LONDON’S NEW FOCUSBRITISH DESIGNERS SHIFT

TOWARD THE CONTEMPORARY MARKET AS THEY STRIVE TO BUILD BUSINESSES. PAGE 12

Marc’sMarching Orders

WWD

PHOTO BY THOMAS IANNACCONE

The well-trod theme of military is anything but mundane in Marc Jacobs’ hands. The veteran creative force cast his troops in a warm, weird and very pink light. For more on New York Fashion Week, see pages 4 to 7.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 ■ $3.00 ■ WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY

BACKSTAGE BEAUTYTHE KEY TRENDS FROM NEW YORK FASHION WEEK.

PAGE 8

NEW YORKSPRING 2015

COLLECTIONS

Lagerfeld Talks Media

By JESSICA IREDALE

OSCAR DE LA RENTA is close to signing Peter Copping in a lead design role, WWD has learned.

Rumors have been circulating for some time that de la Renta was scouting Copping, who has been cre-ative director of Nina Ricci since 2009. When, dur-ing a WWD interview the morning after the Costume Institute gala in May, Copping was asked if the specu-lation were true, the designer demurred without issu-ing a fi rm denial.

Neither de la Renta nor Copping could be reached for comment Thursday at press time.

Given Copping’s history and aesthetic, he makes a good candidate for de la Renta. Both designers are es-tablished romantics, always designing for the woman who wants to fl aunt her feminine side but in a taste-ful, sophisticated way. In the fi ve years since he suc-ceeded Olivier Theyskens as creative director of Nina Ricci, Copping has built a strong identity for the label. His runway shows often play as a procession of living dolls. In recent seasons, the designer has been increas-ingly focused on what his customer wears during the day, proposing sweater dresses, coats and fl uid paja-ma looks, all rendered with romance. He reenergized Ricci’s handbag business earlier this year, partnering with Leandra Medine of The Man Repeller on a limit-ed-edition collaboration of the Marche handbag.

Copping also has another quality attractive to po-tential employers: “I absolutely never had any desire to do my own thing,” he told WWD in May. “I don’t know if there’s any need for another brand. And I don’t know if I’d have any more to say that I couldn’t say within the structure of an existing house.”

He likes the challenge of working within es-tablished parameters. Born in England, he got his fi rst job out of the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins in London at Iceberg. He did multiple

SEE PAGE 16

EXPANDING DESIGN TEAM

Hear Peter CoppingTo Sign On at Oscar

SEE PAGE 13

By MILES SOCHA

PARIS — Karl Lagerfeld can now add newspaper publisher to his long list of media accomplishments.

Starting later this month, look out for distribu-tion of 150,000 copies of The Karl Daily in Europe, China — and beyond.

The “satirical” broadsheet showcases the design-er’s talents for sketching, wordplay, photography and winking humor — along with the latest product volleys from his signature brand.

It comes at a time of strong momentum for his signature fashion house, fueled by healthy invest-ment from parent Apax Partners — and the format Lagerfeld chose offers a wry commentary on the state of the media business.

While native advertising, social media and tech gadgets are today’s buzzwords, Lagerfeld is an un-abashed fan of print — a sketchbook always under his

elbow, his desk stacked with magazines and the fl oor lit-tered with shopping bags bulging with books.

“I’m a paper freak,” he says gleefully.

He has less-kind things to say about social media, non-

plussed by blogs and confessing an aversion to selfi es.An accomplished photographer, book publisher

and seller, Lagerfeld is a voracious consumer of mag-azines and books, and an in-demand media personal-ity. In an interview, he lamented the dearth of writers with suffi cient technical knowledge and fashion cul-ture, arguing there’s no quick fi x for the ailing print industry other than hard work and sharper products.

MEDIAPEOPLE

EASTERN VISION

THE COSTUME INSTITUTE’S NEXT EXHIBITION WILL

LOOK AT THE INFLUENCE OF CHINA ON FASHION, FILM, ART AND MORE.

PAGE 2

WWD.COM2 WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

TO E-MAIL REPORTERS AND EDITORS AT WWD, THE ADDRESS IS FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME@FAIRCHILDFASHION.COM, USING THE INDIVIDUAL’S NAME. WWD IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2014 FAIRCHILD FASHION MEDIA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.VOLUME 208, NO. 55. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014. WWD (ISSN 0149–5380) is published daily (except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, with one additional issue in March, April, May, June, August, October, November and December, and two additional issues in February and September) by Fairchild Fashion Media, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Shared Services provided by Condé Nast: S.I. Newhouse, Jr., Chairman; Charles H. Townsend, Chief Executive Officer; Robert A. Sauerberg Jr., President; John W. Bellando, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer; Jill Bright, Chief Administrative Officer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 886549096-RT0001. Canada Post: return undeliverable Canadian addresses to P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Cre, Rich-Hill, ON L4B 4R6. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, P.O. Box 6356, Harlan, IA 51593. FOR SUBSCRIPTION, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to WWD, P.O. Box 6356, Harlan, IA 51593, call 866-401-7801, or email customer service at wwdPrint@cdsfulfillment.com. Please include both new and old addresses as printed on most recent label. For New York Hand Delivery Service address changes or inquiries, please contact Mitchell’s NY at 1-800-662-2275, option 7. Subscribers: If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your subscription term or up to one year after the magazine becomes undeliverable, you are ever dissatisfied with your subscription, let us know. You will receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. For permissions requests, please call 212-630-5656 or fax the request to 212-630-5883. For reprints, please e-mail reprints@condenast.com or call Wright’s Media 877-652-5295. For reuse permissions, please e-mail contentlicensing@condenast.com or call 800-897-8666. Visit us online at www.wwd.com. To subscribe to other Fairchild Fashion Media magazines on the World Wide Web, visit www.wwd.com/subscriptions. Occasionally we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, please advise us at P.O. Box 6356, Harlan, IA 51593 or call 866-401-7801. WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IN WRITING. MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND OTHER MATERIALS SUBMITTED MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE.

Costume Institute Sets China Focus

By MARC KARIMZADEH

NEW YORK — The global fas-cination with all things China is extending to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the spring, the museum will stage “Chinese Whispers: Tales of the East in Art, Film and Fashion,” an exhibition that ex-plores the influence of China on creativity, from fashion and cos-tume to paintings, porcelain, art and movies.

It will be staged by the Costume Institute and the mu-seum’s Department of Asian Art, which celebrates its 100th an-niversary, and take place at the Met’s Anna Wintour Costume Center and Chinese Galleries.

“The West’s interest in China seems to be intensifying, and China’s cultural influence on the West also seems to have reached new heights,” explained Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton of the choice to stage this exhibi-tion now. “The basic idea is the influence of Chinese aesthetics on designers, but I also wanted to convey how costumes and deco-rative arts crystallize centuries of cultural interchanges between the East and the West. They speak to an ongoing fascination of enigmatic objects and motifs. They are infused with fantasy and nostalgia and romance, and what often is created is a virtual China, a mixing of these anach-ronistic styles, which results in this pastiche. What is interesting is how complicit China has been in forming those fantasies.”

The name for the show came from a parlor game developed

during the British Empire — think Telephone, where a mes-sage is whispered around a circle until it’s completely distorted. “It’s a nice way to explain that a lot of the motifs and cultural images are often lost in transla-tion,” Bolton noted.

At the museum, the Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery will play on these ideas, with films from directors like Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, and vi-gnettes of women of style such as Soong May-Ling (i.e., Madame Chiang Kai-shek), Empress Dowager Cixi and Madame Wellington Koo.

The Chinese Galleries will focus on fashions from the 1700s through now, with more than 100 couture and ready-to-wear gar-ments, and decorative arts from Imperial China.

Chinese opera is another theme to be explored in the mu-seum’s Astor Court via performer Mei Lanfang, the inspiration be-hind John Galliano’s spring 2003 Christian Dior couture show. Several looks from that collec-tion will be shown alongside Mei’s original opera costumes.

Wong Kar-wai, the acclaimed Chinese filmmaker behind “In the Mood for Love” — a peren-nial fashion inspiration — serves as the exhibition’s artistic direc-tor, while his longtime collabora-tor, William Chang, will supervise the styling.

The exhibition will be open to the public May 7 to Aug. 16. It will be launched with the Costume Institute benefit, with Silas Chou as honorary chair. Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence, Chinese actress Gong Li, Yahoo president and chief executive officer Marissa Mayer,

Wendi Murdoch and Anna Wintour are cochairs.

Yahoo is sponsoring the exhibition with

additional support from Condé Nast.

Yahoo’s Mayer has long been tied to fashion, even when she was still at Google, and the executive has been ex-

tending the company’s reach into that world, most notably with the launch of digital magazine Yahoo Style earlier this month.

“It is probably one of, if not the, most important fashion event,” said Joe Zee, Yahoo Style’s editor in chief and ex-ecutive creative officer. “The exhibition and the way people can interact with fashion on a very global level was very im-portant to us...[that] messaging is very aligned with everything that we are doing. Yahoo is about being global.”

He added that Yahoo’s reach will enable the exhibition to reach a “much bigger, broader-level” audience.

“Chinese Whispers” will feature more than 100 China-inspired designs from a range of designers and labels, among them pieces by Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent, Jean Paul Gaultier, Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen during his stint at Givenchy, Anna Sui, Dries van Noten and Valentino’s Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli. The Costume Institute is culling from haute couture and rtw that demonstrate a specific riff on the theme. As Bolton put it, these looks will “escape the notion that designers inspired by China perpetuate this orientalist appropriation.”

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John Galliano for Dior, fall 1997.

Tom Ford for Yves Saint

Laurent, fall 2004.

Madame Wellington Koo, 1943.

A still from Wong Kar-wai’s influential 2000 film “In the Mood for Love.”

DIGITAL BRIEFING BOXFOR MORE COVERAGE, FIND US ON WWD.COM, SOCIAL AND MOBILE.

Closer Than the Front Row: WWD editors visit designers’ studios for a detailed look at their collections.

VIDEO ON WWD.COM

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4 WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

New YoCollectDESIGNERS WERE IN A UTILITARIAN MOOD, DRAWING ON

VERSIONS OF CLASSIC AMERICAN SPORTSWEAR AS FAS

Spring 2015

Marc Jacobs

WWD.COM5WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

ork ions UNIFORM LOOKS AND UPDATED

HION WEEK DREW TO A CLOSE.

FOR MORE SPRING COVERAGE, SEE

WWD.com/runway.

Marc Jacobs: The house was bubble-gum pink. The narration heard through Dr. Dre headphones was based on a 1976 short film, “The Girl Chewing Gum.” Coincidence? Most likely. In describing the gigantic three-wing house he commissioned as the centerpiece of his spring collection, Marc Jacobs likened the facade’s hue to Pepto-Bismol.

The two relate in that both were major elements in Jacobs’ wonderfully weird show on Thursday. A major showman, he staged for spring a performance-art piece worked around a stellar collection based on a single, mundane concept: uniforms. It started with the colors — “They’re kind of invisible colors,” Jacobs said during a preview. “Then, I started thinking about uniforms and decoration and anonymity and the idea of uniforms and youth culture. Uniforms used to be a symbol of rebellion and protest. And now, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just what you wear.”

Jacobs rejects the idea of reading deep thought into an outfit. But at the end of a long New York Fashion Week, it’s great to read some thoughts into the clothes parading by. In a welcome expression of fashion irony, he perverted the uniform’s anonymity into something flamboyant and memorable, even in that fade-away palette of olive, tan and blues. Flirty, hyper-sculpted minis. Long, shapeless schoolgirl dresses. Slouchy overalls. Cropped cargo pants. Waist-conscious jackets cut with militaristic precision. Giant sweats cut with room for two. Cargo pockets abounded, here, there and everywhere. As for other decoration, after intense research of institutions from the Girl Scouts to the Army, Jacobs represented the idea of badges and medals with huge resin cabochons, often set into guipure. The only exception to his no-sparkle approach: the shoes, blatant appropriations of Dr. Scholl’s, but in velvet with pavé crystal buckles.

Razor-focused as it was, those paying attention could see range — sexy dress here, I-don’t-want-a-guy dress there — and the insertions of what might be considered house codes. Case in point: The embellished sweats that continued from last spring’s tasselled Victorians and fall’s indiscreet Coca-Cola homage.

As for the pink house, Jacobs said it had nothing to do with anything in particular, except that it looked happy. And it brought the New York shows to a close on a delightfully high note.

Ralph Lauren: It has been quite a week for Ralph Lauren. He flexed the muscles of Polo Power — creative, commercial, tech, philanthropic (girls don’t walk on NYC water for free) — when he opened the brand’s 38,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue flagship and showed that collection in a holographic video extravaganza featuring cutting-edge water-projection technology.

The dizzying activity focused on the young, cool, fast side of the Ralph Lauren world. On Thursday morning, Lauren showed another side of that world, the one all about tony refinement. Yet its denizens, too, are on the move for spring, embracing a practical approach to dressing for day and evening.

That’s practical as in utilitarian practical; Lauren’s starting point was workwear and uniforms. He opened with cargo pants paired with a purple silk top draped across one shoulder with a sari-esque look. But rather than work a fusion of utility with exotica, Lauren focused on the former, exploring its possibilities as a viable proposal for day through evening. Along the way, he jazzed it up with a palette that played to the genre’s natural recessive tones — olive, sage, tan — against flamboyant brights with a zesty, retro feel. A bright yellow leather trench topped a sage green sweater and suede cargo pants; tan suede stretch pants got a triple shot of bright orange juice — gazar safari jacket, alligator tote and nappa sandal. A break from the color came in waist-centric monochromatic suits and safari shirtdresses.

The motif moved into evening with safari gone glam: a sage gazar shirt tucked into a yellow tulle skirt and a billowing taffeta gown, each with a certain sporty bravado.

Lauren brightened it all with liberal use of big, flashy, multibright crystals in drop earrings and bib necklaces, both real and embroidered onto tops and sweaters. Because even the most work-oriented girl likes to sparkle.

Ralph Lauren

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Calvin Klein Collection: “It’s new for us,” said Francisco Costa, describing the direction of his spring line amid the backstage chaos. “It’s much more body-conscious — very sporty and in a starker color palette.” “New” perhaps, but not a foreign concept, since sexy sportswear in pure tones was a founding tenet of the house, but Costa’s point was well taken. He delivered a show of sleek power, optimizing many of the elements key to the canon of Calvin, but also those especially relevant to now.

Sleek, elegant and athletic, the dominant silhouette was an elongated racer-back tank, worn over a longer, fluid skirt or cropped, structured pants. Already lean and languid, the slim stainless belts worn Empire-style impressed a sporty majesty on the mood.

Costa cited Andy Warhol’s Mao Zedong portraits for the collection’s primary colors of navy and bold burgundy; the work of another artist (who’s big in Marfa, Tex., yet whose name Costa preferred to leave off the record as his estate is apparently quite litigious 20 years after his death) loomed larger in graphic, geometric accents and delicate lines dissecting tanks in linear decoration.

The show progressed through compact ribbed knits to slick burgundy leathers on a short tank dress and precision-cut jacket. Then came the spare and serene, in a series of white and ivory variations on the same shape, closing on a note of sterling glamour with a metallic embroidered tank layered over a matching dress. Costa was not the only designer striving for an elevation of sportiness combined with grace this season, but he achieved it effortlessly and with au courant panache.

Proenza Schouler: Two American boys living the American Dream, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough looked to the homeland for their Proenza Schouler spring collection. “Americana” was a word bandied about during a preview. So was “prep,” a term Hernandez tossed out and then immediately tried to call back. “Scratch that,” he said, a little surprised at his own invocation of so mundane a reference.

Scratch it, bury it, blur it, dissect it. It’s not the word, it’s what you do with it. The game plan was to take a host of classics such as the polo, button-down shirts, Windbreakers and braided belts, and subject them to what Hernandez called “our weird vision.” The outcome was mixed, but it pulsed with a quality that eludes many others: cool.

Hernandez and McCollough always strive to push boundaries and deliver the unexpected, achieving it here through proportion, fabrication, styling and color. Interesting, yes, but at times it lacked their usual momentum and allure. For example, a Windbreaker was rendered as a paper-weight leather shirt in rusty orange with a graphic white stripe across the chest, and worn tucked into a matching, perforated pleated skirt that fell to midcalf. The look tried to play feminine sophistication against edgy sport. It worked to neither’s advantage.

But then there were moments when the classics and the Proenza weirdness jelled beautifully. Argyle, the mother lode of American prep-ola, was never more modern and unironically chic than as abstract crocheted diamonds on a white leather shell, and a navy sweater with a delicate arrangement of floating diamonds connected by silk threads. The latter was part of the show’s hero group of tank dresses and skirts made of intricately woven silk that was pulled apart to create long, loose fringe skirts. Classic? Preppy? Not particularly. But lovely in their fluid, dark drama.

J.Mendel: Gilles Mendel’s fur collections for J.Mendel grew over the years to include extensive ready-to-wear looks, often with day and evening clothes that were as beautiful as the furs. This was not quite the case for spring, which had just a few impressive rtw exits. The best examples: a white leather, angled coat over a crepe-and-leather minidress for day and the hand-pleated silk-chiffon gowns — one an ivory bustier tea-length version, the others color-blocked and to the floor. But when Mendel played with prints for panels and sleeve details, it sometimes looked forced. A few furs, however, were top-notch: the turquoise diagonal let-out mink coat and a lime broadtail cape were winners.

NEW YORKSPRING 2015

COLLECTIONS

Calvin Klein Collection

WWD.COMWWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 7

FOR MORE SPRING COVERAGE, SEE

WWD.com/runway.

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WWD.COM8 WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Tadashi Shoji: Makeup by Pep Gray

Victoria Beckham: Hair by Guido Palau

beauty NEW YORKSPRING 2015

NOVEL TECHNIQUES

Backstage, nail artists showed a fresh take on the bare nail

trend. At the J.Mendel, Delpozo and Rodarte shows, manicurists applied a matte topcoat directly to the nail or on top of a layer of clear polish, sometimes layering on metallics and pastels. Of her all-matte nail look at J.Mendel,

manicurist Miss Pop said, “A matte topcoat [on bare nails]

is the new nude. It brings out all [the] blush in your nail bed.”

IN THE BUFF

Makeup artists mixed it up backstage this season by applying rouge to the lips and lip gloss to the eyelids. At Thakoon, Diane Kendal for Nars Cosmetics used a dusty pink blush on the lips.

Referring to the sheen on the eyes, Kabuki, who worked with MAC Cosmetics at Zac Posen, said, “It’s very healthy skin, almost as if she was on vacation, [or even] an after-sex glow.”

UNPREDICTABLE PAIRINGS

Unlike in seasons past, when hairstylists used a half-dozen products or more to create a look, spring was all about minimalism. To fashion sleek hair backstage at Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, Marc by Marc Jacobs and Victoria Beckham, all stylists needed was holding spray.

“There’s a pure modernity to the whole thing,” said Guido Palau of his deep side part at Victoria Beckham. “It’s nonchalant hair. Designers try to make it look like we’re not trying too hard.”

THE POWER OF ONE

Zac Posen: Makeup by Kabuki

The Row: Makeup by Tom Pecheux

Rag & Bone: Makeup by Gucci Westman

Delpozo: Nails by Julie Kandalec

J.Mendel: Nails by Miss Pop

Rodarte: Nails by Tracylee

Marc by Marc Jacobs: Hair by Guido Palau

Donna Karan: Hair by Eugene Souleiman

Thakoon: Makeup by Diane

Kendal

Carolina Herrera: Hair by

Orlando Pita

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By PAULINA SZMYDKE

PARIS — Jean Colonna is back.The French designer, who rose to prominence in the

Nineties with his then-frowned-upon notion of provid-ing affordable fashion, has relaunched his signature label and set up his first boutique in Paris this week.

The 400-square-foot unit, a former gallery, is lo-cated at 22 rue Debelleyme, smack in the epicenter of the French capital’s buzzy Marais district. Designed by French architect Patrick Bouchain, the store boasts a minimalist flair with detachable racks and mirrors clad-ding the walls.

Every 10 days, the clothes, which are done in a sub-dued palette of mostly nude, black and khaki, are slated to change, proposing varied takes on the designer’s sig-nature pieces, which include 100 percent cashmere tank tops done by Nepalese artisans, as well as lightweight ponchos and faux-fur coats.

Despite their apparent fragility, the knitwear piec-es are all machine washable. The line is set in a price range between 200 euros, or $258, for a cashmere tank and 630 euros, or $814, for a nylon and wool coat, staying true to the brand’s original philosophy of offering qual-ity at a fair price.

The designer, who counts 30 points of sale, including Mameg in L.A. and Takashimaya in Tokyo, said he has no plans of returning to the runway. “The only advan-

tage of the runway is that it pushes you creatively, but I’m currently in my phase of lazy creativity,” he said.

No need to reinvent the wheel. Cue a pair of languid pants, which made their debut on the runway in 1990 and have found their way back into this season’s collec-tion. “They still feel contemporary today. I have always been more interested in producing a wardrobe rather than fashion, and the notion of timelessness is part of it. That’s real luxury to me,” he explained.

Colonna had taken “a break” from designing in 2003, working on other projects, mostly as a consultant or ar-tistic director. “I just wasn’t happy anymore, and work-ing for others was genius, very liberating,” he declared.

His goal today is: “To take pleasure in what I do.”

DAN CHERIAN has joined VF Corp. as vice presi-dent of global innovation for performance apparel and footwear.

A veteran of Nike Inc., he will oversee the com-pany’s innovation centers in Alameda, Calif., home city of the company’s North Face and outdoor busi-ness, and Stratham, N.H., where the Timberland brand is based. He will report to Steve Rendle, se-nior vice president for the Americas.

Cherian was most recently general manager of Nike’s sustainable business lab and, prior to that, held positions at Pfizer Inc. and the Boston Consulting Group.

“Our goal is to shape the future of apparel and footwear,” Rendle said. “VF has emphasized the importance of product innovation as a key growth driver for the company. Adding Dan to our team to lead our performance apparel and footwear initiatives further demonstrates our commitment to creating breakthrough, must-have products for consumers.”

Cherian will set global innovation strategies, shape and manage the global product innovation portfolio and take the lead in establishing the inno-

vation teams in the two centers, which will include designers, engineers, chemists and other scientists.

The company is building a new facility on the grounds of its Alameda campus to house the performance-apparel lab and leasing a separate building, near Timberland’s offices in Stratham, for the footwear hub, according to a VF spokes-man. In addition to the facilities under Cherian’s purview, a jeanswear innovation center has been established near VF’s headquarter in Greensboro, N.C.

Eric Wiseman, chairman, president and chief executive officer of VF, discussed plans for the in-novation hubs at last year’s WWD Apparel & Retail CEO Summit in New York and emphasized the im-portance of physically separating their personnel from VF’s existing offices and brands.

“Their objective,” he said, “is greatness…to not ever get distracted from finding something that’s re-ally a breakthrough in the industry.”

VF, which first announced plans for the centers in August 2013, hasn’t disclosed its budget for the innova-tion project. VF is the largest apparel company based in the U.S. Its 2013 revenues totaled $11.42 billion.

— A.J.K.

By MELISSA DRIER

BERLIN — Rena Lange has filed for insolvency.The Munich-based fashion house said it filed

for insolvency under self-administration for Rena Lange Holding GmbH Tuesday night, as well as in-solvency in standard procedure for the 100 percent subsidiary M.Lange & Co. GmbH.

The company noted it expects an administrator to be appointed in the very near future, and would con-tinue operating and retain the firm’s holding structure.

The almost 100-year-old brand was sold to Salzburg, Austria-based Rudigier & Partners in December 2012. Simon Rudigier, who also assumed the role of manag-ing director, was not available for comment.

The brand, which currently operates 21 stores, was in the midst of stepping up its international re-tail expansion, with doors planned in Paris, New York, Moscow, Milan and Los Angeles. The Paris opening, scheduled for June 2014 on Faubourg Saint-Honoré, did not take place.

On the design end, former Carolina Herrera design director Ludwig Heissmeyer joined Rena Lange as creative director in May.

Sources close to the company said it faced liquidity problems as the label strove to expand and strengthen its position in the international luxury market.

Rena Lange Files For Insolvency

Lululemon Stock Spikes on Q2 GainCherian Joins VF In Innovation Role

’’’’

Our goal is to shape the future of apparel

and footwear. — STEVE RENDLE, VF CORP.

By ARNOLD J. KARR

WORKOUT WEAR SPECIALIST Lululemon Athletica Inc. regained some favor in the investment commu-nity Thursday with second-quarter results that beat modest expectations and a forecast of positive comparable sales in the third quarter.

Shares shot up $5.34, or 13.9 per-cent, to close at $43.73 in Nasdaq trading, their highest close since June 11, the day before the firm re-ported disappointing first-quarter earnings. But the stock is still 43.8 percent below its 52-week high of $77.75 reached Oct. 4.

Investors were encouraged by “beats” on both the top and bottom line, by projections of a comp in-crease in the new quarter, by inven-tory levels that rose less than sales and by product adjustments made under the stewardship of chief prod-uct officer Tara Poseley.

But concerns remained about intensified competition in the yo-gawear category from players such as Gap Inc.’s Athleta business and possible margin erosion as the com-pany becomes more dependent on transitional fashion products and less reliant on core items. There is also uncertainty about the com-pany’s ability to get its 270 stores, principally in North America, back into positive comp territory on a sustained basis.

As a result, most analysts track-ing the firm maintained “neutral” or “market perform” ratings for the stock.

“We do not believe this quarter is anything that gives us confidence to say Lulu is on a straight path to recovery,” commented Wells Fargo Securities analyst Paul Lejuez. “We continue to expect many more bumps along the road as competi-tion intensifies in the category and Lulu strives to find the right balance between basics and fashion.”

The bumps have been many for the once high-flying stock in recent seasons, from its recall of overly sheer Luon yoga pants in early 2013 to its battle with founder and former chief executive officer Chip Wilson, recently settled with the sale of about half of his shares to Advent International.

Those struggles were at least

temporarily in the rear-view mirror Thursday as the company reported net income of $48.7 million, or 33 cents a diluted share, for the three months ended Aug. 3. While 13.7 percent below the $56.5 million, or 39 cents, reported in the comparable 2013 period, the earnings per share result was 4 cents better than ana-lysts, on average, had expected.

Revenues, expected to hit $376.8 million, exceeded estimates as well,

rising 13.4 percent to $390.7 mil-lion from $344.5 million a year ago. Comparable sales were flat on a con-stant-dollar basis, with same-store sales down 5 percent and direct-to-consumer revenues up 30 percent to $63.5 million. The flat comp result exceeded the 2.9 percent decline ex-pected by Retail Metrics.

Gross margin receded to 50.5 percent from 54 percent while op-erating margin pulled back 555 basis points to 17.4 percent of sales, the largest such drop since the Luon recall cut into first-quarter results in 2013.

John Currie, chief financial offi-cer, gave an upbeat assessment of re-cent trends in the company’s stores on a conference call with analysts.

“For the past couple of quar-ters, traffic has been down and that’s what’s negatively impacted our comp,” he said. “But in Q2, actually traffic was slightly posi-tive, so that’s encouraging. But the comp is adversely impacted by lower conversion and average bas-ket, which is consistent with the fact that our product assortment wasn’t ideal, but again encourag-ing in terms of trend.”

Lululemon expects better in the current third quarter, with comps forecast to increase in the low-single digits on a constant dollar basis. “This guidance still implies a negative store-only comp in the low-single-digit range for Q3, which could still cause [de-leveraging] on fixed expenses,” commented Janney Capital Markets analyst Adrienne Tennant, who maintained her “neu-tral” rating on the stock. While im-pressed by the firm’s inventory dis-cipline — inventories were up 7.6 percent to $176.5 million versus the year-ago level — she expressed con-cern about competition not only from Athleta but also from Under Armour Inc., which is looking to expand its penetration in women’s products.

For the third quarter, Lululemon projected net revenues between $420 million and $425 million and EPS of between 36 and 38 cents. On average, analysts estimated rev-enues of $421.9 million and EPS of 38 cents in the current quarter.

First-half net income dropped 35.2 percent to $67.7 million, or 46 cents, while revenues advanced 12.3 percent to $775.3 million.

$43.73CLOSE OF NASDAQ SHARES

ON THURSDAY.

Colonna Opens First Paris Boutique

Apparel pieces, done in a subdued palette, are slated to change every 10 days.

Lululemon is anticipating a rise in comps for the third quarter.

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12 WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

London Makes Contemporary PushBy SAMANTHA CONTI

LONDON — It’s been more than a decade since Markus Lupfer, the German-born, London-educated designer, staged a run-way show during London Fashion Week. Since he dropped off the calendar, his once-fledgling busi-ness has blossomed into a mul-timillion-dollar enterprise, and Beyoncé, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry have all been snapped wearing the clothes.

Lupfer has since returned to London Fashion Week, which begins today and runs through Tuesday, but he does presentations instead of runway shows. British fashion industry executives rou-tinely hold him up as a shining ex-ample of the magic that can hap-pen when designers move into the contemporary or advanced con-temporary marketplace.

“With the right execution, structure and geographical mix, the ability to reach 20 million to 30 million pounds [$30 million to $50 million at current exchange] in sales is just around the cor-ner,” said Stefano Martinetto, chief executive officer of the international sales and show-room Tomorrow, which repre-sents names including Lupfer, Richard Nicoll, Derek Lam, Marni, Kara Ross, Jonathan Saunders and Andrea Pompilio. “London’s designers could be selling to hundreds of thousands of people, and I would hate to see them waste the opportunity.”

Martinetto believes there is ample room for designers here to bring their European aesthet-ic to a market where brands like Alexander Wang, Tory Burch and Rag & Bone are flourishing.

Lupfer, whose business was turning over 300,000 pounds, or $490,000 — at most — a decade ago, said his eureka moment came after a conversation with a buyer at Henri Bendel who had asked him to create some designs for the store’s Atrium.

“Something changed in me,” said Lupfer. “I wanted the focus to shift from the show to the shop floor, to find out what the end customer wanted, and to service them. I wanted to be an affordable, contemporary brand.” Instead of pouring money and time into staging fashion shows, he spent it on boxing his deliveries properly, beefing up his service and re-order facilities, and responding to stores’ requests more quickly.

Despite Lupfer’s success — stockists include Lane Crawford, Net-a-porter.com, Harrods, Selfridges, and luisaviaroma.com — few London names have cho-sen to follow his lead, until now. As this city’s younger generation of designers matures and grap-ples with the inevitable financial demands of building businesses, some are taking the leap into the advanced contemporary market, which has traditionally been dominated by American labels.

That fact comes as no sur-prise to designer Thomas Tait. “I think there’s a certain idea that when you start a fashion label in America, you [do it] be-cause you want to have a busi-ness. In London, you start a fashion label because you are a designer. We’ve gone to art schools that teach painting just as they teach fashion design.

You have to figure out the rest as you go along the way,” he said.

If London’s designers do take up the contemporary challenge en masse, it will mark a turning point in a city best known for creative juice, edgy fashion and price points that compete with those of the big international brands. The wheels are already in motion: The J.W. Anderson and House of Holland labels are fast consolidating their presence in the advanced contemporary market, while names such as Richard Nicoll, Todd Lynn and Christopher Raeburn are eyeing the category with interest.

Net-a-porter founder and

British Fashion Council chair-man Natalie Massenet has been a fervent supporter of design-ers moving into the contem-porary arena, and in July, the BFC and eBay launched BFC Contemporary, which is aimed at supporting the relevant de-signers with mentoring and commercial opportunities.

Limited-edition items de-signed by this year’s winners — Alexis Barrell, Georgia Hardinge, Paper London, Prism and Zoe Jordan — will be sold in the first BFC Contemporary shop on eBay.co.uk to mark the launch of London Fashion Week. “These designers mark a new wave in British contemporary design, the rise of which we aim to fuel with this new initiative,” said Caroline Rush, ceo of the BFC.

For Henry Holland, the move into advanced contemporary hasn’t been easy — he made the decision to slash his 50 percent profit margins — but it has been worth it. “If you are a London de-signer with a runway show, you’re perceived as belonging on the in-ternational designer floor — but we don’t make sense on the same floor as Céline,” he said. He re-called a conversation a few years ago with a showroom agent who told Holland that his customers loved House of Holland designs

but could not afford them.“I never set out to alien-

ate my T-shirt customer, and the DNA of my brand is about having fun, so it’s difficult to ask them to part with the kind of money they’d use to buy a car,” said the designer, whose collection will be stocked at Neiman Marcus later this year. Designing for the contemporary market, he said, isn’t so differ-ent from what he was doing in the past. “It’s the same level of design. It’s not about selling a new look, but about creating covetable, desirable pieces your customer has to have.”

Holland’s company remains

self-funded, and he has been using his ongoing collabora-tion with the British depart-ment store Debenhams, part of the Designers at Debenhams program, to fuel the business. His approach is far more prag-matic than it ever was. He and the team look at a garment, and think about how much his customer would want to pay for it. “Then we work backwards from there.”

Nicoll is moving in a similar direction. “It’s interesting to re-assess and readjust the business model, to redefine where you sit in the marketplace when you’re no longer the new kid on the block,” said the designer, who admits he’s “heading toward” advanced contemporary.

“We do well with our silk sep-arates, jersey, sweatshirts and wardrobe staples, while active-wear suits our brand’s DNA,” added Nicoll, who for spring has begun collaborating with the British brand Sweaty Betty on clothing with a sporty twist, such as performance cashmere and running dresses with built-in shorts and reflective panels. He said future collections will be increasingly lifestyle- oriented, and may not even lend them-selves to the traditional runway.

Todd Lynn has plunged

fully into the new market. Like Lupfer, he wanted to shift the focus from the show to the store floor and get close to the end customer. “The runway shows are p.r. initiatives and the busi-ness happens at another time altogether — namely during the pre-collection — and you can’t do both,” said Lynn, who has reduced his prices by about 30 percent and begun focusing on delivering full pre-collections to the stores on time.

Simon Whitehouse, the new ceo of J.W. Anderson who has worked with labels including Matthew Williamson, Diesel Black Gold and DKNY, said

London’s young designers are being schooled in a different way from their predecessors, and get-ting more guidance from a busi-ness and structural point of view.

“They know that for a busi-ness to succeed they need to look at it from a 360-degree angle. The new generation’s reach is broader and quicker with Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and their scale and potential are unlimited. In the past, they were too focused on the front end, the p.r. side of the business. They were almost too excited about it,” Whitehouse said, adding that he understood “within 16 sec-onds of meeting” Anderson, that the designer was an entrepre-neur as well as a creative.

Anderson, like Christopher Kane, Roksanda Ilincic, and Nicholas Kirkwood, is among a handful of London designers to land serious investment either from the big brands or long-term private investors. The majority of designers may never have a big name like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton or Kering come knocking. They’re determined not to take the contemporary route and to remain in the high-end designer category.

“Just as much as another brand might be starting a label and saying, ‘Right, we can’t ex-

ceed a certain price point be-cause we want to sell it,’ I’m also fully aware that the kind of clothes I make aren’t going to become commercially suc-cessful in two or three years,” said Tait, who earlier this year scooped the inaugural LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize, which comes with a cash prize of 300,000 euros, or $409,270 at current exchange, plus a year of coaching from executives. “I won’t bang out a T-shirt range next season, that’s just not me. So I know it’s not going to be easy, and I know it’s going to need financial support and manufacturing support from ex-ternal resources.”

Other designers, such as Erdem Moralioglu and Osman Yousefzada, have been steadily building their businesses with-out any big-ticket investments or plans to move into the contem-porary market and they plan to stay the course, at least for now.

“There have been tough sea-sons, seasons where you cry and you don’t know where the money is going to come from for the zips and the fabrics,” said Yousefzada, who said his business is profitable with sales growth in the high double digits. He has just unveiled a partner-ship with American Express to design uniforms for the Amex Insiders concierges at London Fashion Week, and there are other retail collaborations in the pipeline.

A Brit whose family is originally from Afghanistan, Yousefzada’s ultimate goal is to have a large wholesale business with freestanding stores, and he’s aware he’ll need outside investment to make the leap. “These are ex-citing times, really. We have a product that a lot of people want, and we still have to de-velop the collection, to create a wardrobe,” he said.

Moralioglu, another designer whose business remains inde-pendent, said he never made a deliberate decision to go it alone. The designer, who will celebrate his 10th anniversary in business next year, has never had any outside investment, and currently oversees a staff of more than 40. He is opening his first stand-alone store, on South Audley Street, in the spring, all financed by his company. “It was always about growing organi-cally, incrementally. At the be-ginning there were some harder moments, but I’ve been very, very fortunate to develop rela-tionships with stores and retail-ers,” he said.

Moralioglu said he has clocked many hours with edi-tors and with retailers, doing trunk shows in places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. “Growth happens when people buy what you do. The trunk shows helped me understand who the customer was and what she wanted. As a designer, you have to know her and stay close to her.” The designer said the company is still growing, and there are no plans at the mo-ment to take on external invest-ment. “It depends on the part-nership and the timing. Never say never. But at the moment it’s completely feasible to continue as an independent company. It’s what I know.”

Richard Nicoll

House of Holland

Christopher Raeburn

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WWD.COM13

He sat down with WWD to riff on ev-erything from fashion tomes and adver-tising to his own megastardom:

WWD: Why did you decide to do a newspaper for your brand?K.L.: Because I hadn’t seen anybody else doing it in that way. And I think it’s fun, it’s modern, it’s not pretentious. It’s like a private joke.

It’s something that’s at the same time ironic and yet covers the promotion part of it. It doesn’t want to be taken seriously, but in fact it’s very serious.

WWD: How many newspapers do you read a day?K.L.: If I had more hours, I would read more. Somebody in the 18th century once said, “I’m reading because I don’t want to think.” That’s not true. I read because I like to read, not because I don’t want to think. I read whenever I can, but you know, between the collections, the photos, and all the other things I do, interviews included, there is not so much time left, huh?

WWD: What do you like about newspapers and magazines?K.L.: I love paper. I’m a paper freak. Paper is the material I use for sketching. I always need to have paper under my fingers in order to express myself. I like newspapers. Maybe the iPad is very modern and everything, and I’m not against it, but I like the physical contact. And the physical contact of metal and glass is not as sensuous as paper.

WWD: Could you ever see print publications disappearing entirely?K.L.: You know, theater didn’t disappear because of TV. And opera didn’t disappear because of records. But if publishing companies don’t want paper to disappear, they have to make an effort to be good — and well written. Because nothing is worse than a poorly written magazine. There are some people — I don’t even look at their articles because I don’t care about what they think, what they write and so on. I won’t give you names because I am a very nice person.

WWD: Do you see the quality of journalism increasing or decreasing?K.L.: There are not so many who know how to write decently about fashion and who have the technical knowledge and culture. The others are very basic: They want to be trendy. They think trendiness is more important than knowledge.

Blogs are a little overrated. But in a way, it also changes something because the established writers have to make an effort. Because today people go on the Internet, on the blogs, so don’t be too much like a fashion teacher, no? Don’t be heavy, huh?

WWD: You’ve been critical of establishment fashion magazines. What could or should they do differently?K.L.: Don’t be overestablished because then you can become a bore, or you just become something to put ads in.

The editor in chief of a magazine has to be a battlefield person: to get it first, to get it better. They have to fight for it. The biggest danger in those things is comfort. Too much elegant traveling, palace hotels, and perhaps not enough work.

It depends: Some magazines do well. And the ones who are not doing well, maybe they should look at their magazines, and find something to improve. When I go to Colette, I see all those new magazines with the most improbable names. How do they get the

money? How do they manage it? They don’t have so much advertising. It’s often on beautiful paper. It’s beautifully printed very often. They have good photographers, good stylists, so maybe it’s something that the very established titles should consider and look at.

WWD: Has shooting campaigns yourself changed the way you look at advertising?

K.L.: Yes. I think so, but I never told myself. It was never formulated. It’s inside evolution. I love to shoot campaigns. It’s apparently pretty well received. I think my Chanel campaigns and Fendi campaigns are not too bad.

I love advertising. Anyway, today, if you really want to see fashion, you learn through advertising as it’s very often not the exaggerated styling in fashion spreads when you see 20 labels on one page. Don’t get me wrong: It’s a good thing to be creative, because designers who say, “My clothes have to be shown like this,” I think it’s very pretentious. I like the idea that people play with the things I do and put them in other contexts, like women do in life, but it has to be done well. It’s OK when it’s done by Carine Roitfeld or Charlotte Stockdale, but sometimes by others, it’s just confusion.

WWD: As a photographer, you seem to thrive on new technologies in cameras and printing.K.L.: Because it’s the newest things of our times, so why should we think things were better before? It was just different, as things didn’t exist. Do you remember life before the iPhone? Do you remember life without the iPad? No, and I don’t want to remember. Now we overreact, because it’s new. I can’t wait for the

iPhone 6. It’s my only ambition in life to have it quickly. They almost stopped New York Fashion Week for that.

WWD: You make a lot of movies, especially for Chanel. Is the future of fashion also about moving images, in your view?K.L.: We live in the world of images, but we also live in the world of the Internet, of zapping and where people move. You can make little videos on your phone. I love very composed images, but the idea of moving pictures with a story, with a plot is quite interesting, too. It captures the attention a few seconds longer.

WWD: You are well represented in social media professionally, but don’t participate personally. Do you ever feel like you’re missing out in any way?

K.L.: I don’t do it for personal reasons because I don’t want anybody to get inside my private life. I have no desire to share anything with unknown persons.

Those social networks, there’s something sad about them. Is it because they don’t have enough knowledge about friends and people? I don’t understand it. It’s like a talkative mirror where people talk to themselves. And what I hate most in life is selfies.

WWD: You’re extremely at ease in front of the TV camera. Did you ever take any training or did it all come naturally?K.L.: I was trained by my mother. She taught how to behave or not to behave. Compared with her, I am very shy.

To me, a TV camera is a piece of metal with electricity and glass. I don’t see the difference in talking to you or to millions. I like to be on TV when interviewers are good. I like it especially when it’s live. When they can cut things, I don’t like it as much. Sometimes they cut something and

say, “Well, you would get in trouble, you would get a lawsuit.” I tell them, “Well, I don’t want my lawyers to be unemployed.”

WWD: You seem to be of the school that there’s no such thing as too much publicity. Do you ever feel overexposed.K.L.: I do nothing. It comes to me; I’m not running after it. I still don’t understand why I can’t cross the street anymore.

But you know, the whole thing about me could not have existed 15 or 20 years ago. I am kind of virtual myself. Look, I go nowhere and yet people know me. Who tells you that I am real? I don’t go to parties; you don’t see me on the red carpet very often. I only go to things related to my business.

WWD: Do you read and watch all the press about yourself?K.L.: No, never. You know why? For a very simple reason: You lose your spontaneity if you look at it. I don’t want to see me.

WWD: Can you talk a little bit about your love of books?K.L.: It’s not difficult for me to buy books. And I pay for books in my own bookshop. I get only a 5 percent discount. I am very much against the idea that you get it for free because it’s your bookshop.

WWD: How do you account for the glut of fashion books, especially large-format ones?K.L.: I must say, some are not very beautifully made. They’re coffee-table books for people who drink alcohol. I have nothing against coffee-table books as long as they are well done. They must not look like gravestones on a table. Sometimes they are too big, they come in boxes and things like this. No, a book has to be easy to open and you don’t have to be a bodybuilder to lift it. I like books I can read in bed. Those big tombstones would kill me.

WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Karl Lagerfeld Talks Media

’’

’’

If publishing companies don’t want

paper to disappear, they have to make an

effort to be good — and well written.

{Continued from page one}

MEDIAPEOPLE’’

’’Those social networks, there’s something

sad about them. … It’s like a talkative mirror where people talk to themselves.

— KARL LAGERFELD

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14 WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

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FOR MANY YEARS now, Chloë Sevigny has been a fixture in the fashion industry, everything from an “It” girl to a muse to an ersatz designer. In the new Amazon pilot “The Cosmopolitans,” by her “Last Days of Disco” director Whit Stillman, Sevigny gets to reverse roles. She plays a fashion journalist, a wry observer of the scene rather than one of its more-recognizable faces.

On Thursday, she was at the presentation of her sixth collaboration with Opening Ceremony, when she considered the sheer grind the collections season must be for all those fashion drones she’s met over the years. “They’re very hardworking,” she said. “You have to have a lot of humor and perseverance to work in this business. They’re all big cogs in the wheel of this insane industry.”

Tell me about it, Chloë. As New York Fashion Week drew to a close, it was hard not

to think of the marathon that accompanied it:

the dinners, the luncheons, the presentations, the

cocktails, the after parties, the after-after

parties, the Brooklyn raves, the Hell’s Kitchen

raves, and on and on. And there’s still Europe.

On Tuesday, Langley Fox, Ernest Hemingway’s great-

granddaughter, was at the Jane hotel for Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s after party following their spring Rodarte show. Laura was celebrating her 34th birthday with a cake shaped like Tom Selleck’s character in “Magnum P.I.” Why? “Because we love

‘Magnum P.I.!’” she said. They followed it up with a Domino’s pizza party, and why not? It was almost the end of fashion week, they might as well indulge.

Wednesday afternoon had been more sedate. W magazine convened a luncheon for “It” girls. Or, anyway, those girls the magazine has determined must

have “It” — Fox, Dakota Fanning, Chiara Ferragni, Hanneli Mustaparta, Atlanta de Cadenet, Kilo Kish. There are different varieties of this species, but they’re all invariably cute and perky

and buzzy. Naomi Campbell’s “It” girl-ness, then, must be a state of mind.

No doubt about it, Campbell could once claim the enviable title, but does she still consider herself one? “I never did think of myself as an ‘It’ girl. I never have. It’s what you guys call me,” she said, referring to the press. “I’m not into labels.”

Campbell was in Manhattan for a venture she declined to discuss. But it just so happened to coincide with fashion week, and she stepped up to the challenge of making a handful of appearances — on Diane von Furstenberg’s runway; at the Versus Versace show; at the Fashion Rocks concert. Heavy is the head of the girl that wears the “It” crown. And, so, what was Campbell’s advice to those hoping to one day earn the label?

She boiled down her philosophy to one simple credo: “You have to be true to your integrity and what you do,” she said. And that means: “Be where you want to be and do what you want to do. What’s really important is to be you.” Or her.

Much, much later, Jeremy Scott’s after party stretched on until the wee hours. A line of club kids snaked around a new venue called Space Ibiza New York that opened recently near the West Side Highway in Midtown, a part of the city that looks nothing like Ibiza. Outside, a drug dealer walked around casually selling the drug commonly known as Molly, or MDMA, as if she was outside of an electronic music festival. In a way, she was. They were all there hoping to see their queen bee of the moment, Miley Cyrus, who’d made an appearance at Scott’s spring show earlier in the day. And just look at the front rows this past week — Skrillex, the electronic music

superstar, has been everywhere — at Alexander Wang, Opening Ceremony, Versace. He even turned up uninvited at a Bon Appétit dinner for jewelry designer Pamela Love Tuesday night. “Oh, I don’t know him,” Love said. “I think he is friends with my friends.”

Inside Space, Scott, Diplo, Skrillex, and Leigh Lezark and Geordon Nicol of the Misshapes presided from the DJ’s booth over a crowd gyrating under strobe lights to a relentless loop of oontz, oontz, oontz. “I feel like I’m in the opening scene to a ‘Law & Order: SVU’ episode,” cracked one greasy-haired editor. The venue was segregated — the dance floor was for those in patent platforms and raver makeup, for the girl with the Moschino tote strung around her neck like a necklace and the guy in the Speedo, fringed jacket and cowboy hat. The VIP section was for Scout Willis, Shayne Oliver, Whoopi Goldberg (yes, really) and Taryn Manning of “Orange is the New Black.”

A little after 1 a.m., Cyrus was nowhere in sight and an unannounced Madonna snuck out of Scott’s booth and headed into the night, as if to punctuate the scene. Later, in an Instagram photo of her evening, she wrote, “I just want to rave in the back.”

— ERIK MAZA, TAYLOR HARRIS, KRISTEN TAUER AND LAUREN MCCARTHY

eye

FOR MORE PHOTOS, SEE

WWD.com/eye.

Kim Gordon at the Chloë Sevigny for Opening Ceremony presentation.

Jeremy Scott

Laura Mulleavy

Naomi Campbell in Azzedine Alaïa, and

Dakota Fanning.

Madonna and Diplo

Skrillex at a Pamela Love

dinner.

Langley Fox at a W magazine luncheon.

Chloë Sevigny in one of

her designs for Opening Ceremony.

Leigh Lezark in Jeremy Scott.

Oontz Oontz Oontz

WWD.COM15WWD FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

VISITING THE NEIGHBORS: Julianne Moore is an actress long accustomed to sitting front row at fashion shows. But over the years, she’d managed to miss one.

“I’ve never seen a Ralph show,” she said at the designer’s Thursday morning show in the West Village.

It was purely a matter of timing and work commitments that caused her never to be able to attend before. In fact, she missed the Polo for Women blowout in Central Park on Monday because she was at the Toronto Film Festival promoting two movies, “Still Alice” and “Maps to the Stars.” The irony is that Moore knows the Laurens socially.

“He’s my neighbor, actually,” she said. “The last time I saw him and Ricky was at John’s [Drive-In] in Montauk.”

And the acquaintance goes back some time. “His son David used to be my tenant when I bought my house,” she said. “David was renting an apartment in the bottom two floors, and he stayed until we did renovations.”

After the show, Moore was planning on going back to work, though this time in New York, on a new film, “Freeheld.”

— ERIK MAZA

QUICK EXIT: After merely one runway show, Graeme Black is leaving his post as creative director of Les Copains and is to be succeeded by Stefania Bandiera, whose first collection will bow for spring on Sept. 19 in Milan. Bandiera has been part of the brand’s design team for years and is expected to bring continuity. The designer is also the wife of Mario Bandiera, who launched Les Copains 60 years ago. Over the years, Les Copains has worked with designers such as Antonio Marras, Antonio Berardi, Albino d’Amato and Alessandro Dell’Acqua.

The company said its restructuring coincided with Black’s desire to focus on his own creative projects, although the designer had signed on for two years as part of Les Copains’ brand repositioning strategy and internationalization of the label.

His collection for Les Copains in February was received with mixed reviews. WWD reported that the designer’s attempts “ended up in limbo” and that his “vision remains unclear.” — LUISA ZARGANI

TACO TEMPTATION: On Wednesday night, Lizzy Caplan turned up front row at Proenza Schouler’s spring show at 23 Wall Street. What was she doing there? “I was here to get a taco, and then they said [to] stick around for a fashion show,” she deadpanned. No, really — “I’m still waiting on that taco. There are no tacos in this building.”

For Caplan, this was the second show of her first New York Fashion Week. The young actress, who started out in comedy — you may remember her from “Mean Girls” — is beginning to pique the interest of designers as she’s earned acclaim for her dramatic turn on the series “Masters of Sex.” Earlier, she just met Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough before the show. In August, Caplan had her breakout red-carpet moment, when she wore a striking Donna Karan black-and-white gown to the Emmy awards, where she was nominated for best actress. “I guess I’ll wear [Proenza] next year if I ever get to go to the Emmys again,” she said. She never did get that taco.

— E.M.

YOUNG CROP: The last day of New York Fashion Week typically revolves around three names: Ralph, Calvin and Marc. On Thursday morning, a new batch of young designers infiltrated the scene as the CFDA’s current Fashion Incubator class debuted their collections on DigitalFashionShows.com, a production of KCD Digital. The 10 designers that presented were A Peace Treaty, Dezso, Isa Tapia, Kaelen, Kara, Katie Ermilio, Lucio Castro, Nomia, Misha Nonoo and Orley. Each collection was filmed by David Boatman, of Boatman Media, to culminate in 10 two-minute videos, which can be embedded and downloaded. Product images are also available for download directly from the program. The CFDA additionally held an open house on Thursday morning to showcase the designer’s works in person for press and retailers.

The digital showcase, presented by Target, marks the CFDA’s second in this online forum. “Our work with the CFDA Fashion Incubator offers us a chance to nurture talent that has the potential to shape the future of fashion,” said Noria Morales, director of design partnerships at Target. “At its core, fashion week is an opportunity for designers to share their brand vision with a vital audience: the fashion community.”

The sponsorship comes exactly one week after Target started fashion week with a party to celebrate its upcoming Altuzarra collection.

— LAUREN MCCARTHY

KEEPING THEM GUESSING IN TORONTO: One of the best spots for stargazing during the Toronto International Film Festival was the Guess Denim Lounge at the festival headquarters. Inside, Getty Images and WireImage shoot celebs before and after their press conferences, held in the next room, and L’Oréal touches up anybody daring enough to arrive without their hair and makeup teams in tow.

“What is this?” Al Pacino, who stars in “Manglehorn,” gasped when he walked in. Jennifer Aniston, who stopped by the space last year, already knew. “I love the denim lounge,” she exclaimed, eyeing the fully-stocked jeans bar.

Aniston, who severely de-glammed for her role in “Cake,” looked picture-perfect offscreen and bonded with pal Laura Dern, who picked up a denim shirt from the fall collection. Reese Witherspoon, snacking on caramel popcorn, browsed the clothing rack, landing on a budget-friendly embroidered shirt dress (which retails for under $100). “I love this! It’s so Nashville,” she said. Witherspoon’s reference was spot-on, as the campaign was actually inspired by Claudia Schiffer’s iconic Nineties images and shot in the same spots in the country music capital.

The Southwestern theme — snakeskin, fringe, coated denim and cowboy boots — extended to the lounge decor, too, which featured a cowhide rug, denim chairs and a leather couch. Looky-loos were kept out, as celebs were escorted by heavy security and the large glass window was transformed into a wood-paneled wall,

complete with a skull and framed photos of the latest Guess girls, including Bojana Urosevic and Yara Khmidan.

Organizers should have known better than to tempt Hollywood’s leading ladies with pastries, but the caramel and tri-colored popcorn was a hit, with Keira Knightley going back for seconds. Andrew Garfield opted to sip coffee at the espresso bar, and Ethan Hawke wondered aloud if daughter Maya would want the sherpa vest. In the end, Jena Malone was one of the few to walk away with swag in hand: a tuxedo vest. Note to Witherspoon: the dress — in your size — is in the mail. — JENNY SUNDEL

NEW TOME: Costume National’s creative director Ennio Capasa is presenting his first book at Milanese luxury shopping mecca 10 Corso Como on Friday. Titled “A New

World,” the book, published by Italian company Bompiani, is focused on the two years Capasa spent in Tokyo in the Eighties. “I’ve never thought of writing a biography. Actually, I tried to tell a story.

I’ve tried to give the impression of having a video camera in my hands,” said Capasa, who was 20 when he left his native Apulia in 1983 to move to Japan, where he worked for two years as part of Yohji Yamamoto’s design team.

Written in a very individual and rhythmic style, the book, which is currently available only in Italian but is expected to be translated into English soon, collects a range of episodes and touches on very personal aspects of Capasa’s life. These include his tight relationship with his family as well as the very different loves and sexual experiences he had in Japan, which, as the book’s title underscores, felt part of a completely different, new world for the young Capasa. — ALESSANDRA TURRA

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Hear Copping to Join Oscar{Continued from page one}

undergraduate and postgradu-ate internships, including with Christian Lacroix during his poufy prime in the Eighties, an experience Copping described as “fantastic.” Prior to Ricci, Copping spent 12 years as head of Marc Jacobs’ atelier at Louis Vuitton, where the aesthetic veered wildly from season to season — what was extreme and architectural for fall, for ex-ample, might give way to a car-toonish spring. But Copping has always favored Gallic romance. “The more feminine collections came easier somehow,” he said. “It felt more natural.” Perhaps Copping can channel his inner American at Oscar.

De la Renta, 82, has been looking for a design collaborator and possible successor for some time — most visibly in 2013, when he hired John Galliano for a three-week designer-in-residence role. Galliano’s influ-ence was very visible in de la Renta’s subsequent fall 2013 col-lection. It was a bold risk for de la Renta, who later was said to have engaged the controversial Galliano in advanced talks of permanent employment, which eventually disintegrated when the former Dior designer pushed to bring his own staff with him.

Born in the Dominican Republic, de la Renta has helmed his own label since 1965. Prior to that, he appren-ticed for Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio Castillo at Lanvin. He designed for Balmain from 1993 to 2002, but is mostly as-sociated with New York City uptown polish. Charming and

outspoken, de la Renta has been known to run in high-profile political circles and is a close friend of Henry Kissinger and the Clintons. Earlier this week at his spring show, each seat was topped by a Wild Republic stuffed elephant toy, to support the movement against ivory poachers, a pet cause of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton; the stuffed animal also implied de la Renta’s support of Hillary in 2016. De la Renta has always been active in the fashion com-munity as well, having twice held the position of CFDA president.

In 2004, de la Renta named his son-in-law Alex Bolen as chief executive officer of his company, preferring to keep it a family business. His stepdaughter Eliza Bolen oversees de la Renta’s $250 million licensing business. They clearly see it as a growing enterprise. Oscar de la Renta Inc. quietly sold a 20 percent stake in the company to GF Capital Management & Advisors in sum-mer 2010 to provide additional fi-nancing to launch its own beauty business and expand retail.

Still, the issue of succes-sion rose as de la Renta battled health issues in recent years. “For a long time, I have always worried about what will happen to the brand when I am no lon-ger here,” de la Renta told WWD last year. “I plan to be here for a very, very long time. But having my family involved in the busi-ness, now I know there is conti-nuity. To be clear, my only fear that I have every morning is, when are they going to fire me?”

It seems no one is getting fired — just hired, in Copping’s case.

Peter Copping

…fall 2013… …and fall 2014.

Nina Ricci, spring 2010…

Oscar de la Renta at his spring show.

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