The German luxury fashion house Escada has been sold to Megha Mittal (daughter-in-law of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal) for an undisclosed price, the company said on Thursday.
“Today the insolvency administrator of ESCADA AG signed a sale and transfer agreement with one of the Mittal Family Trusts,” the company said in a statement late on Thursday after the preliminary creditors’ committee approved the deal.
The statement also said: “The board of management and the new investor have agreed to cooperate on the basis of the business strategy launched in mid-2008 securing continuity of the operative business.”
All assets, shares and subsidiaries of the Escada business will be transferred to Mittal, excluding those that serve as guarantor for the Escada bond.
Escada, once one of the world’s top fashion brands, filed for insolvency in August after years of diminishing sales.
Italian fashion house Versace is cutting about a quarter of its global workforce and expects to post a loss this year as it takes a hit from slumping demand for luxury goods and designer items in the financial crisis.
The celebrity-favorite fashion brand, whose gowns are worn byHollywood actresses such as Angelina Jolie, is taking measures aimed at returning the group to profitability in 2011, it said in an emailed statement.
A source close to the company said Versace had a pretax loss of 400,000 euros ($593,400) last year and this would widen to 30 million this year.
Versace, which has a total workforce of 1,360, said it would cut about 350 jobs worldwide in a reorganization plan which will see it rationalize production facilities, review its store network, reduce capital investment next year and cut overheads.
All measures will be implemented by the middle of next year.
“Trading conditions in the wake of the global financial crisis have been severe and the company expects to make a loss in 2009,” Chief Executive Gian Giacomo Ferraris said in the statement.
Source
White Ribbon Alliance charity is to benefit from Louis Vuitton bag sales.
The designer, Marc Jacobs, creative director of Louis Vuitton, and the British supermodel, Naomi Campbell, are to collaborate in a new project to support one of the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown’s favourite charities, The White Ribbon Alliance.
Louis Vuitton will donate a portion of sales from a bag from the new spring/summer 2010 collection, designed by Jacobs, to the charity.
Ms Campbell, who is a Global Ambassador for the White Ribbon Alliance, made a special visit to the Louis Vuitton headquarters in Paris, recently, to choose the bag.
Source
Tags: british supermodel, campbell naomi, fashion brand, fashion house, fashion industry, fashion news, Louis Vuitton, marc jacob, Marc Jacobs, models, Naomi, Naomi Campbell, sarah brown, supermodel
Fashion, Super modelgirl | 
Comments (0)
Companies should be able to buy their rivals’ brand names on Google allowing them to “piggyback” on searches for other products, according to a preliminary court decision.
Fashion label Louis Vuitton had challenged the search engine for showing internet users results from other sources when they looked up its name.
A French court ruled in its favour, but the case was passed to the European Court of Justice.
In an interim legal “opinion” in the EU’s highest court, an Advocate-General indicated that Google had not infringed trademark rights by allowing advertisers to buy keywords corresponding to registered trademarks.
Under current Google policy, users are shown the name of advertisers who have purchased keywords relating to their search on the right-hand side of the screen under the heading “sponsored links”.
Source
