After Jil Sander, Helmut Lanng has left Prada.

[bengal-stripe]

http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-01-24-prada_x.htm http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news....op.html Apart from Armani, who is left as "Name" and does his/her own designing?

 

[LA Guy]

John Varvatos
John Bartlett
Martin Margiela
The DSquared Caten twins
Ann Demeulemeester
Dirks Schonberger and Bikkembergs
Dries van Noten
Neil Barrett
Jeff Griffin of Griffin
Alexander McQueen
Yamamoto
Junya Watanabe

etc...

Could go on for a long, long time. By the way, if you want good fashion news, read Suzy Menkes at the International Herald Tribune.

 

[bengal-stripe]

John Varvartos is a case in point. To my knowledge, the label is in its entirety is a division of Nautica. If Varvatos does not sell (and that seems to be the case), I presume Nautica will drop it at some point for commercial reasons.

I have no idea what contract exists between Varvatos and Nautica. If for example Nautica decides to drop the label or to take the label mid-market and Varvatos objects, what will happen? Can he walk out with his name, or, as obviously is the case with Sander and Lang, will he have to leave his name behind.

A number of designer labels (and I am not so up-to-date with all the commercial contracts) are not owned by the designers but by the backing companies.

Maybe the "Belgian Kids" (who are all pretty middle-aged by now) are in control of their respective names and companies, but people like Alexander McQueen or Stella McCartney certainly are not. Maybe it is impossible in the design field these days to start small, grow and eventually become a "name". Now you have to start off as a "name", with all the promotional budget that entails, and maybe you sell or you don't. But as the young designer has signed a pact with the devil he might well be chewed up and spat out. In this respect, the textile business is no different from the record industry.

 

[hermes]

this proves my theory that germans (and austrians) don't work well with italians; totally different business philosophies

 

[KevinR]

Joseph Abboud went through this process of trying to keep his own name. He told about the process in his book. Pretty decent book imo. I haven't read much in the fashion genre though.

 

[stache]

A corporation is not going to invest all that money into a product line unless they have ownership of the name.

 

[LA Guy]

The Diesel umbrella owns both Martin Margiela and Dsquared, but neither of those lines would mean all the much without the designers at the helm.