Nordstrom are also the latest brands to experiment with robot customer service representatives during the holiday shopping season.

by mAgHAN mcDOWeLL

American Eagle, its intimates and loungewear label Aerie and Nordstrom are the latest brands to engage the help of robots in efforts to serve the holiday shopper this season. Each has begun experimenting with chatbots, which are a mobile-friendly way to automate conversations with human users through artificial intelligence, on both chat app Kik and Facebook Messenger.

The AEO bot helps people find rec-ommended purchases based on a quiz about the intended recipient, and the customers can then click to a web view of a category page on the brand’s web site, acting as an early form of chat-based commerce. The Aerie Bot is focused more on branding than selling and offers content such as bra fit and care.

AEO partnered with chatbot platform Pandorabots Inc., to design and deploy the bots with a distinct persona that matches the brand voice; for Aerie, this meant focusing on body positivity and promoting confidence in young women. AEO chief technology officer Colin Bodell said that it was really important to not pretend to be human. “Our customers are very sophisticated and can smell inauthentic messages and communications.”

Thus far, he said that the reaction and feedback has been “incredibly valuable,” and that within weeks, the chatbots acquired more than double the average number of users the brand adds monthly across all social channels

combined. The brand is promoting the bots on its social channels in addition to Facebook ads.

The philosophy of why bots, why now, Bodell said, is to be as convenient as possible and to meet the customer “wherever they are;” this is why they also invested in a Kik bot, as the plat-form is popular among teens. The bot began testing just before Black Friday and is designed to engage users, boost purchases and help with customer ser-vice between now and Christmas.

He said this was a natural step for the brand, given its appeal with Gen Z and Millennials. “Chat as an interface is par-ticularly compelling because it facilitates personal, ongoing, two-way conversa-tions. Chatbots provide us the intelli-gence to engage our customers with the right message at the right time.”

Nordstrom teamed with mobile messaging platform Snaps to develop the retailer’s first chatbot, which will be available until Dec. 24. The retailer’s bot asks several questions and responds with gift ideas; it then reroutes to the company web site to complete the pur-chasing process.

Pandorabots principal Lauren Kunze, who worked with AEO, expects that by next year, most major brands and Fortune 500 companies will be actively developing or launching chatbots to offer customer support, commerce, brand engagement and marketing.

Other retailers who have begun using bots this holiday shopping season are Burberry, The Estée Lauder Cos.’ London beauty store No. 6 Mortimer and Europe’s T.K. Maxx. After bots came to Messenger in April, there are now approximately 34,000 of them being used on Facebook alone. Tommy Hilfiger, Spring and Everlane have also experimented with chatbots, which are also coming to companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, WeChat and Slack.

business

American Eagle Among Retailers Introducing Chatbots

American eagle’s facebook Messenger chatbot.

● The issue follows the fashion house’s decision to close its Florence headquarters and move employees to its Milan offices.

by LuiSA zARgANi

MILAN – Unions in Florence are calling the Emilio Pucci fashion house out.

According to unions Filctem Cgil, Femca Cisl and Uiltec Uil, the company is asking employees in Florence to either move to Milan or to resign. But a source close to Pucci defined this “a tempest in a teapot.” Pucci is not firing anyone and is discussing individual solutions with each employee, the source stressed.

As reported in October, Pucci plans to transfer its employees from Florence to Milan to create greater efficiency and oper-ational synergy. The manufacturing role in Bologna is expected to remain untouched, while the creative and commercial roles are to be amalgamated in Milan. This will also help creative director Massimo Giorgetti, who is based in Milan. He was tapped by Pucci last year, succeeding Peter Dundas.

At the time, according to a source close to the company, each of the 45 employees based in Florence received an offer to move to Milan and there were no plans to cut jobs.

This week the unions said Pucci offered a transfer to Milan to its 44 employees — and two additional workers who decided to resign — between January and March 2017. “Emilio Pucci must remain in Flor-ence, the brand does not makes sense without Florence because it represents everything that is Florentine,” the unions said in a statement. “We are against the transfer of employees, but, given this is not an option, we have requested better transfer conditions, protections for those who don’t want to move and for those who might perhaps face a trial period.”

The unions said they have been engaged in meetings with the company over the past few weeks at the regional level as well, to discuss the conditions of workers that are either moving or that have not accepted to leave Florence. The unions lamented the fact that Pucci has held individual talks with employees, but the source familiar with the matter said “no collective discussion

would have been possible. Two employees resigned, 29 have accepted the move to Milan and Pucci is evaluating how to help the others either offering jobs within [par-ent company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton] or proposing financial support, possibly for one year. Pucci would want all of them in Milan, but understands that this may not be acceptable to everybody. Nobody has been fired and nobody will be.”

Unions contend that Pucci had set a deadline on Dec. 7 for employees to decide on their future as the unions were leading to an agreement based on social welfare and economic incentives and that, one hour before the deadline, the company rescinded its offer.

“As of now, those that don’t want to move to Milan have no protection, not even welfare. Practically, they have to resign. It is very serious that the company would require either you move or you resign going back on its word,” said the unions, claiming to be “angry and disappointed” and asking that Pucci “reopen the discussions based on the conditions that were previously set out. We are absolutely surprised that a company that is part of the Vuitton group, attentive to relations with the unions, would act this way.” The unions said they were ready to bring the issue to the Ministry of Economic Development and the head of the LVMH group in Paris.

Laudomia Pucci, daughter of the namesake founder, and the Pucci family continue to own the storied 14th-century Palazzo Pucci in Florence. Laudomia Pucci is image director and a member of the company’s board. According to a source, while conceding that the palazzo may not be for sale, LVMH is considering its acquisi-tion “to turn the palazzo into an important international cultural pole.”

Established in 1947, Emilio Pucci is one of Italy’s storied jet-set brands of the Six-ties, synonymous with dazzling prints on silk jersey, which the founder even applied to skiwear early in his career, pioneering a lifestyle approach to fashion.

LVMH acquired the brand in 2002 for 38 million euros, or $35.9 million at average exchange that year, and has experimented with a variety of designers, including Mat-thew Williamson and Christian Lacroix.

A former Elie Saab executive, Mauro Grimaldi was named Pucci ceo last year.

business

Emilio Pucci, Florence Unions Face Off

weekly print product, a steadily growing web site and an innovative digital daily. The business also produces a series of year-round global events, including its most recently launched WWD Global Fash-ion Forum in Asia.

As WWD continues to expand globally, Socha will bring along his experience with international leaders across the publica-tion’s various sectors. Beyond his role as European editor for WWD, Socha brings extensive international experience in reporting, feature writing and editing for newspapers and magazines.

“WWD is the fashion world’s most vital and dynamic news organization and I feel privileged and honored to lead its global

teams,” Socha said. “I look forward to extending this brand’s news leadership as well as its celebration of creativity, just as Ed has done so beautifully for the last 25 years.”

Socha joined Fairchild Fashion Media in 1995, initially covering the designer men’s wear market at DNR before taking on the designer and denim beats at WWD. He became WWD’s Paris bureau chief in 2000 and its European editor in 2008. A journalism graduate from Ottawa’s Carleton University, Socha began his career at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, a daily newspaper. Socha will relocate to the publication’s New York headquarters from WWD’s Paris office, and will report to Penske.

Nardoza’s tenure spanned three decades, guiding WWD through a chal-lenging industry climate while never relenting on the original mission estab-lished by Fairchild of independent and spirited journalism.

Socha Named WWD Editor in Chief coNTiNueD fRoM pAGe 1

december 16, 2016 12

● Controlled by Edizione Srl, the independent manufacturer comprises an industrial structure of 12 plants in Italy and abroad.

by LuiSA zARgANi

Ponzano Veneto, Italy — There’s a new manufacturing company in the market — Olimpias Group — as a result of the Benetton family’s decision to reorganize its namesake company in 2014, which spun off three business areas that manage brands, manufacturing and real estate.

Controlled by Edizione Srl, a Benetton family financial holding company, Olimpias is made up of 12 plants in Italy and abroad and 3,000 employees, of which 700 are in Italy. Olimpias was founded in 2000 by merging a group of small textile companies and since then, working with Benetton, the company has become an apparel manufacturer, registering total sales of 400 million euros, or $423.3 million at current exchange rates. Fashion contributes 320 million euros, or $338.6 million, while the rest is from textiles, yarns and accessories — mainly label tags.

Olimpias has been providing yarns and textiles to major fashion brands ranging from Giorgio Armani, Diesel and Prada to Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger and Lacoste, explained chief executive officer Gianni Zanella. More recently, Olimpias has also worked with Banana Republic and Inditex, parent company of Benetton’s competitor Zara.

The company produces 50 million pieces of apparel a year. As a result of new clients, Zanella said he expected 5 to 10 percent growth in sales in 2017, as well as in 2018.

“We expect strong changes over the next three years within our group with a clear positioning strategy on the fashion market, flanking the main brands and retailers,” said Christian Benetton, presi-dent of Olimpias Group.

Following the reorganization, Olimpias has more freedom to work with differ-ent clients, explained Zanella. “We have structures and skills that make us appeal-ing to any company,” he said, noting that Olimpias provides a service that spans from design to finished product.

“We have a commercial office that will promote our skills directly to potential clients, from main brands in fast fashion or bridge labels, explaining our expertise and engaging them with products that we are offering for spring 2018,” said the execu-tive, who underscored the importance of showing Olimpias’ own “vision” for men’s, women’s and children’s wear.

In February, out of its showroom, Olimpias will present the collections to the

clients it has contacted. “We hope to inter-est the design teams. These are pitches and then we can develop specific requests together,” said Zanella.

The executive stressed that Olimpias is open to working with private labels and has no intention of launching its own brand. “We are manufacturers and so we should remain, this is our profile. But we should have the skills to propose a lineup of products. Any brand wants a manufac-turer that has a showroom to determine what product that manufacturer can do best. At the same time, they also like to see an offer of designs, which they can elabo-rate,” remarked Zanella.

Olimpias has a design team for each category and product development out of its headquarters here, while production is done in owned companies in Tunisia, Ser-bia, Croatia and Romania, depending on the category. “These are veritable pieces

of Italy, and the plants are set up with the same care in terms of image and context,” said Zanella, who explained that Italy’s high labor costs prevent Olimpias from manufacturing locally.

Zanella said Olimpias “has always pursued an environmentally friendly approach throughout its entire produc-tion chain,” removing harmful chemical substances and following the Greenpeace Detox project.

It was the first European company to initiate the Wasatex process, overhauling water treatment, reducing water and energy consumption, resulting in a positive impact on the environment and improved products. This allows the company to reuse about 70 percent of purified water at the end of the production process. “We use a lot of water, our processes are based on the use of water, and to manage and treat water as a value shows great respect for the environment and for the future generations,” said Zanella.

The Ponzano headquarters were designed by architect Massimo Benetton, who is the son of Carlo Benetton, one of the four founders of the family group. He studied with Tadao Ando and the space reflects Ando’s vision, with its sleek design immersed in greenery.

Cogeneration, photovoltaic and solar thermal systems in plants at Ponzano Veneto, Soave and Sousse in Tunisia last year helped reduce CO2 emissions by 1,500 tons. “The Benettons have over the years passed on to their managers this attention to sustainability. Also, the companies outside Italy reflect the best practice in environmental impact,” said Zanella. “Ours is an ethical choice, and we

want to tell our clients and brands. Con-sumers are getting there, it’s a cultural pro-cess that is reaching Millennials, who are very sensitive to this issue. All our pipeline is controlled, and this level of security is an additional asset.”

Another asset Zanella highlighted is speed, which results from the close prox-imity of the various facilities in Europe and North Africa that also gives additional flexibility and ease in providing a contin-ual flow of “flash” collections throughout the season. “We can’t compete with the labor costs in countries such as Vietnam and Cambodia, there’s nothing we can do about it, but we can compete with creativ-ity in a logic of quick deliveries. It’s very difficult but we know this is the challenge,” observed Zanella.

He said he believed many Asian countries are also able to offer sustainable practices, “in an organized and structured way, but the only issue to which there is no solution is timing. It takes 30 to 40 shipping days from Vietnam to Rotterdam. There is no other way and this is a problem for stores that burn through products quickly.”

Currency fluctuations are also “uncon-trollable. So this is our advantage, I don’t think there are reasons such as CSR or sus-tainability that can move things massively but the euro-dollar parity and lead time — these are true reasons. My focus is to be ready and reactive to respond to a client.”

For these reasons, Olimpias is mainly targeting the European market, in partic-ular Spain, Germany, the U.K. and France, also in light of U.S. customs rates, “now even more,” he said. Zanella added that the Brexit vote has “already harmed us. The pound-euro relation makes our goods 15 to 20 percent more expensive” in the U.K.

Zanella said he hoped Europe, which is hampered by “a gigantic unemployment problem,” will make choices as a united front going forward. “It’s not too distant from what Donald Trump says, to super-vise the flow of goods among continents. I can’t imagine raising walls, but to find rules, yes. Globalization is good, but it should not be wild, I think.”

Asked about the ongoing trend of reshoring, Zanella said he could not see “a massive reshoring,” as it would not be competitive in Europe, where prices in the middle market are considered an addi-tional selling point.

business

Benetton’s Olimpias Group Emerges

A look at the new manufacturing company in the market, the olimpias Group.

december 16, 2016 13

Lady’s Opens in Downtown BrooklynChef Aaron Harsha, formerly of Marea, leads the menu at the large-scale restaurant.

"Gabrielle Hamilton, the chef from Prune, said once that every time she opens a restaurant, it's like the kids putting on a play in the barn," said Matthew Maddy. "You just kinda make it up over and over again."

For restaurant designers Maddy and Nico Arze, of Sweet Nuthin' Hospitality Group, the making it up part is literal — the group designed and constructed their newest restaurant Lady's, located in downtown Brooklyn, by hand. On the Wednesday before

opening, Arze was sprawled on the floor of the cavernous restaurant — atop tiles that the team made and dyed themselves, learning from a Chilean artisan. Arze was busy measuring and cutting fabric, sewing the pieces together with a Singer he'd set up at a table by the dining room's floor-to-ceiling windows.

The group, whose list of restau-rants include Lilia, Grand Army and Russ & Daughters Café, was approached by the building's owners to convert the former

parking garage into a restaurant. "We were really interested in trying to retain some personality and idiosyncrasy in the midst of these 40, 50 story buildings going up," said Maddy, gesturing to nearby construction outside the window. "Everything that is here was built on site, and we built it." The upholstered ceilings (better acoustics); the island bar; the raised dining platform, all of the wooden banquets and detailing; the cabinets lining the top of the open kitchen — everything was handmade by the team. Art and details, such as the feminine figurines perched atop the dining room's various nooks and posed with wheat stalks, were sourced by the team.

Lady's joins the growing Down-town Brooklyn Cultural Center, lead by BAM and its various

annexes. "It's turning into this cultural milieu," Arze noted of the area, pointing out BAM Harvey Theater and BRIC gallery across the street. The Polonsky Shake-speare Center is just around the corner, and even further down the road is the Barclays Center. "It's probably a little it similar to Lincoln Center in the city, the way there's many different mediums and types of performance spac-es. It really creates this critical mass," Maddy added.

And the critical mass needs to eat. Lady's is a large-scale restau-rant with many seats to fill, and takes a populist approach to the cuisine. Twenty-eight-year-old chef Aaron Harsha, formerly of Marea, created a menu driven by pastas and pizza; the mix is a play toward the neighborhood crowd. "We liked the idea of Italian, because

you can go as rarefied and exqui-site as you want, but you can also go really simple and down home, accessible and everyday. Same with pizza," Maddy explained.

While the name Lady's carries several motifs — the romantic pasta scene from "Lady and the Tramp"; the possessive is a hat-tip to old-school Brooklyn Italian joints — it's primarily a homage to their business partner Ian Sugarman's late mother. "She was a very cultured and very inspiring woman who played the piano, played classical music, was a gallerist, was an art collector," Maddy said. "And she was a lady." — Kristen tauer

Lady's572 Fulton StreetBrooklyn, NY 11238ladysnyc.com

Bruce Springsteen Shines at Rainforest Fund ConcertMary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Paul Haggis and Ron Perelman showed up for the event.

Concertgoers shimmied into their sequins for Sting's annual holiday concert to benefit The Rainforest Fund on Wednesday in New York.

Sparkling attendees included Trudie Styler, Sting's wife, ac-tress Gina Gershon, plus scores of audience members who got the "festive attire" memo. Mary-Kate Olsen and husband Olivier Sarkozy, half-brother of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Ashley Olsen, Revlon

chairman Ronald Perelman and director Paul Haggis — who stood out in the crowd for his unabashed and sustained enthu-siasm — all made it to Carnegie Hall for the Revlon Concert for the Rainforest Fund as well.

The event featured Sting, also the emcee, Chris Botti, Darlene Love, the Manhattan Girls Chorus, Idina Menzel, Ronnie Spector, Vittorio Grigolo, James Taylor and Bruce Springsteen, who slid off the Perelman stage mid-act in order

to continue his performance in the aisles at Carnegie Hall. Spring-steen's decent into the audience prompted one fan to jump out of her seat and run down the aisle to take a selfie with him — she kissed him on the cheek before scurrying back to her chair. But then the floodgates opened, with a signifi-cant portion of the formerly proper audience swarming the boss for selfies, which he obliged.

Song-wise, opera singer Grigo-lo, who is starring as Romeo in the

Metropolitan Opera's "Romeo and Juliet" stood out from the pack, walking on stage first as an unusu-ally fit Santa and then drawing a standing ovation from the crowd.

"This is the first time that we've put the show on so late in the year," Styler said. "A time full of celebration and holy days — Christian, Jewish, Muslim reli-gious festivals bring communi-ties together, and families, too. In winter we tend to…stay home; we gather round the people we love

and if we've lost someone this time of year takes on a special quality. So our concert tonight, as you'll hear, reflects not just the joy of the holidays but also the shadow of the winter solstice."

"Until this year we've never been active within the United States, until Stand With Standing Rock," she said. She made a trip to Standing Rock last month, she said, noting her support for the cause. The Rainforest Fund, which focuses on helping people

protect their environments, has now raised more than $45 million, Styler said.

A smattering of guests made their way over to the Essex House Hotel afterwards for cocktails and a buffet-style dinner. Guests included Menzel, Haggis, actor Damian Lewis, Dr. Oz, who min-gled with Revlon chief executive officer Fabian Garcia, and Sting, who made a late-night appear-ance with Styler. — allison Collins

Donna Karan idina MenzelSting, Trudie Styler

and Vittorio Grigolo.

cappelletti with ricotta, charcuterie ragu and

confit tomatoes.

Nico Arze and Aaron Harsha

A view of the dining room.

Roasted carrots with toasted marcona, caper salsa verde and freekah.

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december 16, 2016 15

● The brand said it has bought a 66 percent stake in PrettyLittleThing, for 3.3 million pounds or $4.2 million.

by NATALie THeODOSi

LONDON — Fast-fashion web site Boohoo.com kept quiet on any intentions of acquir-ing Nasty Gal on Thursday, a day after it revealed the purchase of its rival high street e-tailer 21 Three Clothing, which owns PrettyLittleThing.com.

Last month, speculation mounted that Boohoo might be poised to acquire Nasty Gal after it registered a new company, Nasty Gal Ltd., in the U.K. less than two weeks after the Los Angeles-based digital brand filed for Chapter 11 in California.

On Thursday a spokesman from Boohoo declined to comment on whether the pur-chase of Nasty Gal is of interest. But industry sources said that the British online retailer could be mulling a number of options, including buying Nasty Gal’s domain name and database for a knockdown price.

On Wednesday, Boohoo bought a 66

percent stake in PrettyLittleThing for 3.3 million pounds, or $4.2 million at current exchange. During the course of that day the stock spiked by more than 8 percent.

PrettyLittleThing offers trend-led, afford-able clothing for customers between the ages of 16 and 24, similar to Manchester, England-based Boohoo. PrettyLittleThing is run by Umar Kamani, the son of Mah-mud Kamani, Boohoo’s founder and chief executive officer.

Under the deal, which will be completed next month, Umar Kamani and other senior management members will retain the remaining 34 percent of the company’s share capital. Boohoo will be able to buy the outstanding stake by 2020.

“We believe this is an excellent opportu-nity to extend the group’s overall customer appeal through two distinct, complemen-tary brands while further enhancing the group’s strong growth trajectory,” said Peter Williams, chairman of the Boohoo Group.

Year-on-year, PrettyLittleThing has seen its revenues rise 400 percent to 17 million pounds, or $21.5 million.

Boohoo has also been reporting steady growth. For the six months to Aug. 31 it

reported revenues rose 40 percent 127 million pounds, or $157.5 million at average exchange for the period.

The acquisition of PrettyLittleThing plus strong sales gains around Black Friday led Boohoo to revise its growth forecasts on Wednesday. Revenues for this financial year are now expected to rise by up to 42 percent, versus the former guidance of 30 percent to 35 percent.

Kate Ormrod, an analyst at the retail agency Verdict, said that the news of the acquisition didn’t come as a surprise.

“The acquisition of PrettyLittleThing has enabled Boohoo to eliminate a rival and widen its reach,” she said. “The two brands are extremely complemen-tary — both have a young customer base demanding on-trend clothing, value prices and regular newness. The brands are a good fit — especially as both are focused on innovation and customer engagement and utilize social media to maximum effect. PrettyLittleThing will benefit from Boohoo’s expertise, especially operation-ally as it grows in scale. New foreign-lan-guage sites would be a logical investment to better cater to overseas customers — just

as Boohoo has done.”Given the volatile economic environ-

ment that has caused some fast-fashion web sites such as Nasty Gal fail to keep their audiences engaged, Ormrod added that to sustain their relevance e-tailers should consider other strategies.

“For all online pure-plays, the chal-lenge is to retain brand appeal, as well as remain top of mind while competing with multichannel retailers which have a phys-ical presence,” said Ormrod. “Customer acquisition is vital but also prolonging brand appeal as shoppers age to prevent desertion to other clothing players. For example, Boohoo has invested in niche ranges such as maternity, as well as launch-ing children’s wear.

“Exploiting all international growth opportunities will also be important — so investing in new country-specific web sites and improving the delivery proposition will help to drive appeal,” she continued. “There is also the prospect of physical retail, with online player Missguided launching stand-alone stores. This helps to better showcase product quality and design, which is difficult to convey online.”

business

Boohoo Keeps Mum on Any Nasty Gal Interest

Fashion Scoops Memo PadBoys in Bluetiffany & Co. has taken Trump matters into its own hands. WWD has learned that the jeweler has partnered with the New York City Police Depart-ment on mounting branded barricades that lead to its Fifth Avenue flagship — located on the same block as the cordoned-off Trump Tower.

Retailers in the tower’s vicinity — which include, among others, Gucci, Ar-mani, Tiffany and Ralph Lauren — have reported a steep drop in foot traffic, with commotion and police restrictions limiting entry into the stores. Gucci, located inside the tower, is understood to pay about $25 million a year in rent.

Tiffany has cleverly organized a work-around, finding compromise with the NYPD. Using barricades swathed in monogrammed covers, fabricated of its signature robin’s egg blue — the jeweler has set up a slim pathway from 57th Street that snakes around onto Fifth Avenue, giving shoppers access to the store’s holiday windows as well as its main entryway. The barricade coverlets originally were made for the unveiling of the holiday windows, but that event was canceled because of the security cordon around Trump Tower.

To draw further attention that it’s business as usual inside the store, bellhops are stationed along the path-way, each wearing a standard-issue Tiffany-blue scarf, as well as uniform knit hats, neck warmers and gloves. In Thursday’s below-freezing weather, many grasped disposable hand-warm-ing sachets.

A NYPD checkpoint sits just beside the Tiffany track — where visitors to the Trump Tower receive the first of multi-ple evaluations before being granted access inside.

When asked for comment, a Tiffany representative reiterated an earlier statement: “Tiffany is in frequent com-munication with the New York Police Department and U.S. Secret Service regarding safety and security along the perimeter of our Fifth Avenue flagship. We remain open for business with regular hours and welcome customers to enter the store via our 57th Street entrance if any barricades along Fifth

Avenue are in place.“Our flagship store windows, which

feature sparkling scenes of New York City at the holidays, are now on display for all to see. Our facade has also been illuminated as planned.”

Tiffany executives have said the flagship accounts for less than 10 percent of the brand’s global sales.

There had been multiple protests and intense congestion on Fifth Avenue near Trump Tower in the weeks follow-ing the presidential election. Protests and frenzy in the area have since softened. But the brand’s maneuvering of a less-than-ideal situation — in an area deemed last month as the world’s most expensive corridor for retail rents — remains at odds with the hand dealt to its fellow high-ticket neighbors.

The Gucci store has yet to initiate such shopper-friendly tactics. The same goes for Armani, which is similar-ly sequestered from foot traffic. Both stores are accessible upon requesting permission by the NYPD. — MistY WHite siDell

Keeping MumSacai designer Chitose Abe has just branched out into the world of hand-bags, but her fans will have to wait a bit longer to see what else she has up her sleeve — make that a ruffled sleeve on a boxy pin-striped jacket to be exact.

“Sacai is an independent brand, so I don’t have goals like having to increase the sales by a certain percentage next year. Instead I focus on increasing the strength of the brand, which equals creating strong products. Those are

the kinds of things I think about, not bor-ing things like which category I should do after bags,” Abe said Wednesday during a trip to Hong Kong to promote the bags she designed with Katie Hillier. “I don’t think that’s the kind of thing we should be doing, because I think we should be following a more unique kind of existence.”

The Japanese designer could not be drawn on specifics but she said her pri-vately held company is performing well — even if the growth rate has slowed recently. Abe has some projects in the pipeline for next year — again, she declined to say what exactly — but it’s probably safe to rule out e-commerce for the foreseeable future.

“I don’t want to do something just because everyone else is doing it at that time, and since I don’t think we’re ready [I think we should wait],” she said, adding that the brand is seeing strong sales on sites like Net-a-porter. “Many people might also wonder why I didn’t do shows for over ten years, but for me the timing was right.”

For now, Abe seems more con-cerned with off-line pursuits, like making keen observations on how the locals dress in different cities. In Hong Kong’s case, she detected a genera-tional divide between it and her home base of Tokyo.

“In Japan it’s the young people who are into fashion, but here [in Hong Kong] even older people are interested in [fashion]. Adults here seem to really like fashion, but in Japan once people become adults they usually become more conservative.”

— aManDa Kaiser

Vanity, All is VanityPresident-elect Donald Trump may have made nice with Graydon Carter’s Condé Nast colleague Anna Wintour this week, but he wasn’t having it with the editor in chief of Vanity Fair. Carter has been a thorn in Trump’s side since his days at Spy Magazine when he brand-ed the then mere real estate mogul a “short-fingered vulgarian.”

In typical Trumpian — but perhaps non-presidential — fashion whenever any-one criticizes him, Trump took to Twitter Thursday after Vanity Fair’s site, the Hive, lambasted the restaurant in Trump Tower in a story titled: “Trump Grill Could Be the Worst Restaurant in America.”

The president-elect wrote: “Has anyone looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine. Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!”

It’s unclear what numbers Trump was referring to exactly. (Either he takes briefings on top-secret magazine circulation figures or he got his hands on the even harder to obtain Publisher’s Information Bureau statistics showing ad pages.)

Vanity Fair did not respond to requests seeking comment from Carter, but the magazine’s publisher and chief revenue officer Chris Mitchell told his staff in an internal memo, which includ-ed a screen shot of Trump’s tweet: “I

think this counts as a win. Dear Donald, the #s are quite good, actually! :).”

WWD reached out to Mitchell, who offered: “I reminded our business staff — and Mr. Trump — that our numbers are ‘quite good, actually.’ We are at an all-time high rate base, we have more than an hour of average monthly reading time, we clocked close to 20 million uniques across our web sites in Novem-ber, and our advertising revenues were up in print and in digital in 2016.”

In a more public response, the media property tweeted in a Trumpian voice in response: “Vanity Fair: way up, big success, alive! Subscribe today!”

What likely stoked Trump’s anger were the barbs thrown into the Trump Grill sto-ry, which included a quote from Fran Leb-owitz, who recently noted: “Donald Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person. They see him. They think, ‘If I were rich, I’d have a fabulous tie like that.’”

“Nowhere, perhaps, does this reflec-tion appear more accurate than at Trump Grill [which is occasionally spelled Grille on various pieces of signage],” added Tina Nguyen, who penned the review. “On one level, the Grill [or Grille] suggests the heights of plutocratic splendor — a steakhouse built into the basement of one’s own skyscraper.”

Nguyen’s story follows editor’s letters penned by Carter about his disdain for Trump, in which he said the presi-dent-elect would leave a “permanent orange stain” on America. — aleXanDra steiGraD

Graydon carter and Donald Trump

chitose Abe at the Saks fifth Avenue Sacai shop.

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