Italian Fashion Watch

In a fashion trend that refuses to go out of style, Giorgio Armani, Donatella Versace and other couturiers continue to moonlight as hoteliers.

Armani’s new line of luxury hotels will make its debut in Dubai, featuring a sprawling spa, plenty of Armani Casa furnishings and luxury apartments. It will be the first of at least 10 hotels in major shopping destinations like Milan and New York.

The Italian luxury brand Missoni will unveil its first hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a second Casa Camper, a small boutique hotel as quirky as the company’s shoes, is going up in Berlin.

Ground is soon being broken for the second Palazzo Versace hotel, with a neo-Classical facade and a tropical fish-filled swimming pool, in Dubai’s Arabian Bays. (Versace has recently announced plans to open 15 new hotels over the next 30 years).

Those Armani, Missoni, Casa Camper and Versace hotels are expected to open in 2008, but there’s no need to wait that long.

The short list of haute hotels being unveiled next season includes Christian Lacroix’s second hotel collaboration in Paris, the Hotel Bellechasse. The Castiglion del Bosco, a 4,500-acre estate managed by the Ferragamo family’s hotel company, will open next year in Tuscany.

At 86, Roberta di Camerino is probably one of the oldest fashion designers in the world…and she’s still going strong!

At what age do you ideally think you will retire from your job? Sixty? Seventy? Meet Italian designer Roberta di Camerino, who at 86 is probably the oldest fashion designer in the world. And yeah, she still has no plans on retiring.

Aptly called the high priestess of Italian fashion, Camerino was in the city a few days back as part of the ‘Festa Italiana-2006’ organized by the Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Dressed smartly in navy blue slacks and jacket with a bright red shirt and a string of pearls around her neck, Camerino was showcasing her gorgeous handbags and purses, each one prettier than the rest.

“This is my first time in India and I’m so happy to be here. It’s been a great experience and I can’t believe that I never had the opportunity to come here before! Hopefully I shall be coming back for a store opening as soon as possible. I started my career by making handbags and thereafter moved into clothing, accessories, footwear, belts, watches as well as décor objects. And even today I never design on paper; I start with the rough construction and then slowly give it shape. Today, of course, I have tons of helpers, my granddaughter, in fact, has joined me,” said Camerino genially.

Camerino’s bags over the past six decades have been a favorite with ordinary women as well as celebrities. A recipient of numerous awards, Camerino is huge in Europe and as well as Asian countries.

Her clothes and bags cater to women of all sizes and ages. And yes, she also loves the sari.

“I love the concept of a sari; I think the way its worn is just so sexy but I’d like to make it slightly shorter so that it becomes more practical to walk. I have no experience with fashion designers in India but I’d love to meet all of them some day,” said Camerino.

The furore over skinny models is not over yet and the Italian government is this week getting involved by planning a manifesto on the use of size zero models on the catwalk.

Mario Boselli, the head of the Italian National Fashion Chamber, met with the Italian youth minister, Giovanna Malandri, this week and they have agreed to work on a code of conduct which forces the fashion industry to promote a healthier look.

To be known as the National Manifesto of Self-Regulation, the move was sparked after Spanish officials banned underweight models from Madrid’s Fashion Week.

Flaminia Spadone, Mr Boselli’s aide, said: “Italy has an important strategic role in world fashion so we have to send a strong signal.

“We’d like fashion houses, modelling agencies, photographers and everyone working in the fashion world to sign the charter. It would be voluntary but professional bodies could decide to impose sanctions on people who don’t sign, preventing them from taking part in fashion shows.”

Models participating in Sao Paolo’s impending fashion week must prove they are in good health with medical certificates signed by a doctor.

Rosita and Tai Missoni are perhaps fashion’s most famous mom and pop.

The business they started in 1953 became an international success, but the appeal of the label rested on not only the multi-coloured, multi-patterned knits that became instantly recognizable but also on the charm of the couple: her, a strong, familial force, and him, athletic and outgoing.

Together, they generated the kind of goodwill that made it easier for their daughter Angela, born Dec. 26, 1958, to assume responsibility for the women’s collection in the late ’90s.

Affection, inspired by domestic roots and unassuming attitudes, seems somewhat different from the kind of publicity earned by Angela Missoni’s daughter Margherita, born Feb. 22, 1983, who is part of a young, fast, photogenic European set recently covered by Vogue in a story headlined “Euroflash!”

It’s tempting to think of Margherita’s flashier side as deriving from her father Marco Maccapani, who, as a producer of fashion shows, has had a career in spectacle. But both Margherita and Angela are quick to point out that there is showiness in the Missoni blood, that Tai Missoni has always enjoyed an audience.

With last year’s launch of the Missoni fragrance collection (in partnership with the Estée Lauder Companies Inc.), Margherita earned her place on the payroll playing a more formal promotional role as the face in the campaign.

Flanked by an Estée Lauder PR team, both Missonis were in Toronto yesterday as guests at the Holt Renfrew dinner that was part of Bloor Street Entertains, Canfar’s AIDS fundraiser, and the whole holiday season is not likely to yield a more attractive mother and child.

Inevitably, age makes for differences between the two: Angela can give a fuller explanation of what a jacquard knit is; Margherita wears her trousers a few inches lower on the waist.

But there are also similarities.

Both have on pronouncedly platform shoes; both have boyfriends. Margherita’s is a guy she met at university in New York; Angela’s, a spirited, fun-loving fellow in the fashion business.

Over the past decade there has been frequent talk of Missoni being a brand rejuvenating itself. Angela will give full credit to her parents for being so creative that when she took over she really didn’t have to engineer a re-invention. But she also allows that it was necessary for her to inject enough variety and freshness that it was possible to know one season from the next, something that had become difficult to do but was increasingly imperative in the marketplace.

Versace Group has invested 10 million euros in China to set up nine new stores, all of which are expected to operate in 2007. It is learned this may just be a beginning.

Group Executive Director Giancarlo Di Risio and designer Donatella Versace are in Beijing for brand publicizing and they will go to Shanghai and Hong Kong after that.

Giancarlo Di Risio started to take over the management of the Group from August 2004.Within two years, the company’s turnover increased to 148 million euros, the original debt of 120 million euros was basically removed, while cash flow increased from two million euros from 16 million euros.

Giancarlo Di Risio said, “We have an agreement on the strategic direction, as we enter China, that is to re-adjust the brand position, we hope Versace brand is not just a simple fashion brand. Instead, it should be a luxurious brand. Fashion always comes and goes in great haste, but a luxury will always exist. I do not agree that China is a type of B market that could only be used to increase market sales. I believe that a long historic name, like ‘VERSACE’, is a brand that Chinese consumers are looking for.”

This is the first time for Designer Donatella to visit China, she said at a news conference with a bit shy, “I am a delicate woman. So in all my fashion creations, I think most of the women who have figures, similar to mine. And most Chinese women have much same body figures like me, perhaps it is one of the reasons why we can achieve tremendous success in China.”

The Sovage international restaurants chain plans to open by next year a new fine restaurant in Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, in collaboration with Giorgio Armani.

The country’s government launched an initiative to attract more tourists, and this is Sovage’s idea to do that.

The company already has several restaurants in Kuala Lumpur. What will differentiate the new ones and the competition is that only Italian cooks, skilled at preparing traditional Italian dish.

Armani himself will design each dining dish.

“I want all my customers to feel like VIPs while dining in my restaurant,” Zec Catonic said, Sovage’s director, adding that Giorgio Armani was a well-known luxury fashion brand worldwide and he was certain that the restaurant would attract consumers’ interest. 

Giorgio Armani has several other restaurants in six countries, including Honk Kong, Singapore and France.

“I am confident the restaurant will receive overwhelming response in the local market as I know Malaysians love exquisite food with excellent customer service.”

You can read the article here.

It’s becoming a trend amongst young, popular Hollywood actresses to start modeling for important fashion houses. Rachel Evan Wood, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore and Chloe Sevigny are just some of the many.

Now it’s Lindsay Lohan’s time. She’s just started working for Italian fashion house Miu Miu in their highly-coveted ad campaign.

The 20 years old actress has been selected to be the face of Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu line.

Rumors say that the ads were shot by the well know photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

The ads for the Spring/Summer 2007 collection should come out pretty soon.