Remembering Iris Apfel, Best of PFW, Coach restaurant + why you need to learn Excel to work in fashion
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The fashion industry is mourning Iris Apfel, who passed away on March 1 at the age of 102.
In her memory, we wanted to share 5 things perhaps you didn’t know about the fashion icon behind oversized glasses.
Between 1950 and 1992, Iris Apfel and her husband Carl Apfel ran the textile company Old World Weavers, which specialized in recreating vintage textiles. The couple did several design projects for the White House, working for 9 different presidents: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton. With this tremendous work, Apfel earned herself the nickname “First Lady of Fabric”.
Even though the Old World Weavers was her big life project, Iris became an “accidental fashion icon,” as she said about herself, landing her first big job in beauty and fashion when she was 90 years old, proving it’s never too late to get started. Since then, Iris Apfel launched several projects with brands. She developed a limited edition collection of make-up for MAC cosmetics for the winter of 2011; “I’m the oldest living broad that ever graced a major cosmetics campaign,” she said then. Also in 2011, Apfel debuted her “Rara Avis” line of colorful jewelry on the Home Shopping Network. In March 2022, she launched a capsule collection with H&M.
In 2018, Mattel made a Barbie doll version of Iris Apfel, making her the oldest person to ever have a Barbie made in her image.
Iris Apfel is also the oldest fashion model, having signed a modeling contract with IMG in 2019, at the encouragement of Tommy Hilfiger. She has since appeared in numerous advertising campaigns and brand partnerships and graced the cover of magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Stylist, and Dazed.
Iris Apfel always wore big round glasses - her signature accessory. "An outfit isn’t complete without a signature accessory, or many, to show off your individuality. Mine are glasses—the bigger and brighter, the better,” she said to Glossy. A few days before her 100th birthday, she released “The Iris Apfel Zentennial Collection” of eyewear with Zenni Optical.
We love you Iris Apfel.
What happened in the industry this week? 💚
Paris Fashion Week officially closed the Fall/Winter 2024 fashion month season on March 5, hosting a record 108 shows and presentations in the French fashion capital. So a lot has happened. These are the 9 shows we remember the most.
Nicolas Ghesquière celebrated his 10th anniversary at Louis Vuitton. His Fall 2024 collection included references to some of his past collections, however, the creative director didn’t intend it to be a retrospective. The show notes instead described the collection as a "journey in retrospect, with memory as the guide for imagination [for the future]."
Virginie Viard’s latest collection for Chanel paid tribute to Deauville, where Coco Chanel opened her second shop in 1912. While a seaside resort may seem a more appropriate inspiration for a Cruise collection rather than a Fall/Winter one, the press received it as one of the best Viard’s collections to date. The creative director also paid tribute to the French film “Un homme et une femme” with a short film starring Brad Pitt and Penélope Cruz.
Pierpaolo Piccioli’s FW2024 collection “Le Noir” for Valentino was, as per the title, all-black. Fashion critics started to wonder if black is the new Pink PP - which has been the brand’s signature color since introduced in the Fall 2022 show. According to WWD, the creative director used black “to explore the masculine-feminine duality that’s a recurring theme of his work, through a fresh reading of the house codes from the ‘80s.”
Sean McGirr presented his debut collection for Alexander McQueen, where he arrived on December 1 last year. The opening look - a shiny black dress - was inspired by The Birds seen in the founder’s spring ’95 collection. “This sort of idea of a compressed silhouette actually anchors the whole collection. So I was trying to kind of bring that forward, bring that message forward, bring those silhouettes and see what I could do with real clothes,” the designer told Vogue before the show.
Jonathan Anderson’s Fall collection for Loewe explored the concepts of class and provenance. “I started exploring this idea of provenance and why we buy things and why things come to have meaning,” he told Vogue. “The idea of an outsider looking into a world that we don’t experience.” The green walls, evoking an art museum, hung with small landscape paintings by American artist Albert York. We loved Loewe’s cutaway dresses!
Demna Gvasalia’s latest collection for Balenciaga was a satire on consumerism. The show opened with models wearing silicon masks. A series of different images were projected on the background, fusing towards the end into multiple small screens. The final looks featured pieces created from layering other garments, which came with attached tags.
So, what was the idea behind this set design and statement collection? The creative director played his audio note at the venue: "What is luxury? What is fashion, and why does it continue to be relevant? For whom am I doing this? Is fashion sufficient?" “I believe that creativity has secretly become a new form of luxury,” he said.
The Row’s founders Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen staged a unique show where no phones were allowed. Instead, guests were given a pencil and notepad to take notes. Outsiders had to wait 5 days after the show to see the images of the collection. It’s discussable whether this special format brought more of the nostalgia of the days when only a small group of people could attend fashion shows (and immerse themselves into the spectacle without phones) or favored an elitist approach from which the industry is trying to move away from, doing live streams of the shows on social media. What do you think?
Saint Laurent’s Anthony Vaccarello staged a secret menswear show, held at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, the museum founded by François Pinault, the founder of Kering. Only a few editors and celebrities were invited to attend the runway. The suits were reminiscent of the 1980s collections, and some models were styled to resemble the founder.
Christian Louboutin staged the fifth edition of the Loubi Show at Le Trianon in Paris. As usual, the show involved a performance, which this time included 12 dancers from ‘La Marche Bleue’, a dance company founded by Leo Walk. The collection itself was exhibited in a gallery that attendees could examine before and after the onstage performance.
What are your highlights from PFW and the fashion month in general?
Coach opened its first restaurant and coffee shop in Jakarta
The New York-based brand opened a new restaurant business at Grand Indonesia Mall in Jakarta. According to WWD, Coach “picked Jakarta to introduce the concept because Southeast Asia represents a large and growing market for the brand, particularly with a young consumer.”
Inspired by a classic New York steakhouse, the restaurant and coffee shop were designed by Coach’s creative director Stuart Vevers in partnership with William Sofield, designer and president of Studio Sofield. The brand plans to open additional locations this year.
With this new project, Coach joined a range of luxury brands that go beyond fashion by opening new businesses in other industries, such as hospitality. Its mission is to “connect consumers with experiences in addition to just products,” WWD reports.
Saint Laurent is doing another movie
Saint Laurent Productions announced it will coproduce “Emilia Pérez”, a film by Jacques Audiard. The Kering-owned luxury brand launched the movie production subsidiary last year with two shorts in Cannes: “Strange Way of Life” by Pedro Almodóvar and Jean-Luc Godard’s “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars”.
Frasers Group shut down Matchesfashion
It’s a sad ending for Matchesfashion: The Frasers Group put the luxury retailer into administration, roughly 2 months after acquiring it for 52 million pounds. The reason for this, according to a statement released to the London Stock Exchange, shared by WWD, is the following: Matches “has consistently missed its business plan targets and has continued to make material losses. While Matches’ management team has tried to try to find a way to stabilize the business, it has become clear that too much change would be required to restructure it, and the continued funding requirements would be far in excess of amounts that the group considers to be viable.”
The Prada Group registered gains in sales and profitability
The luxury Italian Group had “a stellar performance in 2023,” according to WWD. As reported, in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, Prada Group’s revenues rose 13% to 4.72 billion euros, compared with 4.2 billion euros in 2022. At constant exchange rates, sales rose 17%, and net profit climbed 44.3% to 671 million euros, compared with 465 million euros in 2022.
Retail sales of the Prada brand increased 12% year-on-year, while Miu Miu retail sales rose 58%, supported by all categories and regions.
Salvatore Ferragamo reported a decline in sales and profitability
In 2023, Salvatore Ferragamo’s revenues dropped 7.6% to 1.15 billion euros, compared with 1.25 billion euros at the end of December 2022. At constant exchange rates, sales decreased by 8%, WWD reports. In the 12 months ended Dec. 31, net profit more than halved, falling almost 60% to 26 million euros compared with 65 million euros in 2022, the magazine added.
Despite a considerable decline in 2023, the company’s CEO and general manager, Marco Gobbetti, said that in 2024 the company will “continue to fuel” its growth ambition and “work on the full deployment of the offer, enhancing storytelling, accelerating the rollout of the new store concept, while maximizing the potential of all digital touch points and focusing on the quality of sales,” according to WWD.
Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou is the new managing director of LVMH Fashion Group
The chairman and CEO of LVMH Fashion Group, Michael Burke, has named Pierre-Emmanuel Angeloglou as managing director of the luxury group (he has been Executive vice president of strategic missions, at Louis Vuitton since 2022). In this new role, Angeloglou will oversee Fendi, Kenzo, Marc Jacobs, Pucci, Stella McCartney, Patou, and Off-White, owned by LVMH.
New exhibition about the British Royal Family
“Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography,” running from May 17 to Oct. 6 on the occasion of the reopening of The King’s Galleries (formerly known as The Queen’s Galleries) in London will display photographs of the British Royal Family, taken between 1920s to the present day by Lord Snowdon, Cecil Beaton, Andy Warhol, Rankin, David Bailey, Nick Knight and Annie Leibovitz.
Karl Lagerfeld’s apartment will be sold at an auction
The late designer’s former 2,800-square-foot studio and apartment on the Quai Voltaire, where he lived between 2006 and 2019, will be sold at an auction on March 26 at the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund is open
The Fashion Fund, established by the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue to help emerging American designers, opened on Thursday the applications for the 2024 program. There will be 10 finalists. The winner will receive $300,000 and the two runners-up will each receive $100,000, as well as mentorship. In celebration of its 20th anniversary edition, the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund is bringing back the Design Challenge that will be supported by Tommy Hilfiger.
Fashion Career Tips
Many fashion enthusiasts tend to see only one side of the industry - that of designing clothes, writing fashion articles, and attending fancy events. However, one aspect you might not be aware of is that one of the most common tasks and skills requested to work in fashion is Microsoft Excel.
Excel is not typically something that people talk about when it comes to working in the fashion industry. And yet, this program is used by all fashion professionals every single day in their creative and business-oriented roles.
That's why recruiters prefer to hire people who know how to use Excel - from interns to seniors. If you read job descriptions, you will notice it is required for almost every role in fashion.
Excel will be fundamental throughout your career in fashion, even to pass job interview tests to land your very first internship like I did at Alexander McQueen (you can read my story here).
In our latest article, we share 3 reasons why you need Excel to work in fashion. Read it here.
Nice Things 💖
Simon Porte Jacquemus received the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, the highest French ministerial award for cultural achievement. Anna Wintour gave the designer genius a medal during the ceremony.
Lila Moss is radiant on Vogue Spain’s March 2024 cover 🌟
What to watch this week 📺
John Galliano Documentary
A new documentary about John Galliano, “High & Low: John Galliano” premieres today in theaters in the UK, Ireland, and the U.S, so it can be your perfect fashion program for the weekend if you are around. Directed by Kevin Macdonald’s, the documentary focuses on the rise and fall of the British designer. It includes appearances from Sidney Toledano, Anna Wintour, Naomi Campbell, Charlize Theron, Amanda Harlech, Penélope Cruz, and Kate Moss.
Fashion Profiles to follow this week
Stylist Victoria Sekrier and set designer Olivia Giles who worked on Vogue Spain’s March 2024 cover.
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