Word: chanelled
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...AMERICAN CONSUMERS ARE SO WORried about their jobs and armpit-deep in debt, why do Mont Blanc's five U.S. stores keep running out of their 888 Prince Regent pens, at $5,900 a pop? And why does Chanel have a waiting list for its $2,999 double-breasted tweed dresses for spring, which have yet to reach the stores...
This gap shows up dramatically on the selling floor. Isaac Lagnado, publisher of Tactical Retail Monitor, an industry newsletter, estimates that sales of designer items such as $200 Hermes scarves and $1,745 Chanel handbags grew a whopping 18% last year, to $30 billion, while sales of general merchandise--everything from toys to towels to T shirts--rose only 4.5%, to $575 billion. "The low end is tapped out," says Merrill Lynch analyst Peter Caruso. Indeed, credit-card delinquencies are at a 10-year high. And feeble sales growth has forced discounters such as Wal-Mart, K Mart and Toys...
...conspicuous consumption of the '80s," says Valerie Steele, a professor of fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. "And you saw that in the 'Gapification' of America. Now there is a return to the status of fashion, luxury and quality." And how. Just ask Chanel, where women have reserved the company's entire new line of $750 khaki pants even though the Gap offers a comparable look for about $38 a pair...
...just hours after shows end (one site is First View: http://www.firstview.com) As a result, cheap knockoff artists can get an even quicker head start on designers in the race to retail stores--a race Paris is already losing. "This cannot continue," declares Marie-Louise de Clermont Tonnerre of Chanel. "We will do everything we must to protect our creations." The houses recently filed a lawsuit to ban uploads and seek jail time for offenders, arguing that footage and photos of their lines are the designers' property and cannot be distributed without consent. It's more than a bit quixotic...
...RECENT YEARS THE FANfare that precedes a Paris couture season has consisted mainly of statements from fashion eminences dourly predicting the early demise of the wildly expensive handmade-to-order business. Why then were the spring openings so vibrant, so full of beauty, craft and rich detail? At Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld outdid himself with a masterly display of chic invention and exquisite attention to fit; the pick of the supermodel pack were on hand, and they never looked prettier. At Dior, Gianfranco Ferre chose a theme of flowers--surely an invitation to cliche--and turned out a collection with lightness...