Italian Fashion Watch

Recently blogs and online news sources went mad about a possible teaming between Roberto Cavalli and Amy Whinehouse. This deal would offer Amy an endless line of Cavalli’s outfits for free as well as a sum of money, with the condition that she wears them at every public appearance.

This kind of deal is common among fashion and clothing companies who select some of the most popular artists or sportsmen and offer them lucrative deals, as a great way to reach a desired audience.

It seems that Roberto Cavalli’s good friend, Victoria Beckham, is the one who proposed him to consider Amy Whinehouse in the first place.

The rumor was not yet confirmed, but if it is true, we should see Amy wearing high fashion dresses and accessories from one of the world most important fashion designer pretty soon.

Yesterday an interesting piece of news came up. It looks like the Italian government is onto the big fashion companies, Dolce & Gabbana and Ferragamo who, uhm, forgot to pay their taxes.

How stupid is that? With a company cashing in tens or hundreds of millions of euros, you would expect that eventually, some people from up there will come to check you out and see how well you’re doing and claim their share.

Sounds really stupid, but there might actually be a good and logical explanation to this. You see, any company is always looking to pay less taxes. For large companies that operate on the international market, such as Dolce & Gabbana and Ferragamo, one option was to move their headquarters countries with lower taxes, such as Luxembourg and Holland.

They proceeded and set up companies in those two countries. The plan was good, except they didn’t really operate from there. Although their main office was far abroad, everything the two firms had to purchase in order to design and manufacture their products was done from Italy, and thus, the taxes were supposed to go to the Italian government and not Holland or Luxemburg.

In other words, they screwed up.

Dolce & Gabbana owe about 90 million euros and Ferragamo close to 20.

If they fail to pay that sum, Dolce and Gabbana may spend some time in prison. But I trust they’re gonna find a solution.

Giorgio Armani and Samsung finally completed their collaboration with the release of the new “Giorgio Armani Samsung Phone”, or the SGH-P520.

Being seen the first time last November, it was finally released officially this week.

As a fashion phone, it does not have extraordinary technical features. True, it does have a 3 Mega pixel camera and a fantastic frontal touch screen with vibration feedback that lets you know that you’ve pressed the right button.

The casing is made out of metal, with just the right weight, giving the phone a solid feel and also a reassurance that it won’t break when it accidentally fells on the ground.

The pictures taken with the camera look good on the phone, but a little blurry when on a larger screen. It also has no 3G.

Being designed in collaboration with a highly reputed fashion brand, the phone itself looks fantastic. Much better than what we’ve seen coming from the other fashion firms.

For more information, take a look at http://www.armanisamsungphone.com/

Dolce & Gabbana’s ready to wear fashion line, D&G, is planning to open six stores in the Middle East, beginning with outlets in Kuwait and Jeddah, this spring.

Stores in Doha and Bahrain will follow in the second half of this. Dubai and Riyadh outlets will be opened early next year.

The Milan-based fashion designer has been enjoying booming sales for its creations in the Middle East. The region now accounts for 5% of global sales for D&G.

The designer’s annual turnover is $2.12 billion, for all of its lines including Dolce & Gabbana fashion, eyewear and fragrances. At 5%, the Middle East market could have been worth as much as $110 million for the company over the past 12 months.

Friday night saw the fashion pack flocked to see Amy Winehouse (pictured above on her way to Paris) perform at one of the hottest events on the Paris schedule – the Fendi party.

Press, buyers and fans alike were desperately trying, and failing, left right and centre to get their hands on a coveted ticket. It should come as no surprise, however, that the enterprising Elle team had no trouble getting their way in to rub shoulders with the A-listers, so we can exclusively bring you all the gossip:

‘Fendi had turned a huge space at the back of their store into a red-lined club with a stage. Amy came on at 11.15pm and played for 45mins. The party was absolutely mad to get into and super packed - only about 250 people actually got in to see her, though there were more in the venue.

We followed the Olsen’s and their entourage through the kitchens…! Rihanna was dancing and singing along, Kanye West was there, as well as Bernard Arnault, Salma Hayek’s fiancée who owns PPR, and Karl Lagerfeld (sunglasses on, obviously)… Amy was wearing a D&G dress with a Fendi belt and looked so much better than of late, though she did say she had mumps???!

She did highlights from Back To Black and was talking a bit; she asked if fashion week was still on and if it actually lasted for a week…! Amazing…’

Recently, it’s been rumored that L’Oreal is in talks with Giorgio Armani’s Firm to purchase about 25% of its stocks.

It’s debatable about the impact of such a deal on the fashion industry, but a spokesman from Giorgio Armani denied the rumor: “There has been ongoing speculation about L’Oreal and others and no talks are going on at the moment.”

L’Oreal is already of partner with Giorgio Armani dealing with the distribution of perfumes, cosmetics and beauty products.

Armani himself mentioned in a November interview last year that L’Oreal could become more implicated in the Armani business, but that no talks were yet in progress.

We’ll see what happens in the future, and I’m sure it will an important event for te fashion industry, with Armani being arguably the most important designer today and L’Oreal the biggest cosmetics firm. Time will tell.

Ilaria Venturini Fendi, sporting a necklace that jangles with a row of her old house keys, is camped out in a dim corner of the L’Eclaireur restaurant in Paris.

Resembling a jolly market vendor, 40-year-old Fendi — the younger sister of Sylvia, who heads up leather goods for the namesake Roman fashion house — sits surrounded by the latest offerings from her high-end eco-conscious bag line, Carmina Campus. Now into its fourth season, the collection will be presented for the first time during Milan Fashion Week.

Like a magpie’s nest, the collection’s vibrant bags, produced by artisans around Italy, are constructed using a patchwork of salvaged materials that Fendi picks up trawling markets and bargain basements around Florence and Rome. Kooky cushion covers collide with swatches of deck chair fabric on one model, while one tote started life as an oversize knitted African hat. Elsewhere, pushing the boundaries of utilitarian chic, Fendi transformed silver mesh pot-scrubbing pads into a twinkling evening purse.

Leveraging her industry contacts (the designer used to oversee shoes and the Fendissimo line for Fendi), many scraps are also donated by various mills, she said.

The line, ranging in price from $300 to around $2,000 at retail, is distributed in an exclusive crop of stores, including L’Eclaireur, 10 Corso Como and Dover Street Market.

A catfight has broken out between the designers Dolce & Gabbana and Valentino as the doyen of Italian fashion prepared today to present his final collection in Paris before retirement.

Valentino wave’s goodbye to his staggering career but not before stirring up design rivals Dolce & Gabbana

Valentino Garavani was reflecting on his 50-year career and on his rivals when he dismissed Dolce & Gabbana as “shy to begin with, but now rather arrogant”. The 76-year-old added: “The problem with young stylists is that they all want to be famous straight away and then they all do the same things.” Valentino’s comments appear to have touched a raw nerve, especially as he only had superlative praise for other Italian designers.

He went on to describe Giorgio Armani as “revolutionary”, Miuccia Prada as “stupefying” and Donatella Versace as “gritty and determined”. In return, Mr Armani sent a vibrant red dress down his recent catwalk show in tribute to “the genius of Valentino”, who made red dresses his trademark.

Stefano Gabbana, 46, one half of the label that now has an annual turnover of over £700 million, said: “Valentino has been having goodbye parties since last July. I’ve been working.” He added: “To be quite honest, I don’t care what Valentino says about us.”

Valentino has held a lavish series of events to mark his retirement, including a party in Rome’s Imperial Forum which rebuilt an ancient temple out of plastic resin and an exhibition at the Ara Pacis museum.

Mr Gabbana also dismissed rumours that Naomi Campbell, the supermodel, is having an affair with Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela. Ms Campbell recently interviewed Mr Chavez, and the Venezuelan press was quick to announce that the pair had got engaged. “I do not think he is her type, or vice versa,” said Mr Gabbana. “They have different tastes.”

Russia is the sheet-anchor (in terms of turnover) of Italian fashion. Fashion designer Lorenzo Riva plainly admitted so on the sidelines of the event presenting his new spring-summer collection in Rome.

“I have opened an atelier in Moscow, in the city’s most fashionable street. I go there at least once a month. Russian women want me to tell them how things look on them, a bit like was done in America during the golden age of Italian fashion.

They love us in Russia, and they don’t want just gala or wedding dresses. They also buy everyday things. A husband once asked me to pull up the neckline of the dress I had drawn for his wife because she needed it to go to work”.

America is “now defaulting from this point of view, whereas in Moscow they greatly appreciate our craftsmanship, they love uniqueness. I have had some great satisfactions in Russia. If things go bad here or in America, I’ll be moving to Russia.

I surely don’t want to be made redundant…”. In the first eight months 2007 Made in Italy textile-clothing exportation to Russia totalled 875,474,000 euro, that’s +23.8 pct compared with the same period 2006, according to the figures of Sistema Moda Italia.

The overall clothes exported to Russia were worth 752,677,000, up 26.5 pct, while textile exportation totalled 122,746,00, +9.4 pct. From Rome alone, in the first nine month of the past year, textile-clothing exportation to Russia increased by 117 pct, according to information disclosed by the capital’s Chamber of Commerce. “I’m not interested in China, Korea and Japan. Let’s leave them with their kimonos”.