Tom Ford
Marie Albiges is a senior editor for NAPCO Media's Retail & Travel Group, including Total Retail, Women in Retail, and Women Leading Travel & Hospitality. She is responsible for content development, management and production for the group. Marie is a former journalist, a travel aficionado, a French native and fitness enthusiast who lives in Philadelphia with her partner, stepdaughter and dog.
On April 1, super-luxury brand Chanel announced that it would be opening an e-commerce store this fall. It wasn't an April Fool's joke, and legions of fashion-forward Frenchwomen would have been forgiven for gasping in shock, since it was only in 2013 that Chanel's global director of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky said that "fashion is about clothing, and clothing you need to see, to feel, to understand."
Excitement abounds at Macy's. The company reported total sales of $27.9 billion, comparable store sales grew 2.8 percent (which includes sales from licensed departments), earnings rose 19 percent to $3.86 billion. The stores look terrific. Renovation of the Herald Square store is about 85 percent complete and is brimming with name brand vendors, from Gucci to Vuitton, Burberry to Longchamps, Michael Kors to Coach, Hermes to Tumi and Tom Ford to Bobbi Brown. The store has a new look, with updated departments such as the new shoe floor.
The first-ever Tom Ford women’s shop-in-shop has launched inside of Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York. The shop is the second location for Ford’s womenswear in New York, joining the designer’s flagship at 845 Madison Ave. Bergdorf Goodman also was the first to open a Tom Ford men’s shop-in-shop in 2008, and will follow through in November 2011 with an expanded Tom Ford beauty boutique.
Last month, retail giant Nordstrom scooped up HauteLook faster than a savvy shopper will snap up a $425 pair of Tom Ford sunglasses discounted to $129. The luxury chain’s purchase of downtown L.A.’s HauteLook for $180 million in stock reflects the growing popularity of “flash sale” websites like HauteLook. It’s the first time ever that a brick-and-mortar retailer has acquired a flash-sale site company, showing the importance of such sites as traditional retailers look to tap into the $176 billion U.S. online shopping industry.
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