Last year, designer Stella McCartney walked away with the prestigious accolade for designer of the year at the British Fashion Awards. This season the awards ceremony supported by Swarovski, will take place on Tuesday, 25th November 2008 at Lawrence Hall in London. Among the invitees are over 500 industry leaders, celebrities, designers, retailers, models and journalists to celebrate the best of British fashion. Nominations and judging in the main categories, including the British Designer of the Year Award, are by leading fashion directors and fashion editors from the UK’s media and designer fashion retailers. Additionally an international panel of fashion opinion formers decides, which designer has been the most influential throughout the course of their career and should receive this year’s award for Outstanding Achievement Award in Fashion Design. Read the rest of this entry »

Following a research conducted by Reebok, woman around the world could do with bit more fitness fun. The research tells us that women are looking for a way to take the boredom out of staying fit. The British producer of athletic footwear, apparel, and accessories identified the need to bring fun back into fitness through proprietary research and information gathered by GFK/Roper Worldwide. In 2008, based on 15,000 women in 25 countries, GFK/Roper Worldwide found that nearly half of the women said that while they know exercise and keeping fit is very important to their overall health and well being, less than 25% participate in fitness often.
Read the rest of this entry »

Luxury luggage and accessories label, Samsonite named Christopher Pearson as its new Global Creative Director. Pearson has worked for some of the world’s leading names in the industry, including Dunhill, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, Yves St Laurent and Hermes. He has been tasked to further establishing the label as the contemporary luggage of choice for the discerning traveller. Pearson will be based in London at Samsonite’s global executive offices, heading up the global design function. He will design collections under the Samsonite Black Label, Samsonite and American Tourister brands.
Read the rest of this entry »

Luxury group PPR reported solid operating and financial performances with net income up 141%. François-Henri Pinault, Chairman and CEO, commented: “Our solid performances in the first half can be attributed to the favorable balance of our Group profile and the strength of our global brands. PPR has always been able to take advantage of periods of slower growth and the present case is no exception. We are determined to further improve our commercial effectiveness and optimize our operational structure in order to benefit from a decisive and immediate competitive advantage as soon as there is an upturn in growth.
Read the rest of this entry »

After extending its partnership with Fashion Scout, car manufacturer Vauxhall is moving further forward into the creative community. Vauxhall announced the formation of the Style Council to judge its annual Vauxhall Collective. The Vauxhall Collective is the company’s arts fund aiming to support up and coming creatives across a range of six sectors including craft and design, fashion, film, fin art, photography and theatre. The Style Council is a group of industry movers and shakers who come together to discuss names for the commission and select the eventual winner. Council members are chosen from all sorts of institutions such as London College of Fashion, Central St. Martins, Hayward Gallery and British Film Institute. In the past, Giles Deacon and Christopher Kane have both been members within the fashion commission. The winners of each category are asked to produce a commission up to £20.000 themed by The Great British Road Trip. The Vauxhall Collective members will be announced mid September. Read the rest of this entry »

IIn the first half of fiscal 2008, retail brand Hugo Boss showed a positive trend and operating income, the fashion group’s sales went up by 5% to EUR 831 million. In Europe, sales adjusted for currency effects increased by 4% in the first six months of 2008, with Germany showing a decline in sales of EUR 174 to EUR 177 million last year. By contrast, sales in the rest of Europe rose by 4% to EUR 299 million. In particular Hugo Boss’ own retail stores continued to be the driving force for the sales development in the first half of 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2008 Spring-Summer POST CARD Collection is a concept that has been expressed in eleven different nuances. Eleven outerwear garments, each conceived as a prototype of masculine elegance. A metropolitan, self-assured elegance. A modern interpretation and a perfect fusion of a glamorous and sporty look. “ocean eleven”, then; Post Card’s collection for the 2008 Spring-Summer season plays on its name. It’s a gamble at the Black Jack table. These eleven items of precious clothing are the ideal companions of a genteel conman like Danny Ocean, with the same fascinating slyness, elegance and recklessness, both in the Clooney and classic Sinatra versions.
Read the rest of this entry »

As of January 2009, sport lifestyle company Puma has extended a long-term licensing contract for socks by Puma with Dutch company Dobotex, the current manufacturer of PUMA socks. The new licensing deal has a global reach, excluding the United States. In addition, both companies signed a new licensing contract for Puma bodywear with the first collection coming into Puma own stores by SS09. The in-store re-launch of Puma bodywear on a wholesale level is scheduled for AW09. The sell-in will start in December 2008. The license contract with former licensee Schiesser Lifestyle will terminate at the end of 2008. “Dobotex is a true product expert and well respected company in its field of activity and we are very excited to extend the license agreement in geographical spread and product development,” said Jochen Zeitz, Chairman and CEO of Puma. Puma and Dobotex have been in a partnership since 1997 with Dobotex producing Puma socks. Under this agreement, Puma socks have become the market leader in the sports socks category in Europe in recent years. Currently, Puma has granted licenses for the manufacture of personal care products, glasses and sunglasses, and watches.

Image: Puma

International home shopping company Redcats, announced wholly owned subsidiary Redcats USA completed the sell of its missy division including Chadwick, metrostyle and Closeout Catalog Outlet. The missy apparel brands were sold to a US private equity fund. The home shopping company was already looking to sell the missy apparel business earlier this year, after the successful acquisition of United Retail Group, which includes almost 500 Avenue stores. The decision was part of the strategic plan to focus on developing the special size brands, as well as sporting goods and outdoor brands in a true multi-channel format. Thierry Falque-Pierrotin, Chairman and CEO of Redcats Group said; “The sale of Chadwick’s, metrostyle and Closeout Catalog Outlet, in the U.S. is a further step in the focalization of Redcats Group brands portfolio on clear leadership positions.” Redcats is a multi-brand company offering men’s and women’s plus-size apparel, lifestyle, and sporting goods via a multi-channel network combining catalog, e-commerce and stores. The group generated 3.76 billion Euros of sales in 2007 with 15 brands in 29 countries and a staff of around 22,000 associates. Sales are split between France (51.5%), USA (24.9%) and the rest of the world (23.6%). Redcats Group is a PPR Company, which develops a portfolio of high-growth global brands.

Image: Chadwick

For fiscal year 2007/08, luxury label Wolford increased its sales in all major distribution channels and markets. The Australian company reached a record level of 157.7 million and a sales rise of 11,3% to a record level of 157.7 million. Wolford generated an average annual sales growth of 10,7% during the last three fiscal years.
“With record sales of EUR 157.7 million and a disproportionately high EBIT increase, we once again successfully continued our growth path in the last fiscal year”, says Holger Dahmen, CEO of Wolford AG in positively reviewing the company’s performance in 2007/08. “Thus we have achieved an ongoing improvement in profitability while posting average annual sales growth of 10,7% over the last three fiscal years. This success is the result of a series of measures, in particular the optimization of the product portfolio and our visual brand identity, as well as the extension of monobrand distribution”. Dahmnen adds. Read the rest of this entry »