BURBERRY- DESIGNER OF THE YEAR

LONDON (Reuters Life!) – Luxury goods group Burberry said its Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey has won the 2009 Designer of the Year prize at the British Fashion Awards.
Burberry also won Brand of the Year at the ceremony held at The Royal Courts of Justice in London on Wednesday night.
Bailey said the 153-year-old British maker of raincoats, fashionable clothes and accessories will continue to show its Burberry Prorsum womenswear show during London Fashion Week.
Burberry, which runs 122 retail outlets, 255 concessions, 90 franchise stores and an e-commerce business in over 25 countries reported better than expected second-quarter revenue forecasts last month, helped by demand for handbags, leather goods and snoods.
It said it expected to open about 15 mainline stores over the full year, at the top end of its previous guidance.
Bailey has previously been recognized at the British Fashion Awards with the Menswear Designer of the Year award in 2008 and 2007 and with the Designer of the Year award in 2005.
He is responsible for the design of all Burberry collections and products, as well as all advertising, corporate art direction, architectural design, multi-media content and overall brand image for Burberry.

GET VINTAGE!

LONDON — Sporting skinny jeans and a whisper-thin vintage blouse, Kate Moss doesn’t look like a traditional boardroom-bound tycoon. Then again, the supermodel, who oversees an expanding empire of products bearing her name, has made a career out of breaking with convention.

Her arrival on the fashion scene two decades ago brought a new notion of beauty to the fore. Now, she aims to bring her business acumen to the table, too.

“I want to know what goes on behind the scenes, as well, and how to be successful at that part of the industry,” said Moss, who took up residence in Claridge’s, the plush Art Deco hotel here, for a day recently to promote her latest fragrance, dubbed Vintage, which was introduced in Europe earlier this month. “I’ve got some good teachers.”

According to Stephen Mormoris, senior vice president, global marketing, at Coty Beauty, a division of Coty Inc., which holds Moss’ fragrance license, she is eager to track her fragrance portfolio’s performance and discuss how to drive its sales, which now amount to $100 million at retail annually. Vintage is the latest of three Moss fragrances. The first one, called Kate, was launched in 2007. The second, Velvet Hour, made its debut in 2008. A limited edition fragrance, called Kate Summer Time, was launched in March.

As well as overseeing her fragrances with Coty, Moss’ business interests also include a fashion line with Topshop and a hair care brand with hairstylist James Brown. She is keen to take a stake of the makeup market, too.

“I’ve been modeling for 20 years,” she said, adding she estimates she has spent six years in makeup chairs. “Somebody can do my makeup; I don’t even have to look in a mirror to know what it looks like because I just know by what it feels like on my face.”

Mormoris said Coty may look into having Moss create special color cosmetics collections for its Rimmel brand, which she also fronts.

While Moss continues to appear in myriad advertising campaigns — from Yves Saint Laurent to Longchamp — she seems just as comfortable behind the scenes.

“It’s fun for me,” said Moss. “I still model, and I enjoy doing that, as well. Working on the creative process is really interesting for me because I do know what I like, so it’s fun for me to realize that it becomes part of you. It’s not just putting your name on something; it’s about being very involved in it.”

Indeed, she’s hoping 2009 will be a vintage year for fragrance. Vintage, her latest scent, bowed in Europe earlier this month; it will hit shelves in the Middle East in December, and in Asia, Latin America and Australia early next year.

“We believe Vintage will be the biggest Kate Moss fragrance, as it touches what Kate is all about,” said Mormoris, adding he expects the scent will generate first-year sales of $40 million at retail worldwide.

The fragrance’s genesis — Moss’ love for vintage fashion — has much more humble origins.

“I couldn’t really afford designer clothes when I was young, so I just went to secondhand shops,” said Moss, adding among her most treasured possessions are dresses by Madame Grès and lamé pieces from the Thirties. “It wasn’t called vintage then, it was called ‘secondhand’ when I was 15.”

(Source: WWD)

MARILYN AND MADONNA WORE THEM, WILL YOU?

The bras are enjoying a renaissance prompted by the latest catwalk designs from fashion designers like Louise Goldin and Jean Paul Gaultier. According to John Lewis, sales of its Fantasie Belle, its best-selling conical bra, are up by 10 per cent last week on the previous week.


Elsewhere on the High Street, sales of the Triumph Doreen White are up by 33 per cent compared to the same time last year. Sales of the Triumph Doreen Powder are up 7 per cent on a year ago.
A spokesman for John Lewis said that the trend is indicative of a desire to celebrate women's curves that has followed previous periods of economic turmoil.

He said: "Throughout the last century the trend for feminine pointy shaped bras experienced a renaissance following times of a toughened economy, marking a return of unabashed femininity as women seek to have more fun with fashion as a form of escapism."

Eleri Lynn, the Curator of Fashion at the V&A Museum, and author of Fashion in Detail: Underwear, told the Daily Mail: "Pointed bras first stepped into the spotlight in the 1950s after the austerity of the Second World War.

"Women sought overt femininity and glamour embodied by Hollywood starlets such as Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. Several decades later, style pioneer Madonna brought the look back into fashion in the form of the cone shaped bra designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, and inspired by 1950s underwear.
"It was worn during her Blonde Ambition tour, following the Wall Street Crash of 1987 and the resulting recession of the late 1980s."

Fashion stylist at London's One Make Up, Crystal McClory, added: "The cone shaped bras of the 1950s and late 1980s are certainly back with a vengeance this summer.

"For Spring/Summer '10, the world's top designers are moving away from recession inspired 'less is more' and offering more playful collections as the economy begins to recover, with London designer Louise Goldin, and veteran designer Jean Paul Gaultier both heavily featuring cone shaped bras within their summer collections."