Louis Vuitton has unveiled its SS25 campaign featuring two house ambassadors, Irish actor Saoirse Ronan in a Vuitton campaign debut and Blackpink star Lisa, “depicted as contemporary portraits within the atmospheric paintings of French conceptual artist Laurent Grasso”.
The campaign will start appearing in print as of 16 January. It was shot by Steven Meisel and follows the brand’s women’s artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière’s latest runway collection. This closed with three looks that integrated Grasso’s otherworldly landscapes featuring floating spheres and fiery torches.
Three new works from his series series Studies into the Past are used in this campaign. They “introduce another surrealistic phenomenon, the black rectangle, reshaping the boundaries of a pristine, untouched nature, and extend across the backdrop”, while we’re told the two stars “exude a self-assured warmth”.
They’ve been shot wearing statement looks from the show and “appear immersed in these uncanny yet naturalistic scenes so that close-ups bring a touch of Renaissance composition. Shown in full-length, they are portrayed with slight movement – at once classical and dynamic”.
The brand said both of them “embody the notions of ‘soft power’ that inspired” the collection.
Its’ an undeniably interesting combination of famous faces to drive the marketing for the SS25 offer.
Lisa is a member of the hugely successful South Korean girl group and her second solo single, Money, became the first K-pop solo single to reach one billion streams on Spotify. She’s also the most-followed K-pop artist on Instagram and will make her acting debut in the third season of Thailand-set The White Lotus.
Ronan by contrast is a four-time Oscar nominee whose appearances in heavyweight dramas began at the age of 13 when she played Briony Tallis in Atonement. She most recently starred in Steve McQueen’s historical drama, Blitz, and in The Outrun, based on the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot, which she also produced. Recent film credits also include Little Women, Lady Bird, and Brooklyn, each coming with Oscar nominations.
Burberry announced a key appointment on Friday with the luxury business saying it will soon have a new chief information officer.
It has appointed Charlotte Baldwin to the role and she’ll join the business at the end of March. Baldwin will be responsible for leading Burberry’s global technology team and will join the executive committee. She’ll report directly to Burberry CEO Joshua Schulman.
He described her as “a highly experienced technology and digital leader with a track record of leading large-scale digital transformation”.
She hasn’t previously worked in the luxury fashion sector but has wide-ranging experience across some major-name businesses in Britain.
She’s currently the global chief digital and information officer at coffee chain Costa Coffee where she oversees the company’s technology, digital and data organisation.
Prior to joining that firm, she was the chief information, digital and transformation officer at private healthcare giant Bupa’s Bupa Insurance unit. She’s also held senior roles at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Pearson and Thomson Reuters.
Burberry has been navigating a tough period of late and Schulman joined in the top job last year, tweaking the firm’s strategy. His approach seems to be paying off with the company last week porting improved results, although the turnaround is still undeniable a work in progress.
Another day, another shopping centre delivering a “record-breaking” performance in 2024. This time it’s Gloucester Quays “capping off another year of considerable growth”, for the owner/operator Peel Retail & Leisure.
That included record Christmas trading at the key Gloucester mall, which helped overall sales for the year finish 6.7% ahead of the national average. Across November and December, retail sales grew 3.6% compared with 2023.
Looking at 2024 in total, an overall 7.4% year-on-year sales increase across its tenants was split between 6.1% for retail, and 8.5% for F&B.
But there was also double-digit growth from leading fashion, homewares, and outerwear brands including Next, Skechers, All Saints, Mountain Warehouse, Puma, Crew Clothing and Suit Direct.
It said sustained growth was seen across all categories “points to the increasing relevance of the Gloucester Quays experience”.
Paul Carter, asset director at Peel Retail & Leisure, added: “There have been various headlines this month about how challenged retail was around Christmas, so to have Gloucester Quays performing so well is a real credit to our team and our brands.
“These results also serve as a reminder of how relevant and in demand this outlet is. We have experienced consistent growth for several years, and that success can be put down to the quality of our offer and waterside environment. There is no doubt our catchment is responding to how we have evolved Gloucester Quays, as an urban outlet that combines a compelling shopping environment with dining and leisure to fit all tastes and needs, benefitting from a heritage waterside setting that few regionally can match.”
Italy’s Give Back Beauty, which makes perfumes for luxury brands such as Chopard and Zegna, on Friday said it had agreed to buy domestic rival AB Parfums to grow its distribution operations and add licensing deals.
Fragrances have been outperforming the broader beauty sector and Give Back Beauty founder and Chairman Corrado Brondi told Reuters his company did not rule a possible bourse listing in the future, adding it had no financial need for it at present.
Brondi said AB Parfumes had sales of around €100 million, which would add to Give Back Beauty’s net revenues that totalled around €300 million in 2024.
Give Back Beauty, which was founded in 2019 and has a distribution deal with Dolce & Gabbana and a beauty license with Tommy Hilfiger, has a core profit margin currently a little over 15%, it said.
AB Parfums is being sold by Italy’s Angelini Industries, a family-owned group that is mostly active in the pharmaceutical sector.
Give Back Beauty’s business is currently focused on fragrances, which represent roughly 70% of its revenues, but it aims to grow its skincare, make-up and haircare product lines, Brondi said.