WWDFRIDAYBeauty

See Pelosi, Page 12

Pelosi’s Drive for Ports:Industry Foresees ChaosIn 100% Screening PlanBy Kristi EllisWASHINGTON — The Democrats and Nancy Pelosi have not even taken control of the House yet and already they’ve upset retailers and apparel importers.

In outlining her party’s agenda for its first 100 hours in office, House Speaker-elect Pelosi said she would bring to a vote early legislation requiring 100 percent screening of all cargo containers at foreign ports. This measure is aimed at stepping up the U.S. fight against terrorism.

This prompted an immediate outcry from retailers and apparel vendors that imported $89.2 billion worth of

VALENTINO SPA TAPS NEW CEO/2 KATE MOSS FRAGRANCE?/2Women’s Wear Daily • The Retailers’ Daily Newspaper • December 15, 2006 • $2.00

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Snow WhiteJean Paul Gaultier clearly hopes white will be all right. The

avant-garde designer is aiming to create a new bestseller

with his men’s fragrance, Fleur du Male, which will launch

in March in an all-white bottle. The fragrance will fi rst be

sold in the designer’s boutiques, and in April will roll out

to broader distribution. For more, see page 4.

WWD.COM2 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

GENERALIncoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spurred industry anger, saying she will push a bill requiring full screening of cargo containers.

Stefano Sassi, most recently ceo of Marzotto, has been named ceo of sister fi rm Valentino Fashion Group and the fashion house Valentino.

The nation’s drugstores are in the midst of a major repositioning that could have a long-term impact on the beauty department.

With two weekends left before Christmas, retailers are facing unusually warmer weather and consumers who are waiting for the big sale.

EYECostumed revelers at Marc Jacobs’ annual holiday bash , which had a Venetian carnival theme this year, clearly took the theme to heart.

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WWDFRIDAYBeauty

● POLO PROMOTION: Polo Ralph Lauren has named Garine Zerounian senior director, international public relations, ef-fective Jan.1. Zerounian joined the company in December 2004 as director of women’s public relations and was promoted to senior director of women’s public relations. In the new post, Zerounian will oversee communications for Ralph Lauren’s ap-parel bands in Latin America, Asia and Australia, working with Polo’s global marketing and fashion teams on events and celeb-rity dressing. She reports to Wendy Smith, senior vice president of corporate communications.

● FORTUNOFF NAMES GERAGHTY: Fortunoff, the 84-year-old Uniondale, N.Y., jewelry retailer, has appointed Michael Geraghty chief fi nancial and administrative offi cer. Geraghty most recently was chairman of Filene’s/Kaufman’s prior to the Federated ac-quisition of May Department Stores Co. in 2005. He replaces Len Tabs, who has retired. In September, Fortunoff unveiled plans to open as many as fi ve more doors on the East Coast by 2008 and launched an ad campaign featuring model Petra Nemcova. In November 2004, Fortunoff agreed to a recapitalization transac-tion with two equity fi rms, Trimaran Capital Partners and Kier Group. Fortunoff ’s has annual sales of about $500 million.

In Brief

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“The customer’s mind is still on personal acquisition as opposed to gift-giving, although the strength in the fragrance business would indicate otherwise.’’— Ron Klein, chairman and ceo, Macy’s East

Quote of the Week

Moss Said in Scent Deal

Valentino Fashion Group Names CEOBy Amanda Kaiser

MILAN — Valentino Fashion Group SpA has tapped an inside man as its new chief executive officer.

Valentino’s board has named Stefano Sassi, most recently chief executive of textile group and sister company Marzotto SpA, as ceo of both Valentino Fashion Group and its subsid-iary fashion house Valentino SpA. He effectively replaces Michele Norsa, although the two men’s titles are not identi-cal. Norsa resigned in July and subsequently joined Salvatore Ferragamo Italia SpA as ceo.

Unlike Norsa, Sassi also will be head of Valentino FG, the 1.73 billion euro ($2.29 billion) company that owns Valentino SpA, a majority stake in Hugo Boss AG and men’s wear brand Lebole, and holds licens-ing deals for M Missoni and Marlboro Classics. Norsa was unhappy with his lower-ranking titles at Valentino, one of the reasons he decided to leave, ac-cording to a well-placed source.

Valentino FG chairman Antonio Favrin held the ceo title at the multibrand company until now. Favrin will retain his post as chairman. Matteo Marzotto will keep his new position as chairman of Valentino SpA.

“Having worked with Sassi for fi ve years, I know about his personality and I know about the things he has done, which I think are fundamental for the success of a manager and the success of Valentino,” Favrin said at a press conference here, adding that Valentino FG was on track to post “excellent” results

this year and in 2007.In other news, the house of

Valentino is busy preparing for a 45th anniversary show and cel-ebration in Rome — not Paris, as originally planned. The date is not yet fi nal, but it is likely to be in early July. The festivities have prompted rampant specu-lation that 74-year-old Valentino Garavani is preparing to retire.

On Thursday, Marzotto reiter-ated his statement that Garavani hasn’t given any indication he plans to step down. He said re-lations with the designer were “excellent” and that Valentino was always strengthening its de-sign team.

“I have ideas in my head and I’ll communicate them when the time is right,” Marzotto said when pressed to articulate the most likely post-Garavani sce-nario for the brand.

There isn’t just speculation chez Valentino on the design front. There have been recur-ring rumors and press reports suggesting the company is on the block. Favrin addressed the issue at the press conference, but his cryptic language managed to raise even more questions about the future of the company.

When asked whether the company was for sale, Favrin gave a lengthy response and said it was up to each shareholder to decide whether or not to sell his or her shares. Favrin said he plans to keep his 19.8 percent stake in the company and ad-vised others to hold on to theirs since Valentino FG’s value is destined to rise.

The executive also said that even if he had some big opera-tion up his sleeve, he wouldn’t

be talking to the press about it. Favrin said he had spent

the past fi ve months interview-ing potential ceo candidates, but Sassi won him over. Favrin praised Sassi’s reorganization of Marzotto’s struggling tex-tile business. He also empha-sized the importance of Sassi’s fashion experience. Sassi was chief operating offi cer at Group Cerruti for five years before joining Marzotto.

Sassi was tight-lipped at the press conference about his plans for Valentino, explaining he wants to study the company and its employees before outlin-ing strategic objectives.

“I don’t think someone can face a [new] challenge like this if you don’t already have a few ideas in your head, but outlin-ing the way forward and strate-gies requires you to do very de-tailed analysis and research,” Sassi said.

Sassi is considered to be an intelligent and strategic execu-tive with a strong understand-ing of the global market. One source likened him to Robert Polet, president and ceo of Gucci Group, who came from food giant Unilever. While Polet may not have joined Gucci with a luxury goods merchandising background, he has demon-strated an acumen for handling larger business issues.

On Thursday, Valentino FG also promoted its chief fi nancial offi cer Luca Vianello to chief operating officer. Favrin said Vianello would be responsible for managing staff and oversee-ing the development of the M Missoni, Lebole and Marlboro Classics brands.

NEW YORK — Vera Wang is set to abandon the fine jewelry business even as gold, diamond and precious stone jewelry seem to be hot tickets this holiday season, industry sources said.

Next month, Wang plans to end a partnership with Rosy Blue Fine, a subsidiary of the $1 billion Antwerp, Belgium-based diamond company Rosy Blue Inc., which produced the designer’s fi ne jew-elry collection, the sources said.

Wang, one of the fi rst American ready-to-wear designers to jump into the fi ne jewelry world, launched her collection in 2003, after houses like Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton, which have thriving fi ne jewelry businesses. She declined to comment.

Wang was said to be focused on the creative direction of the jewelry, introducing unlikely ma-

terials, such as shagreen and titanium, into her pieces. The jewelry, which included engagement rings, Art Deco-inspired hanging earrings and cuff bracelets done in micro pavé, initially bowed in Bergdorf Goodman and select Neiman Marcus stores. The line has been in and out of several re-tailers, including select Saks Fifth Avenue doors, Bailey, Banks & Biddle and London Jewelers.

Some experts said that, while the editorially acclaimed jewelry was made and designed well, it was too expensive and inaccessible. Prices range from about $300 to $200,000. In the spring, the fi rm introduced a sterling silver jewelry line for bridesmaids, which started at a lower price point.

— Sophia Chabbott

Vera Wang Exiting Fine Jewelry?

SOON IT MIGHT BE EAU DE KATE.Kate Moss is said to have signed a fragrance licensing deal with

Coty Inc., the beauty fi rm that already boasts a star-studded roster of celebrity fragrance brands.

Details of the Moss fragrance could not be learned, nor could the timing of any introduction. A Coty spokeswoman declined to comment.

But given Moss’ combination of fame and notoriety, the fragrance will probably continue Coty’s string of celebrity hits, which include scents for Gwen Stefani, Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker and David and Victoria Beckham. And a deal with the model makes sense for Coty since she already is the face of the company’s makeup brand Rimmel.

Coty takes credit for reviving the celebrity fragrance model in recent years, which has helped propel it to become a $2.9 billion beauty company.

WWD.COM4 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

The Beauty Report

Space NK Eyes AmericaNicky Kinnaird, the queen of British

niche retailing, is betting that the trademark specialty apothecary approach of her Space NK beauty boutiques will play well in the much larger, more bruising U.S. arena.

Kinnaird plans on opening the fi rst of fi ve Space NK beauty stores at 99 Greene Street in April in New York’s SoHo neigh-borhood. The fi rst unit, containing a total of 3,000 square feet, will serve as the com-pany’s U.S. fl agship. Slightly less than 2,000 square feet of the fl oor area will be dedi-cated to selling, with the remainder ear-marked for offi ces and administration. The American operation is being spearheaded by Shelly Kohan, vice president of U.S. development, and Kinnaird is expected to make monthly visits. The store will include treatment rooms to give facials under the Eve Lom banner, Space NK’s spa brand. The facilities also will be available for use by other treatment vendors. Space NK also will launch an e-commerce Web site in the same period.

Kinnaird said earlier this week that the other four stores will be in the tristate area, including a second New York store, as part of her cluster strategy that hinges on locating stores in neighborhoods of affl uent areas. “Our policy is in fi nding the right stores” with the neighborhood to match, she noted. For the second New York store, she is looking at the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side and the East Village.

Judging from her track record in the U.K., Kinnaird has ambitions to one day go coastal. She opened her fi rst store in London in 1993 as a 250-square-foot fashion boutique, including apparel, accessories and a small apothecary. The 250-square-foot beginning gradually grew to 1,000, completely devoted to beauty, but it took two-and-a-half years to exhaust the obvious possibilities in London with 16 to 17 stores before the chain spread to the rest of the country. Space NK now has 46 units. While the company does not break out sales fi gures, in-dustry sources estimate that the chain does more than $75 million annually in sales. With an average store measuring about 1,000 square feet, the sales productiv-ity computes to more than $1,500 a square foot.

Kinnaird declined to estimate the size of the U.S. investment, implying that the fi rst fi ve stores would be bankrolled through existing cash fl ow. Manzanita Capital has been a partner since 2003.

The Space NK approach involves providing an intimate boutique ambiance with a highly special-ized, tightly edited assortment aimed at problem solving. The key is customer service. Kinnaird stresses that all the sales staff is trained with six weeks of schooling across all the brands. In the U.K., a typical store will have fi ve to 18 sales people on the selling fl oor at any time, Kinnaird noted. The Greene Street store not only will have treatment areas, but there will be a room down-stairs where lecturers and makeup artists can give talks on trends and seasonal looks. In terms

of diversifi cation, Space NK is in the process of opening a new fl agship with a spa in the Knightsbridge section of London at 40 Hans Crescent. The fi rst spa location was opened in Notting Hill in 1999. Space NK also opened a men’s store in London’s Soho last year.

When asked how Space NK could differentiate it-self from Sephora in the U.S. market, Kinnaird pointed out that her stores are much smaller, with some units measuring only 500 square feet, and therefore more intimate. The size of an average Sephora has been quoted at 4,500 square feet.

Small spaces also dictate a fi nely crafted editing job. Part of the success in the U.K. stemmed from merchandising niche American brands, so Kinnaird intends to present the U.S. with some exclusive European names, such as Hinles & Baumes, a morning face cream; Sheerin Okho, described as a combination of cosmetological performance and natural ingredi-ents along the lines of skin care by Dr. Sebagh and Dr. Hauschka, and Pro-Ferm, an antiaging cream, based

on research in the Bio-Technology Institute of the Berlin Technical University, that is designed to work with the body’s immune system to repair cellular damage.

Kinnaird said the average Space NK store carries 50 to 60 brands, with more than 40 percent of sales generated by skin care (including Eve Lom), 30 percent by color cosmetics, 10 percent by hair and fragrance and the remaining 20 percent by the Space NK house brand.

Kinnaird noted that, while a Sephora store may have 28 color brands, Space NK will have fi ve or six. “The customers appre-ciate the cherry-picking we do for them,” she observed.

The initial reaction seems welcoming. William Lauder, chief executive offi cer of the Estée Lauder Cos., pointed out it will be more challenging to open enough stores to make a footprint in the U.S. than it was in the U.K. But, he added, “they are a very imaginative retailer and I think there is al-ways room in the marketplace for imagina-tive retailers.”

Sylvie Chantecaille praised Kinnaird for her foresight in providing a personal, service-oriented alternative to a very tra-ditional British market model. “I think they will be competitive with Barneys,” she said, in terms of a launching pad for new luxuri-ous brands in a relaxed selling environment. Asked if there is a need for another beauty retailer, Chantecaille replied: “If anyone does something well, they become needed. And they have done things well in Europe.”

— Pete Born

PARIS — Jean Paul Gaultier keeps gender-bending and revisiting past icons — most recently with his new fragrance, called Fleur du Male, due out this spring.

The scent breaks conventional codes of men’s scent. Most radical is its juice, containing notes of white, orange blossom fl owers instead of geranium and lavender, staples in a traditional fougère men’s fragrance. Second, Fleur du Male’s bottle is com-pletely white — a rarity for the fragrance industry, particularly in a marketplace awash with black fra-grance fl acons for men.

Created with Gaultier’s beauty-license holder Beauté Prestige International, Fleur du Male comes more than a decade after the 1995 launch of perenni-al bestseller Le Male (a fougère) and less than a year following Gaultier to the Power of Two scent (with notes of ambergris, musk and vanilla) for men and women. Gaultier’s Tout Beau Tout Propre makeup line for men was introduced in fall 2003.

“Jean Paul fi rmly believed that he should say something new about men,” said Remy Gomez, presi-dent of BPI.

“Over the past 12 years, many barriers have been lifted for men,” continued Lea Vignal-Kenedi, head of the fragrance division for Jean Paul Gaultier, re-ferring to men’s ability to more easily express them-selves through fashion and beauty, for instance. “He wanted to speak of this blooming of today’s masculinity, of joie de vivre, of happiness.”

Although company executives would not discuss sales projec-tions, industry sources said they expected Fleur du Male would generate $26 million at wholesale in its fi rst 12 months.

Its “revisited fern accord,” with notes of peti-grain leaf and coumarin, was created by Takasago’s Francis Kurkdjian, also Le Male’s perfumer. For Fleur du Male, he used a healthy dose of orange fl ower notes, generally found in women’s fragrances and in colognes. BPI claims it to be the fi rst time or-ange fl ower has been used in a men’s scent.

“There is a new dimension to the Jean Paul Gaultier man,” said Kurkdjian.

“Orange fl ower is an ingredient that sticks in the memory more easily than most other top notes avail-able,” continued Gomez, who explained the white fl owers are historically used in crowns for French brides, for instance.

Added Kurkdjian, orange fl ower scent also evokes memories of childhood and innocence. “It is a fl ower Jean Paul adores,” he said.

So, too, was Gaultier intent on giving a nod to Le Male’s iconic bottle, which comes in the form of a bust. However, the Fleur du Male fl acon is of white porcelain. “Jean Paul wanted the bust to be the em-blem of his statement,” explained Gomez.

Cultural references abound in the new proj-ect. Take the scent’s name, which is a word play on “La Fleur du Mal,” a book of poetry by Charles Baudelaire. Then there is the advertising visual.

Gaultier adores movies, explained Vignal-Kenedi. She said that for Fleur du Male, he had in his mind the image from the fi lm “American Beauty,” in which actress Mena Suvari soaks in a bath full of roses. So, he signed photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino to shoot model Andres Valencoso in a milky bath chockablock with white fl owers. Print visuals will appear as single pages. “He wanted to show a happy man, like a pasha, something as simple, with a cer-tain pleasure,” she said. Sampling will include Sophisticates, among other formats.

Fleur du Male is to be sold exclusively in Jean Paul Gaultier boutiques starting in March. It will be rolled out in worldwide distribution beginning in April.

The 125-ml. eau de toilette spray will retail for 69 euros, or $91 at current exchange rates; the 75-ml. size, for 51 euros, or $67; the 40-ml. limited-edition eau de toilette spray, for 39 euros, or $51, and the 75-g. stick deodorant, for 22 euros, or $29.

— Jennifer Weil

Jean Paul Gaultier Goes All White

The Fleur du Male ad.

A rendering of the SoHo space.

Nicky Kinnaird

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European Beauty Retailers Bullish on SeasonBy Jennifer Weil

PARIS — The shopping season has kicked off full of holiday cheer, since most European perfumeries expect to close 2006 with a single-digit to low-double-digit rise year on year.

Although some of that gain will be thanks to an easy comparison with 2005, when business was soft, an up-tick in numerous Western European economies has con-tributed.

Yet, that’s not to say fragrance is an easy sell these days.

“Our competition is much broader than in the past,” said Damien Viel, fragrance category director at Marionnaud Parfumeries, with 560 doors in France, refer-ring largely to electronics, which have in many instances supplanted fragrance as the must-have holiday gift.

“To be successful today, a scent introduction must be multidimensional and create a very strong impact at the retailer —visually, through sound, through smell and so on,” added Fabien Petitcolin, Printemps department store’s beauty buyer, overseeing 17 doors in France. “A page of advertising in a magazine is not enough. Of course, you have to recruit initially, but once a customer is in the store, you have to continue creating the dream and conveying the magic of the product.”

In a poll conducted by WWD of perfumery buyers representing 1,940 doors across France, Germany, Italy and the U.K., a handful of bestsellers were mentioned. Among the top eaux for women are Parfums Nina Ricci’s Nina, Guerlain’s Insolence, Dolce & Gabbana’s The One, Jil Sander’s Style, Hugo Boss’ Boss Femme and Parfums Giorgio Armani’s Armani Code. For men, Yves Saint Laurent Parfums’ L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein’s Euphoria Men and Prada Amber Pour Homme were making waves Europe-wide. And then, of course, there are always the regional favorites.

The following is what buyers are saying about the state of the fragrance business on a country-by-country basis.

FRANCERecent introductions targeting young consumers, in-cluding Nina, Insolence and L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent, are among the success stories at French beauty retailers today.

At Marionnaud Parfumeries, Viel said Nina was a surprise hit. The scent, which was launched in France in July, is among the three best-selling women’s fra-grances there.

“No one was expecting it; it was a late launch and, creatively, it resembled Delices de Cartier, so we weren’t that confi dent,” he said. “But it’s been a pleas-ant surprise.”

Petitcolin of Printemps said Nina was “surely the best surprise of the year. The story is very coherent. Its spirit of a modern fairy tale and the apple of love is sim-ply charming our customers.”

Among what Viel described as an “avalanche” of women’s scents, Insolence has been the most successful fall introduction at Marionnaud.

“While remaining extremely Guerlain, it has suc-ceeded in attracting a very young clientele and is show-ing very satisfying results,” he said.

At single-unit department store Bon Marché, Insolence leads the pack of women’s fragrances. Marie-Francoise Stouls, director of the beauty department, said the scent’s strength comes primarily from the huge media push backed by actress Hilary Swank.

Another hit is Stella in Two, in a solid and a liquid, produced by Stella McCartney and her beauty license-holder YSL Beauté. The scent intrigues consumers, Stouls said. Other scents doing well there were Coty Inc.’s Marc Jacobs Splash scents and Giorgio Armani’s Cuir Amethyste.

Over at Sephora France, with 202 doors, a trio of scents owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — Insolence, Ange ou Demon and Kenzo Amour — were selling best for women. And Nina and Hugo Boss’ Boss Femme were among the top fi ve.

In men’s fragrances, L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent was the key launch at Marionnaud. And the scent is expected to fi nish the year ahead of Terre d’Hermes, which had until recently been the year’s best-selling men’s fragrance.

Viel attributed YSL’s success to the momentum created by the fashion house’s designer Stefano Pilati, who “has propelled the brand’s image and status,” and to the fra-grance itself. Viel lauded YSL’s media investment, innova-tive merchandising and in-store events for the scent.

Bon Marché’s Stouls said L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent’s strong performance was due to a mix of juice,

packaging and advertising that featured French actor Olivier Martinez.

“It’s a magnetic and sensual fragrance, which attracts those customers who are looking for a real classic,” said Printemps’ Petitcolin, who added that Euphoria Men had shown a strong debut. “It’s a product of quality, while at the same time very commercial.”

At Sephora, Viktor and Rolf ’s Antidote had taken top slot for men. It was followed by L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent, Prada Amber Pour Homme and Euphoria.

GERMANYIn Germany, local heroes and designer labels hit high notes in the run-up to the holidays. The One, Jil Sander Style and Boss Femme were among the new scents ring-ing up strongest sales, retailers said.

The One lived up to its name, taking the top spot among women’s fragrances in November in the 230-member, 330-door Wir für Sie perfumery cooperative.

“The One is performing very well, supported by the campaign and a very high-quality bottle,” said a coop-erative spokeswoman.

German designer brands, Jil Sander and Hugo Boss — with Style and Boss Femme, respectively — were also buoyant among the fl ood of new eaux, as were non-German designer launches, including Euphoria Men, L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent and Lacoste Inspiration.

“They all combine success factors like a great juice, interesting packaging and, of course, very appealing communication and marketing,” said a spokesman for the 433-door Douglas perfumery chain.

At Wir für Sie, among the new women’s launches, Jil Sander Style reached the number-one slot in October, and Boss Femme was at number four. But those moved down some rungs in November, when Jil Sander Style took third place and Boss Femme came in fi fth.

In men’s scents, Calvin Klein Euphoria Men hit third spot at Wir für Sie in October and fourth in November. The scent, which is widely distributed in the co-op, was the only fall launch to make the top 10 list.

Joop Jump placed 10th there.

ITALYAmong the top-ranking fragrance names in Italy are Kenzo Amour, The One, Tom Ford’s Black Orchid and Euphoria.

According to Antonella Mandelli, general manager of the Mazzolari perfumery chain, which has 60 stores in Italy, Kenzo Amour is “a great fragrance and has won-derful packaging.”

Simone Destefanis, division manager for cosmetics and well-being at 16 doors of Rinascente de-partment store, said, “Kenzo Amour is a special scent because of its packaging. Its advertising is evocative and dreamlike; it really appeals to certain customers.”

The One is a top seller at Douglas, which has 115 doors in Italy, according to a spokesman at the perfumery’s buying offi ce.

Mandelli said The One was selling well, “not because of the advertising, but the push in terms of in-store marketing, the mini-testers and win-dow displays.”

“The One is doing very well, thanks to a mix of good advertising, the right packaging and the scent,” explained Destefanis.

Mandelli said Black Orchid was going strong, thanks to its long-lasting juice and because it was “different.”

“Customers are looking for something differ-ent,” she said.

“Tom Ford’s Black Orchid has been a big launch success for us,” continued Destefanis. “His name carries weight here, not just in fash-ion circles, but for people interested in buying a product that’s different.”

On the men’s front, he said, “Euphoria by Calvin Klein was selling very well.”

It was ringing up strong sales at Douglas, too.

THE U.K.Designer brands and niche names were winners in U.K. department stores. Vera Wang Princess, Armani Code, The One and Guerlain’s Insolence received plaudits from buyers in the women’s arena. Among the men’s scents making a splash were Prada Amber Pour Homme (a.k.a. Prada Man), L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent, Euphoria and Sean John’s Unforgivable.

“Vera Wang surprised us all and has done

extremely well,” said Sue Price, merchandise manager for cosmetics and fragrance at Debenhams, which has 140 doors in the U.K. “The unique offer, lovely juice and eye-catching packaging have really driven sales. This was further supported with an e-mail campaign and in-novative marketing. Our customers loved the pink box and beautiful heart-shaped bottle.”

The fragrance, which is skewed to younger women, is working well at 61-door House of Fraser, according to beauty buyer Debbie Beaumont-Howell. She noted a scent must make strong performances in all aspects of the product mix to win a top spot at the department store.

Also working well in House of Fraser were Armani Code, Agent Provocateur Maitresse and Insolence.

Armani Code was a hit in Debenhams, as was The One.

“The One has a glamorous gold bottle and a rich spicy juice,” said Price. “Our customers love the gold packaging and responded well to the eye-catching tele-vision advertisement featuring Gisele [Bundchen].”

Price added that Boss Femme was among the strong female launches at the store.

Over at Harrods, perfumery and cosmetics buyer Caroline Hindle said best-selling women’s scents in-cluded Black Orchid, Vera Wang Princess, Sisley’s Soir de Lune and Armani Privé.

Among men’s introductions, Prada Man worked well in both Debenhams and House of Fraser. Beaumont-Howell put its success down to “quality, not quantity.”

“Prada Man looked great in store, has a beautiful contemporary bottle, which our customers love,” said Price. “The juice is fresh and clean and very com-mercial.”

L’Homme Yves Saint Laurent was a strong performer in both chains.

“Within the men’s winners, Euphoria followed an ex-tremely successful launch of the female fragrance last year,” said Price.

At Harrods, among the latest entrants in the men’s market, Prada Man and Burberry London for Men were doing well.

Harvey Nichols perfumery and cosmetics buyer Tracy Van Heusden said shoppers were being selective in the high-end department store’s six doors in the U.K. and Ireland.

“Factors such as distribution, price discounting and brand positioning affect sales of fragrance within our stores,” she said. “Customers are driven by designer and niche fragrances.”— With contributions from Ellen Groves, Paris;

Brid Costello, London; Melissa Drier, Berlin, and Stephanie Epiro, Milan

WWD.COM

A holiday display at London’s Harvey Nichols.

6 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

The Beauty Report

Cosmeceuticals Reach the MainstreamBy Molly Prior

BEAUTY IS ON A REPEAT COLLISION COURSE WITH SCIENCE.The succession of big bangs has spawned a pool of technology-laden serums, led

by a pack of dermatologists, that aim to replace the age-old “hope in a jar” with “help in a jar,” thanks to reams of clinical data and potent ingredients.

Many of these high-tech beauty brands, particularly those with an antiaging or medical bent, have latched onto the term “cosmeceutical” to market their of-ferings.

It may sound relatively contemporary, but the word “cosmeceutical” was coined in 1984 by Albert Kligman, a dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Speaking from his residence in The Rittenhouse in downtown Philadelphia, Kligman said he came up with the term to acknowledge “the biological fact that anything you put onto your skin has a physiological effect.”

“The original defi nition of cosmetics as inert and inactive is biologically archaic,” he declared. Kligman recalled that when he fi rst presented the idea of cosmeceuti-cals, he got fl ak from the beauty industry, which grew concerned that a dermatolo-gist’s construct would invite scrutiny from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The industry has since done an about-face. In the two decades since Kligman’s decree, beauty marketers have run away with

the term, mining medicine and bio-tech for potent ingredients, including alpha lipoc acid, alpha hydroxy acids and peptides.

“Today, a soft, pleasant-smelling cream is the equivalent of a high school diploma,” quipped Jeanine Recckio, a self-defi ned beauty and lifestyle futurologist. Describing the mind-set of the prototypical beauty consumer, she said, “She’s 50 and she has wrinkles. She will buy anything.”

The cosmeceuticals movement, which was fi rst carved out by niche companies, has hit the mainstream. It now accounts for 10 percent, or approximately $200 million, of prestige skin care sales, up from 4 percent in 2002, according to The NPD Group, which de-fi nes cosmeceuticals as brands that are inspired by doctors or have a clinical background. Cosmeceuticals’ hefty price tags — which range from $20 to more than $500 with some topping $1,000, accord-ing to NPD — have undoubtably helped push sales upward.

Karen Grant, senior beauty industry analyst for NPD, credited a cast of doctors — including Nicolas Perricone, Howard Murad, Howard Sobel of DDF and Dennis Gross of MD Skincare — with pio-neering the trend.

Many of these offerings are positioned as a more affordable (al-beit not by much) and less invasive alternative to cosmetic proce-dures. Elizabeth Arden accelerated that message by aligning itself with pharmaceutical giant Allergan, the maker of Botox, to co-market Prevage. The antiaging serum is powered by idebenone, which Arden and Allergan bill as “one of the most potent and effective antioxi-dants on the market.”

In fact, Tony Vargas, vice president of global research and de-velopment for Elizabeth Arden, defi nes cosmeceuticals as “the link between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.” Vargas de-clared that the mark of a strong ingredient is one that is supported with extensive, third-party clinical testing, which is then shared with peers. He noted that research on the effectiveness of idebenone was published in several peer-review journals including the January 2005 Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology.

DDF’s co-founder Elaine Linker also looks to pharmaceuticals for inspiration. “Our formulas are modeled after effi cacious prescriptions,” said Linker, adding that cosmeceuticals work on a cellular level to improve the skin. She noted that the explosion of biochemistry has led to a more sophisticated knowledge about how cells function, saying, “In the last 15 years, we have gained so much information about preventative skin care. In the next decade, I expect that we’ll have more information on how to restore skin.”

Wendy Lewis, skin care industry consultant and author, said that while techie skin care is largely a U.S. phenomenon, it’s also export-able. She noted that European retailers — including Sephora France and Selfridges and Harrods in London — are beginning to pluck American-born cosmeceuticals for their beauty mix.

The Canadian specialty store Holt Renfrew, which was the fi rst retailer to sell the Swiss science brand Cellcosmet, has designs to move deeper into cosmeceuti-cals, a plan that will soon be refl ected in its Vancouver concept store, said Shelley Rozenwald, the retailer’s senior vice president of cosmetics, skin care, fragrance and beauty services. Although she was mum on the details, Rozenwald said that in general Holt Renfrew is careful in considering what science brands to add to the mix. Her due diligence includes evaluating the formula’s active ingredients, the ownership of the company, where the products are manufactured and the name at-tached to the project. Rozenwald commented, “You have to ask, are there scientists or doctors behind it who bring more than their name to the table?”

Although the beauty industry tends to use the term “cosmeceuticals” to refer to cosmetics products that have drug-like benefits, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not recognize the term. The FDA subjects drugs to an intensive review and approval process, but the agency does not approve cosmetics products prior to sale. Under the FDA’s Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, in most cases, whether a product is considered a drug or a cosmetic depends on its intended use, which is spelled out by packaging and advertising claims.

A FDA spokeswoman stated that benefi t claims that express or imply “the cure,

mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease or claims to affect the structure or function of the body parts on the labels...and in other promotional materials are not appropriate for products marketed solely as cosmetics,” because they fall under the defi nition of a drug.

To complicate matters, dermatologists and beauty marketers offer varying defi nitions of “cosmeceutical,” some implying that the word covers brands fronted by doctors, and others assigning the term to products that simply herald science and results.

In his book, “The Wrinkle Cure,” Nicolas Perricone defi nes cosmeceutical as “...a skin treatment that provides added benefi ts beyond a simple cosmetic or moisturizer.”

In a recent conversation with WWD, Perricone said, “The beauty industry has a 100-year history of fragrance, oil and water emulsions with lots of marketing hype around them. Because of that history, the cosmetics industry has a credibility problem.”

Perricone is attempting to distance himself from what he calls “hopeless in a jar,” with formulas based on decades of research on aging.

“I believe aging is an infl ammatory process. To stop micro infl ammation within the skin, you need to interrupt the process with antioxidants,” he said. Perricone’s line of products, which range from topicals to supplements, are designed to do ex-actly that.

Over the last 30 years, Ben Kaminsky, pharmaceutical and dermatological chem-ist and president of Odan Laboratories, has developed topicals that are prescribed by doctors and used in hospitals to treat skin conditions. In 1997, he and his son Howard co-founded B. Kamins, Chemist, a skin care range billed as “gentle cosmeceutical skin care.”

“It’s no longer acceptable that a skin cream just smells good and does nothing for the skin,” said Ben Kaminsky, who ex-plained B. Kamins, Chemist products are designed to lessen the signs of extrinsic and environmental aging. “You can make a difference in solving skin concerns if you match the right preparation with the right client.” He added that topicals are useful in treating local infl amma-tion, but that an extremely high level of antioxidants are needed to fi ght

damage caused by free radicals. Kaminsky and his peers acknowledged that most beauty companies are care-ful to soften claims, even if they are backed by clinical research, to avoid the FDA’s scrutiny.

However, Scott E. Gurfein, president and chief executive officer of Freeze 24/7, said bold claims are what separate his company from the rest of the pack. “Being more defi nitive in product state-ment is a competitive advantage,” said Gurfein, noting the line’s Freeze 24/7 product is frequently com-pared to the wrinkle-remover Botox. He noted his com-pany looks to independent chemists, raw ingredient providers and its own laboratory for technology but describes Freeze’s approach as “less pharmaceutical and more aspiratioal.” In the end, he said, the consumer is not concerned with marketing buzz words like cos-meceutical, clarifying,“She says, ‘I have a problem, and I want to solve it.’ ”

For a cosmeceutical to have merit in medical circles the product has to have science behind it and the fi n-ished formula needs to be tested in humans to ensure it’s free of allergens and is nonirritating, said Jessica Wu, Los Angeles-based dermatologist and creator of

Dr. Jessica Wu Cosmeceuticals. Wu, who uses her product range in her practice, acknowledges

that today any doctor can link arms with a contract manufacturer and have a namesake line without much effort.

Klinger Advanced Aesthetics is trying to emerge from the crowd of cosmeceuticals with Cosmedicine, a skin care range that re-lies on over-the-counter-grade pharmaceuti-cal ingredients.

“Cosmeceuticals is just a marketing story,” said Jane Terker, senior vice president and chief marketing offi cer of KAA. “Our company is rooted in science and focused on replica-tive and measurable results.”

Over-the-counter-grade ingredients, noted Terker, are held to a higher standard of labeling and manufacturing by the FDA. For instance, all over-the-counter ingredients must be explained in a carefully regulated “drug facts panel” on the back of the product. Over-the-counter status also requires a strict protocol for manufacturing that stipulates machinery must be meticulously sterilized and that each stage of the manufacturing process is documented. Terker estimates the effort drives up the cost of manufacturing by more than 30 percent. It’s all part of KAA’s ambition to formularize standards in the beauty industry. To that end, KAA recruited Johns Hopkins Medicine to consult on the clinical trials and quantitatively measure product benefi ts. Johns Hopkins, which originally was to have a stake in the beauty fi rm but has since rethought that strategy, is paid a consulting fee.

Several beauty executives have suggested that the FDA may broaden its defi -nition of cosmetics to allow for results-driven offerings that sit between over-the-counter and prescription skin care. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency has no plans to do so, and that a change in the agency’s authority would require Congress to change the laws.

“I don’t think anybody’s looking for a miracle in an over-the-counter product,” said Alexa B. Kimball, a dermatologist in Boston. “If it were a miracle, its use would fl ip over to a drug.”

ADDING UP BEAUTY

Defi nitions of the term cosmeceuticals still vary.

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The nation’s drugstores are in the midst of a major repositioning that could have a long-term impact

on the beauty department.Chain after chain is adding in-store mini medical

clinics offering quick tests such as strep throat cultures or cholesterol screenings. By doing so, drugstores are returning to their roots as centers of not only prescrip-tions, but distributors of health infor-mation. This positioning strengthens their role in the retail business and helps distinguish one chain drugstore from another down the block.

The most vivid example is CVS, which acquired MinuteClinics this summer. That purchase is expected to accelerate CVS’s expansion of in-store clinics. But not only are drug chains adding the clinics, supermarkets such as Kroger and discount chains including Wal-Mart and Target are doing the same.

With the need for space for the clinics — which can range anywhere from 75 square feet to more than 1,000 square feet — comes slicing of other categories. Since beauty is not one of the most productive departments in the store — inventory turns only about three times per year — some experts think footage could be siphoned off for the clinics. Others disagree and say that beauty goes hand in hand with the wellness positioning.

Exacerbating the situation is that there are more competitors than ever for beauty sales and the mass market category is in desperate need of some block-buster launches to get shoppers coming to the store for cosmetics and other health and beauty items.

“Chain drugstores have been under pressure in makeup and fragrances because they sell the same products as mass merchandisers but at higher prices,” explained industry consultant Allan Mottus. “This has

caused slower turnover rate in an intensive stockkeep-ing unit category.

“As such, chain drug managements are looking for categories where there is a higher return on invest-ment and less competition with Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart and dollar stores. Mini-clinics and more health-related categories fi t drug chains’ profi les and should

be expanded.”Add to that, he said,

Walgreens’ fl irtation with ap-parel, as reported this week in WWD, and there is even

greater pressure on beauty. Walgreens is offering ap-parel and jewelry to differentiate it from competitors.

Candace Corlett, principal with WSL Strategic Retail, agrees that chains are measuring right down to the inch when it comes to space allocations. “But I think whether beauty is reduced depends upon the chain it-

self and the strategy of that chain. Some are focused on health and wellness and consider beauty part of that and might cut down on seasonal. Others might sacrifi ce beauty for seasonal merchandise,” she explained.

Some retailers, Kerr Drug for example, have never put a big focus on cosmetics, choosing to be more of a health care destination. Walgreens, on the other hand, is a major beauty force and has relied on the expertise of its beauty advisers since the chain was born.

There are signs cosmetics, in particular, are get-ting the edit. Wal-Mart has slowly decreased its selec-tion, according to store observers. Other chains such as Walgreens have added more nontraditional beauty products such as teeth whiteners into the beauty as-sortment. One buyer who asked not to be named be-cause of the sensitivity of the subject said he’s already been forced to yield some color cosmetics footage to skin care and hair appliances.

Beauty manufacturers, not surprisingly, are fi ght-ing any urge to chop beauty. “Yes, all departments are vulnerable,” admitted Harvey Alstodt, president of Del Cosmetics. “But what chains should be doing now is making a bigger statement than ever about cosmetics.”

That sentiment was echoed by Lisa Yarnell, presi-dent of Jane & Co. “Last time I looked, total cosmet-ics in the drugstore channel was up 4.9 percent year to date, doing $1 billion in sales on 230 million units sold,” she said. “I don’t know what the rest of the areas in drug are doing, but 5 percent ‘ain’t too shabby’ in today’s marketplace. Why oh why would they want to cut into $1 billion in sales that has an average gross margin of 4 percent or better?”

Yet not all operators see the natural link between beauty and health care. As retailers look for ways to extend mini clinics, the industry watches and hopes beauty real estate doesn’t suffer.

7WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

WWD.COM

By Rachel Brown

LOS ANGELES — CVS’s prowess at digesting com-petitors’ stores is being put to the test in Southern California, where the company is wrapping up a re-vamp of the Sav-on drugstores jettisoned by Albertson’s earlier this year.

The revamp marks a return for CVS, the country’s largest drugstore retailer by store count, to the region, which is home to about half of the 701 Sav-on and Osco stores it nabbed in January for $2.9 billion in cash. Prior to the acquisition, only 21 CVS stores remained here after the Woonsocket, R.I.-based chain sold off units to Sav-on in the early Nineties.

The integration of Sav-on exposes West Coast drug-store customers to CVS’s particular take on beauty departments. The store format being rolled out is the national standard with the latest improvements, in-cluding pastel graphics and lower shelving, to help ac-commodate females who make up a majority of CVS shoppers. Stores have been expanded to fi t the typical-ly roomier Sav-on size of 18,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet, compared to CVS’s 13,000-square-foot average.

Unlike at Sav-on, where the place-ment of beauty departments varied widely, beauty is mainly at the front of the store and is one of the fi rst departments a customer sees when stepping through the door, said Ron Day, a former Sav-on executive who is now a CVS area vice president. At Sav-on, he said, “I don’t think the beauty experience was emphasized as much. It was more of a tradition-al drugstore. They had some of the normal makeup lines, but nothing to the depth of some of the proprietary lines or private label we have.”

About half of the CVS stores in Southern California feature beauty advisers — there are up to three in a store — who man the beauty depart-ments, conduct minutes-long skin analyses and instruct customers on products that best suit their skin types. Sav-on stores did not have em-ployees devoted to beauty departments.

Barbara Sciurba, a CVS regional category special-ist in beauty, is busy hiring 100 beauty advisers for 62

stores in Southern California. She will oversee the ad-visers as they go through training: four days of classes on lines featured in CVS’s Healthy Skincare Centers, up-front displays of skin care-targeted items by Vichy, La Roche-Posay, Eau Thermale Avene and CVS exclu-sives Lumene and Skin Effects by Dr. Jeffrey Dover. The advisers do not receive commissions based on the sales of specifi c brands.

“In a discount store, there’s no service. In a de-partment store, I feel it is a little intimidating to have someone behind the counter, and a lot of their com-missions are based on that line,” said Sciurba. “I want someone that’s going to sell me what I need, not what they’re asked to push.”

The larger store footprint in the converted CVS units provides additional space to stock the full range of products in the proprietary lines, swell other exist-ing offerings or bring in new brands. Walking through a CVS store located in Marina del Rey, Calif., Day noted the beauty department was twice the size of like sec-tions in Boston, where he recently visited. Despite re-gional discrepancies, buying for all the chain’s beauty

departments is handled in CVS’s Woonsocket headquarters.

“There was a lot of hard work done in Rhode Island to prepare for what sorts of lines you’d put in Southern California that we can ex-pand quickly or that we don’t have in other places,” said Day.

Mineral makeup brands, natu-ral and organic products, items aimed at Hispanic customers and European lines are among the big CVS shelf-space winners in Southern California. Physicians Formula has a four-foot spread in the Marina del Rey store but rarely exceeded one foot in Sav-on, according to Sciurba. CVS also has extensive presentations of Juice Organics, Avalon Organics and Jason Natural Personal Care Products, brands that had limited or no availability at Sav-on.

“When you acquire a chain, the natural inclination would be to mirror the current base of stores,” said Michael Indursky, chief marketing and strategic offi cer at Burt’s Bees, another natural line CVS carries. “What CVS said is, ‘How can I take the differences in the

stores and use those differences to my advantage?’ ” CVS measures the regional variations statistically.

“Each store is merchandized somewhat differently de-pending on the demographic. If in a market 10 percent of our customers are Hispanic, we treat that different-ly,” said Eileen Howard Dunn, vice president of corpo-rate communications for CVS. “Everybody has a base case from an inventory perspective — it is just some of the nuances that depend on the demographic.”

CVS was schooled in Hispanic shopping patterns after the 2004 purchase of Eckerd stores concentrat-ed in Florida and Texas. In predominantly Hispanic areas, CVS puts up Spanish signage and injects the merchandise mix with personal care products — such as Maja soap — targeting Hispanics. In Southern California, CVS’s aggressive advertising campaign in-cludes commercials running on Spanish-language as well as English-language TV, radio spots, billboards and ads in local newspapers and circulars.

The nod to Hispanics and the expanded beauty prod-uct assortment are part of a strategy to hang on to cus-tomers loyal to the absorbed chain, while reaching out to those who have favored department stores, grocery mar-kets or discounters for personal care. “The CVS’s of the world are looking to attract the Whole Foods customer: someone who is higher-education, higher-income and is willing to pay a premium for quality products,” said Morris Shriftman, senior vice president of marketing and product development for Avalon Natural Products, of why CVS is adding natural and organic lines.

CVS has put its merchandising decisions up to in-tense scrutiny. Before putting its stamp on Sav-on stores, CVS vetted the concept throughout the summer at a 22,000-square-foot former Sav-on in Saugus, Calif., a small, but rapidly growing upper-middle-class commu-nity in Los Angeles County. There, CVS conducted focus groups to gauge shoppers’ reactions to its changes.

“We wanted to see how many lines we could put in that store and test those lines and see what customer acceptance would be,” said Day.

The outcome: Day reported focus group participants largely gave CVS high marks and, most importantly, the Saugus store experienced a sales bump. (Day declined to disclose the exact sales increase.) Across CVS’s near-ly 6,200 stores, revenues climbed 23.3 percent to $3.6 billion for the four-week period ended Nov. 25.

What’s left for CVS to do? The remodel continues, but now the Midwest is a focus, where Osco stores are experiencing their own CVS makeover.

CVS Puts Final Touches on Southern California Comeback

Health Clinics Seen Pressuring Beauty

A Walgreens mini medical clinic.

Barbara Sciurba, Lucie Cervantes, beauty manager at CVS’s Marina del Rey store, and Ron Day. PH

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WWD.COM8 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

The HBA Report WWD.COM

By Andrea Nagel

An uptown salon on the Lower East Side seems, at fi rst, like a fi sh out of water. But like many neighbor-

hoods being transformed into destination areas for un-likely interests — the Meatpacking District as a fashion and beauty mecca still seems strange — the area that’s home to Yonah Schimmel and Katz’s Deli now is attract-ing a woman who wants an “A” salon experience.

Since May, Ultra, located on 123 Essex Street, has been aiming to do just that.

Owned by Mary Jones and Randall Seale, Ultra needed new, bigger digs after it outgrew its former space on 233 East 4th Street, where it was for nine years. Now the 1,500-square-foot, two-story space of-fers 14 styling stations and three blowdry stations, and employs six senior stylists, a junior stylist and a nail technician. Annual sales are about $650,000.

There is also a 300-square-foot retail area stocked with Japanese products such as Boce shampoos and treatments ($17- $25), Magic Move (a pomade, $19) and Foundation Jell (a blow-dry serum, $33), as well as MD Skin Care, Tigi items and MOP shampoos and conditioners.

Jones, a master colorist, selects items to sell that are formulated to maintain color, add moisture and protect hair from the sun.

“This helps to maintain the integrity of our work,”

said Jones, who approaches each head of hair as a dermatologist would approach skin. She assesses whether hair is col-ored, slightly damaged, moderately dam-aged or extremely damaged, and also takes into consideration any scalp condi-tions, such as fl akiness, redness and dry-ness. She offers different conditioning treatments based on her assessment, and has elixirs for diffi cult-to-color hair.

“Gray hair is much less porous that nongray hair, so sometimes a treatment prior to coloring helps gray hair take the color better,” said Jones. In these cases, she recommends Bonacure Repair Rescue 1 and 2, by Schwarzkopf, which she said is best for hair with uneven porosity.

Each stylist at Ultra has a specialty de-signed to meet every customer’s needs.

Seale, an owner and operator of Ultra, is best known for turning women “Texan blonde.” Tanya Pacht, a senior stylist and the salon’s manager, has a way with hair extensions. Joe Calcagno, a senior stylist, is an expert blow-dryer, as well as a colorist and stylist. Samantha Tsistinas, a senior stylist, cre-ates colorful do’s and individualist haircuts. Kyoko Motonaga, also a senior stylist, fl ourishes at chemical treatments, such as perms, thermal relaxers and color

jobs. Manicures, pedicures, waxing, makeup applica-tion and eyebrow shaping are also available. Prices, which range from $75 to $125 for cuts and start at $80 for a single process, make Ultra affordable for those without a huge budget.

“I think the atmosphere here says that everyone is welcome,” said Jones. “It’s a place where there’s qual-ity without all the pretense.”

Ultra Shaping Lower East Side Look

Taking cues from its European business, Nivea aims to make a big splash in the U.S. mar-

ket with five products designed to firm, tan and renew skin.

“We wanted to leverage our experience and success in other countries and bring it to the U.S. marketplace,” said Arnisha Hallett-Jones, Nivea’s marketing director.

This March, the Beiersdorf-owned brand plans to introduce Good-bye Cellulite, Sun-Kissed Firming Moisturizers for the body and face, and Visage Q10 Gentle Spa Micro-Dermabrasion Kit to mass retailers.

The Good-bye Cellulite collection, which in-cludes gel-cream and patches, was introduced earlier this year in European markets, including France, Germany and Italy. According to Hallett-Jones, Good-bye Cellulite became the number-one selling product in the anticellulite category in France, where the segment is more developed. Research showed that more than 31 million people are interested in fi ghting cellulite, but only 1.9 million people have tried cellulite-fighting products, said Hallett-Jones.

“We found that over 29 million women haven’t tried cellulite products, mainly because they never believed in it,” said Hallett-Jones. “We saw a huge opportunity in this segment.”

Nivea found that the anti-cellulite category in the U.S. prestige market was an $82 million business and prod-ucts retail at an average of $48 each. The mass market gener-ates a $15 million business and products average $12 each, said Hallett-Jones.

Retailing for $12.99 each, the Good-Bye Cellulite gel-Cream and patches contain l-carni-tine, an amino acid derivative found in the skin that is said to help convert fat into energy by fuel-ing cells. The patches are designed to be worn two to three times a week for eight hours to reduce the appearance of cellulite in thighs, buttocks and stomach. According to Hallett-Jones, after two weeks of use, the skin will be fi rmer and more toned. In four weeks, there will be a visible reduc-tion in the appearance of cellulite, she said.

Nivea declined to comment on sales projec-tions, but Hallett-Jones said she expected the cellulite collection to boost its U.S. business by 10 percent, while fi rst-year sales of new products, including the cellulite line, color-enhancing body and face lotions and a microdermabrasion kit,

would drive business up by 20 percent.Nivea is introducing Sun-Kissed Firming

Moisturizer for body and face, $6.99, designed to fi rm and gradually tan skin after fi ve days. Available in two shades — fair to medium skin and medium to dark skin — the body moisturizer contains ginkgo extract, which is designed to boost collagen to fi rm skin, and grape seed oil, an anti-oxidant, to moisturize. Glycerin and dihydroxyac-etone work together to gradually darken the skin.

“We came out with shimmer products a few years ago, but these are the fi rst gradual tanning products that also offer fi rming. Over the past two years, this category has exploded,” said Hallett-Jones. “Not only are we leveraging our fi rming expertise, but we’re also offering consumers the benefi t of a gradual tan in fi ve days versus seven days, like most tanning products.”

Nivea Visage’s Q10 Gentle Spa Micro-Dermabrasion Kit, designed to improve and refine the skin’s texture, will be avail-able exclusively in the U.S. beginning in March for $19.99. Nivea’s research showed that 90 percent of consumers know what micro-dermabrasion is, but only 18 percent have tried it because they either don’t understand it, it’s too expensive or it’s too harsh on the skin. The three-step kit, which includes a pretreatment cleanser, micro-dermabrasion gel and post-treatment balm, is designed to gently rejuvenate the skin, improving skin’s smoothness,

softness and glow.Although she would not

disclose details of the upcoming advertising ef-forts, Hallett-Jones said Nivea had invested an “unprecedented amount of money” into an ag-gressive campaign, which will include print, tele-vision, promotions and sampling, and extensive online initiatives.

“Our market may still be underdeveloped, but when we entered other countries where the catego-ry was already very developed, Nivea came in and became number one,” Hallett-Jones said. “We see the opportunity these categories represented.”

TV and print ads for Sun-Kissed Firming Moisturizer and Good-bye Cellulite are slated to break in April. Nivea will support the micro-dermabrasion launch with print ads that will also break in April. As part of the sampling program, about fi ve million Good-bye Cellulite products will be distributed.

— Michelle Edgar

Nivea Says ‘Good-bye’ to Cellulite

Inside Ultra salon.

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ALBERTO-CULVER PLANT: The Alberto-Culver Co. plans to build a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Jonesboro, Ark., that is slated to begin production by early 2008. Construction is expected to begin early next year and cost about $60 million. The plant will include production, warehouse and offi ce space and will eventually employ 400 people, according to Richard Mewborn, the fi rm’s vice president of worldwide operations. He added the company plans to close a manufacturing facility in Dallas in the coming year, and said he anticipates most of that plant’s production will eventually be shifted to Jonesboro.

COHEN TO BOND: Fragrance marketer Bond No. 9 has appointed Frédéric Cohen export director, overseeing the fi rm’s international division, a new position. The brand is found in 12 international markets now, and Bond No. 9 plans to enter eight new markets next year. Cohen most recently worked at Clarins, where he was responsible for the central and Eastern European markets.

COOKING UP A STORM: While December isn’t traditionally Breast Cancer Awareness month, Evelyn Lauder is making awareness of the cause a year-round endeavor. Lauder, senior corporate vice president of the Estée Lauder Cos. and the founder of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, appeared at Saks Fifth Avenue’s Manhattan fl agship Thursday afternoon to promote her cookbook, “In Great Taste: Fresh, Simple Recipes for Eating and Living Well” (Rodale), signing more than 250 books and generating large crowds. Saks donated an additional $10,000 to the profi ts generated from the books Lauder signed during her appearance. “We’re proud to play a small part in this very important cause,” said Stephen Sadove, chief executive offi cer of Saks Fifth Avenue. Lauder isn’t done stirring the pot, either: She will appear on QVC on Dec. 17 at 11 a.m. EST, as a guest on “In the Kitchen With Bob,” to sell the book.

SWEETS AND SCENTS: Pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini drew inspiration from Vera Wang’s Princess fragrance at Macy’s Herald Square on Tuesday evening as he sculpted spiced apple cake and whipped up apricot frappé, two fruit essences used in the composition of the scent. Iuzzini, who is pastry chef at Jean Georges restaurant, demonstrated desserts before about 100 people in the store’s cellar kitchen. “We’re trying to educate people about fragrance in a different way,” he said. Similar events also were held at Macy’s stores in Chicago, Miami and San Francisco, where Iuzzini created desserts inspired by the Angel, Juicy Couture and Miss Dior Chéri scents. “We created these events [because] customers are very interested in fi nding out more about popular gourmand fragrances,” said Debbie Murtha, senior vice president of cosmetics for Macy’s Merchandising Group. “We’re looking to bring the palette and senses together.”

HOLIDAY CHEER: Cosmetic Executive Women Foundation, the philanthropic arm of CEW, honored Johnson & Johnson Consumer Cos. Inc. at its annual holiday luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Tuesday. The event, which raised $450,000, benefi ts Cancer and Careers, a CEW Foundation program that provides support for working women with cancer and their employers.

SNIPPETS

Nivea’s Good-bye Cellulite gel-cream and patches.

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Costumed revelers at Marc Jacobs’ annual holiday bash took this year’s Venetian Carnival theme so much to heart that it felt like everyone was partying as if the city of canals would be underwater by morning.

There were gondoliers galore, harlequins bounding about and women dressed in corsets so tight they could barely speak. “I can breathe, but I can’t really move,”

whispered Lisa Airan, dressed in a traditional Venetian gown originally created for Sophia Loren.

The tiny-waisted socialite wasn’t the only partygoer to forsake comfort for costume. “Robert [Duffy] told me I should just spray-paint myself gold and go naked,” said Jacobs, whose constraining pigeon getup was in honor of all the birds in Piazza San Marco. “But I won’t host a party unless I’m the most uncomfortable person in the room.”

The designer had Duffy to thank for the evening’s lavish theme. “I had to think of one in 30 seconds or less,” Duffy explained. “I said to Marc, ‘How about Venice Carnival?’ He said no, and I said, ‘Shut up.’”

Good for Duffy, because in the end, all Jacobs’ staff and friends, including Lapo Elkann, Allison Sarofi m and Lars Nilsson, embraced the night with gusto. As confetti and feathers rained down from the domed ceiling of New York’s Gotham Hall, a group of courtesans and their masked suitors began a studied waltz, which many in the crowd joined in on, albeit stumbling on their two left feet.

Other guests simply admired each other’s inspired creations. One skyscraping couple came as French poodles, while a clever foursome barreled in dressed as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (each one is named after a famous Italian painter, after all). But it was the curvy, topless girls and muscular G-stringed boys gyrating on the podiums whom everyone really ogled. “I can’t stop looking at their asses,” Rachel Roy laughed.

Meanwhile, at the Gramercy Park Hotel, Vogue and the Diamond Trading Co. hosted a birthday party for Milla Jovovich in the space destined to be the hotel’s new restaurant, Park Chinois. Jovovich was a gracious guest of honor,

greeting friends such as Harvey Weinstein, Georgina Chapman, Margherita Missoni and a slew of male

and female models. But she revealed she didn’t have much practice.

“The last time I celebrated my birthday I was 13,” laughed Jovovich, who offi cially turns 31 on Sunday. “I’ve pretty much always been working on

my birthday or fl ying back from somewhere, so I usually just have a quiet dinner with family. But Vogue called me, and what Anna [Wintour] wants, Anna gets.”

Besides, the actress-designer has plenty of things on her mind other than her birthday. She just bought a house in Los Angeles with her fi ancé, Paul W.S. Anderson, which she describes as “Spanish hacienda style — I want it to look like the Chateau Marmont,” and has a new puppy schnauzer named Oliver Cromwell.

As for party guests, the main worry was what to get the birthday girl. Luckily for Jovovich, at least one gift was taken care of as the DTC presented her with one of its right-handed diamond rings, a 3-carat, Caressa-cut stunner, designed by Taché, which Jovovich proudly fl ashed (along with her engagement ring) as she danced and mingled.

Partner Carmen Hawk mused about giving her one of her multimedia paintings, while Amy Smart, in town fi lming “Life in Flight” with Patrick Wilson, was just happy to catch up with her longtime buddy.

“We’ve known each other since I was 13,” said the chocolate-tressed Smart. “I have no idea what to get her.”

On the West Coast that same night, a bevy of black-clad beauties fi led into L.A.’s Chateau Marmont for a party hosted by Dolce & Gabbana and Penélope Cruz to launch an online auction of four of Cruz’s Dolce & Gabbana gowns to benefi t the art charity du jour, Art of Elysium. Almost every clotheshorse in Hollywood — including Salma Hayek, Mia Maestro, Sharon Stone, Ginnifer Goodwin, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and Mischa Barton — jumped at the chance to don a clingy dress by the designers and size up the competition.

WWD.COM9WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

Piazza San Marco

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Ginnifer Goodwin in Dolce & Gabbana.

Salma Hayek and Mia Maestro, both in Dolce & Gabbana.

Penélope Cruz in Dolce & Gabbana.

Milla Jovovich in Jovovich-Hawk.

Lapo Elkann and the go-go dancers.

Rachel Roy

Marc Jacobs

Susanne Deeken at Gotham Hall.

A couple of French poodles.

The masked revelry at Gotham Hall.

WWD.COM10 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

Media/Advertising

SICKLY E-MAIL: Note to media executives: upgrade your Norton AntiSpam software. A mysterious, pesky chain e-mail virus began hitting in-boxes at a handful of major media outlets on Thursday, fl ummoxing reporters and executives who were desperately trying to stop the unwanted onslaught.

“I had maybe 80 of them at a time today and yesterday,” David Rooney, chief theater critic for entertainment trade Variety, said Thursday. “I was going to start screaming. It went to every major media person in the world.”

The e-mail, from the address screenmags@lists.pluguglyfi lms.com, targeted employees at the New York Post, Associated Press, CBS, IFC TV, NBC/Universal, Clear Channel and Dennis Publishing’s music title Blender, to name a few. The e-mail asks recipients if they would like to be removed from a Listserv, but, upon replying, the sender seemed to actually be perpetuating the e-mail’s viral spread to their own contacts.

Some up-in-arms recipients began to take an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach, with one journalist replying: “Please add me to this list.” — Stephanie D. Smith

STARRY EYES: Star’s woes continue to mount as newsstand sales have softened in the second half of the year. But what can American Media chief David Pecker do to stave the bleeding? According to the New York Post, Pecker decided this week to have all of Star’s West Coast entertainment stories vetted through National Enquirer editor in chief David Perel. But that’s just one option. Several sources close to the magazine speculate Pecker could replace Star editor Joe Dolce, whose contract is said to expire in the fi rst half of next year. “They could bring in some young gun that would work under Bonnie [Fuller],” said one source close to Star.

But don’t think that Debra Birnbaum, the ousted editor of Life & Style, would come in to save the day. Sources close to Birnbaum said she wouldn’t be interested — she and Fuller worked together years ago at Us Weekly, but the collaboration lasted a week. Sources also contended Pecker could move Perel back to Star to replace Dolce or hire a new news director or Los Angeles bureau chief.

According to fi gures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations’ Rapid Report, Star has performed poorly at the newsstand. Its Nov. 20 issue sold 552,500 copies, its lowest newsstand sale in three years and lower than the number of copies sold of British import OK for the same week — 570,000. The Dec. 4 issue sold 672,500, and, while fi gures for the Dec. 11 issue had not yet posted, sources close to the circulation fi gures said the issue’s newsstand sales were in the low 600,000. Preliminary sales for last week’s Dec. 18 issue were said to be as low as 475,000, according to one source with access to circulation fi gures, but a spokesman for the company said the issue was tracking around 550,000. “They’re in trouble,” said a source.

Granted, over the last three years, sales numbers in the second half are usually weaker than in the fi rst, since sales tend to rise in the summer as more people take vacation or travel. But even if high estimates hold, those numbers are well off from the magazine’s second-half 2005 average of 863,508. And, according to those close to the company, at one time a sale below 700,000 was considered a “real catastrophe” at AMI. But one executive close to AMI said that statement does not take into account the seasonality of newsstand sales: “Selling 700,000 in the summer, I wouldn’t be excited about, but selling 700,000 in the winter, I’m pretty happy.” — S.D.S.

ARE THINGS OK?: Though OK has seen sales increase to an average hovering around 500,000 for the second half of this year, the cover price held steady at $1.99. As of this week, the price increased to $2.99. But not just its price is increasing: OK will raise its rate base to 850,000 from 750,000 in January as the company plans to aggressively

expand its display pockets in the new year. — S.D.S.

COMPLEX CAMPAIGN: The last thing a marketer wants to do when unveiling a $100 shoe called the Original NBA Superstar is place an ordinary ad page in a magazine. That’s why Adidas tapped Complex and basketball lifestyle title Dime to create a custom 24-page pullout poster in the magazines’ December/January issues to showcase the shoe from the lens of each magazine. Complex took the task a step further, creating an accompanying blog at complex.com. But the blog isn’t for talking trash about basketball teams — it’s to help track down hard-to-fi nd pairs of shoes in other cities.

Adidas is slowly rolling out its new Superstar sneaker with 30 styles representing each team in the NBA. For one month, the shoe will be available only in one boutique in each city. But if a fan lives in Portland, and the Portland Superstars are sold out in Oregon, what can he do? Send a message to the blog asking other shoe buffs if they’ve got a pair in their city, and hopefully a swap can be made. After Jan. 5, the shoes will be available in most sports retailers, though the blog will stay live through February.

The ad insert and the blog are just more examples of how marketers are increasingly looking beyond the page in print advertising. But while the digital bells and whistles may seem innovative, some advertisers see customized digital media as par for the course. “A blogging component is becoming almost a mainstay,” said Abby Guyer, an Adidas spokeswoman. “Now, as the media tools that are at your disposal expand, the things that are standard are expanding.”

For Complex, the customized unit was worth nearly a year’s schedule of pages from Adidas. “Adidas…allowed us to create a truly custom program that is valued at 20 pages’ worth of media in the magazine,” said Complex publisher Rich Antoniello. Theoretically, at an open page rate of $28,475 in 2007, that’s about $570,000 worth of business — although presumably Adidas got a much better deal. It’s also worth considering Adidas ran a total of 18 pages with Complex in all of 2006. — S.D.S.

MEMO PAD

Newspapers’ Future: Think Like a MagazineBy Amy Wicks

While it’s no news circulation is slipping at major metropolitan newspapers such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, ob-

servers are asking why these publications are continuing to raise ad rates as some subscribers head for the door.

But the L.A. Times has a bone to pick with those who wonder whether it is still a viable avenue in which to advertise and obtain news. Looking ahead, a spokeswoman indicated the paper will start thinking more like a magazine when it comes to read-ers and focus on growing its individual paid circulation. The Audit Bureau of Circulations Fas-Fax report showed that for the six months ended in September, the West Coast paper fell 8 percent in daily circulation, but the spokes-woman countered that ABC’s number includ-ed “other paid circulation,” such as copies delivered to hotel rooms. Incidentally, ABC’s statistics also showed that the L.A. Times in-dividual paid circulation is up. “Individually paid copies deliver a more engaged reader to advertisers and therefore a more favorable return on investment,” she said — in other words, newsstand.

And that’s not the only magazine trait the Times will start exhibiting. Looking forward, the newspaper will offer more options for ad-vertisers, including front-section strips in sev-eral sections, innovative ad units and multi-media packages. On the edit side, the Times is ramping up its fashion and lifestyle coverage. Late last year, Elizabeth Snead, who has covered fashion for USA Today and E! Online’s Fashion Police, joined its online awards Web site, The Envelope, for its “Styles & Scenes” coverage. The paper also recently unveiled a redesign of its Sunday Calendar. The two-part section was renamed “Movies-TV-Style” and “Arts & Music.”

“The intensifi ed editorial ranges from society events and fashion trends to pop culture and Web discoveries and the rich arts scene,” said a spokeswoman.

But fashion advertisers may really start to take notice once the paper introduces a new weekly fashion and lifestyle section, for print and on-line. Sources close to the L.A. Times confi rmed plans are under way, but no timetable has been set.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has also expanded its style cov-erage. Journal publisher L. Gordon Crovitz previously told WWD that female Journal readers purchase “more women’s fashion items than do all the readers of the women’s magazines — combined.”

As the L.A. Times and the Journal continue to chase those stylish ad dollars, some advertisers are seeking ad rate cuts, especially since newspapers are cutting deals like never before. “I suspect that many, but not all, newspaper pub-lishers are running scared,” said Gene Willhoft, president of Absolute Media. Still, Willhoft said, there is a major hurdle for advertisers who seek lower ad rates. The L.A. Times and New York Times “are very important papers in their respective DMAs

[designated market area] and are tough to buy around if the target is an upscale, edu-cated audience,” he said. “Advertisers must be prepared to walk away or the negotia-tions may not be successful.”

George Janson, managing partner and director of print at mediaedge:cia, said he is open to negotiating rates but isn’t happy about the fact that even though newspaper circulation drops every year, ad rates still rise (the L.A. Times, New York Times and the Journal are all planning increases for 2007). Janson works with clients including Chanel and Xerox.

Regarding its ad rate increase, a New York Times spokeswoman contended the paper “remains one of the best places to reach an infl uential, educated, high-qual-ity audience. Advertisers continue to value that reach and are willing to pay a premium for it.”

One executive who agrees with that philosophy is Ruediger Albers, president of jewelry fi rm Wempe. He advertises in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and partially attributes Wempe’s success to his regular exposure in both pa-pers. “What’s the alternative to reaching one million people that have the spending power of New York Times readers?” he asked.

As for the Journal, Albers is partial to its value-added opportunities, such as being invited to an event where he can mingle with other advertisers and consumers. At one event, a chance meeting with S. Epatha Merkerson led to the actress wearing (and being photographed in) Wempe jewelry at major award shows. Albers is con-sidering increasing his schedules in both papers, but negotiations aren’t fi nalized. Presumably rates and placement remain an issue.

Amid weakening ad trends, the Internet seems to offer more hope. The New York Times Co. recently reported that its Internet revenue might increase 30 percent next

year, and a source said the L.A. Times “is in the same ball-park, if not slightly ahead of ” the New York Times projec-tion. A spokeswoman said Dow Jones Online isn’t report-ing forecasts for 2007, but this year online revenues were up 20 percent.

Ad-tracking fi rm TNS Media Intelligence projects ad-vertising budgets to stall next year, but the silver lining will be growth in online media (including search), which is coincidentally expected to grow up to 30 percent. Sarah Baehr, vice president of media at Avenue A | Razorfi sh, said the company predicts that online will outpace other media growth for three main reasons: The share of on-line media is still disproportionately small compared with offl ine media, several marketers haven’t maximized their fullest potential online, and the accountability and tractability of online (compared to other media) are compelling.

While speaking at a New Yorker breakfast, Sir Martin Sorrell, group chief executive at WPP Group, said people spend approximately 20 percent of their time online, but advertising online budgets are still in the single digits. He cited News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch as an excel-

lent example of utilizing the Internet (MySpace, for one) and said most established agencies aren’t moving fast enough to gain a foothold in this arena. Sir Martin con-tended the delay is partially due to the fact that top executives at agencies are nearing retirement and want to coast in their jobs and leave the Internet issue to their future replacements.

The new L.A. Times section.

The New York Times has attracted fashion and beauty ads with T.

By Marcy Medina

LOS ANGELES — Designers know the drill, and immediately after nominations for the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards were announced here Thursday, the fashion industry sprung to action, setting in motion the process of wooing that is intended to eventually result in dressing, bejeweling and beautifying the actresses who will walk the red carpet. The awards, from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, are considered a predictor of the Oscars. The Golden Globes gala is to be broadcast live on NBC at 8 p.m. EST on Jan. 15.

FILM

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama● Penélope Cruz, “Volver”

● Judi Dench, “Notes on a Scandal” ● Maggie Gyllenhaal, “Sherrybaby”● Helen Mirren, “The Queen”● Kate Winslet, “Little Children”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Comedy Or Musical● Annette Bening, “Running With Scissors”● Toni Collette, “Little Miss Sunshine”● Beyoncé Knowles, “Dreamgirls”● Meryl Streep, “The Devil Wears Prada”● Renée Zellweger, “Miss Potter”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture● Adriana Barraza, “Babel”● Cate Blanchett, “Notes on a Scandal”● Emily Blunt, “The Devil Wears Prada”● Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”● Rinko Kikuchi, “Babel”

TELEVISION

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Drama● Patricia Arquette, “Medium”● Edie Falco, “The Sopranos”● Evangeline Lilly, “Lost”● Ellen Pompeo, “Grey’s Anatomy”● Kyra Sedgwick, “The Closer”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Comedy or Musical● Marcia Cross, “Desperate Housewives”● America Ferrera, “Ugly Betty”● Felicity Huffman, “Desperate Housewives”● Julia Louis-Dreyfus, “The New Adventures of Old Christine”● Mary-Louise Parker, “Weeds”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television● Gillian Anderson, “Bleak House”● Annette Bening, “Mrs. Harris”● Helen Mirren, “Elizabeth I”● Helen Mirren, “Prime Suspect: The Final Act”● Sophie Okonedo, “Tsunami, the Aftermath”

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-series or Motion Picture Made for Television● Emily Blunt, “Gideon’s Daughter”● Toni Collette, “Tsunami, the Aftermath”● Katherine Heigl, “Grey’s Anatomy”● Sarah Paulson, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”● Elizabeth Perkins, “Weeds”

WWD.COM11WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

By Sharon Edelson

NEW YORK — “L”elements of Style, a new limited-edition collection of apparel, handbags and jewelry, inspired by the women of the television show “The L Word,” will launch Jan. 3.

The products will be based on the Showtime series about lesbians and will be sold only through Feb. 28 in specialty stores, such as Atrium in Manhattan; Brown Eyed Girl in San Francisco; Duets, Nashville; Ultimo, Chicago; Mitzi & Romano, Atlanta, and Lulu, Miami. Other retailers will be added in Los Angeles and Washington. “L”elements also will be sold on the Showtime Web site.

Jennifer Beals’ Bette character is generally considered to be the best-dressed one on the series. The offi cial Web site states that one of her favorite outfi ts was a Max Mara black ruched dress with an Alexander McQueen pink coat and Gucci pumps. However, the other actresses are no slouches in the wardrobe department.

It should come as no surprise “The L Word” has spawned its very own fashion, jewelry and accessories brand; the pro-ducers of the series have taken great care to underscore the beauty of the cast, dress-ing the actresses in slinky monochromatic clothing.

In fact, the series has been recognized as much for its fashion as its groundbreaking subject matter. There’s a whole section on the Web site featuring an auction of authentic clothing worn by the cast, character ward-robes listing the items and brands characters wore with prices and locations where they are sold. There is even an L Word shop that hawks handbags, belt buckles emblazoned with the letter L, T-shirts, tanks and briefs with messages such as “Lez” and “I Love Bette.”

Several of the designers participating in

“L”elements of Style have identifi ed themselves as members of the lesbian and gay communities, or have businesses that cater to them.

Honey Labrador, a former model who was the fi rst lesbian to be featured on “Queer Eye for the Straight Girl,” has designed jeans for “L”elements, while Udi Behr, whose company Love and Pride sells same-sex wedding bands and commitment rings, designed an ex-tensive collection for “L”elements that ranges in price from $29 for a stainless steel and rubber bracelet to $695

for an 18-karat gold ring with the female insignia highlighted in black enamel.

Laura Dahl, the designer of Wife-beader tops hand-beaded with pearls, quartz, citrine, garnet and peridot, is launching a line of contemporary sportswear for “L”elements. Handbags will come from Cate Adair, a costume designer for “Desperate Housewives,” and Tali Epstein Segal, who designs under the label TES. Blue Cult is sup-plying intricately detailed jeans and jackets with unique stitching and hand-rubbed details.

“I love the show and I was intrigued by the concept of a collection inspired by the characters,” said Sam Ben-Avraham, owner of Atrium. “The women of ‘The L Word’ convey such a strong

sense of style and each has her own unique and very wearable look.”

Ben-Avraham said he expects to do a minimum of $50,000 in sales in the two-month period. “The design-ers have committed to quick replenishment, so I’m op-timistic that we can do more,” he added.

Showtime wants to do more as well. “We’re going to take a look at how this does,” said Laura Palmer, vice president of distributor marketing. “We’re prepared to have more items and more stuff. The great thing about ‘The L Word’ brand is that it does go to many different categories.”

Chase Begins for the Golden Globes

TV’s ‘L Word’ Leads to New Fashion Collection

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Kate Winslet

WWD.COM12 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

Pelosi Outlines Plan to PushFor Screening All Containers Continued from page oneapparel and textiles into the country last year, claiming it could cripple international com-merce at a time when just-to-the-minute deliveries at retail are increasingly common. Even the slightest delay in clearing Customs in a foreign port could interrupt a retailer’s or vendor’s entire supply chain.

The Democrats had suggest-ed such a measure earlier, but after intensive lobbying by the industry against the proposal, it was scaled back.

“We don’t object to the objec-tive of moving toward 100 per-cent screening, but that can’t be done overnight,” said Erik Autor, vice president and international trade counsel at the National Retail Federation. “It has got to be done in a measured way that allows time to get the system and procedures in place. If you mandate 100 percent screening prematurely, all it is going to do is have an adverse impact on our commerce and our economy.”

The importers said that while they wanted to get off on the right foot with the new House speaker, their concerns about 100 percent screening outweighed efforts to build a cooperative relationship.

“To be honest, this is too important,” said Julia Hughes, senior vice president at the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles & Apparel. “We want to work with Speaker Pelosi and we look forward to that, but when we talk about this issue, the impact is too broad to say we are going to hold back.”

“I’m of the belief that every container that gets shipped to this country is not a terrorist threat,” said Allen Thompson, vice president for supply chain security for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, which counts Wal-Mart among its members. “The challenge is fi guring out which ones pose a threat and which ones don’t.”

Thompson added, “At the end of the day, when you get down to it, this is about risk management and how to ensure safely that legitimate cargo is allowed to come to this country while dangerous cargo is checked. That balance has to be maintained.”

Pelosi said the fi rst order of business for the House after it passed a rules pack-age would be to pass the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

“We will do them one better on port security, where we have even tougher proposals to screen 100 percent of the containers long before they reach U.S. shores,” Pelosi said at a news conference announcing her agenda for the congressio-nal session that begins Jan. 4.

Democrats, who sought to make port se-curity an election-year issue, failed in their efforts this year to include such a strong mea-sure in legislation that Congress passed and

President Bush signed this fall. They argued that the estimated 5 percent scanning rate of more than 11 million containers entering the country annually was dangerously low. Republicans resisted full inspection at for-eign ports, maintaining it was not practical.

The issue of port security was in the spotlight all year as the aborted Dubai Ports World deal triggered a national debate and generated broader port security initiatives that preoccupied Capitol Hill through the summer and fall. Dubai Ports World, owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates, sought to operate terminals in six major U.S. ports, but abandoned its efforts and ultimately sold its properties.

The controversy this spring highlighted the vulnerability of ports to terrorist attacks and set off a fl urry of legislative proposals addressing the possibility of a radioactive bomb or weapon of mass destruction being smuggled into the U.S. in a cargo container.

The House and Senate passed the fi nal bill in October, providing billions of dol-lars in funding to strengthen the nation’s defenses against a potential terrorist at-tack on cargo containers entering the U.S. or at major ports at home and abroad.

The legislation provides money for a pilot program at three foreign ports to test and establish a screening system for radia-tion within one year and also requires the 22 major U.S. ports to establish procedures and technology to examine all containers for radiation by the end of next year.

Retailers and wholesalers were largely supportive of the October bill, but launched a lobbying campaign against attempts by Democrats to require 100 percent screen-ing in foreign ports of all inbound U.S. cargo containers, arguing technologies need to undergo more testing and fi ne-tuning before such a goal could be set.

Pelosi’s comments on Thursday re-newed their concerns after they thought they had put the issue to rest.

By Arthur Zaczkiewiczand Jeanine Poggi

With two weekends left before Christmas, retailers face warmer

weather and consumers are waiting for the “big sale.” Some retailers already have pulled the trigger on their promo-tions as a way to drive traffi c, which will likely bolster top-line growth.

But will the markdowns be at the ex-pense of lower gross margins? Some an-alysts don’t think so. The promotions are well executed and planned, especially at the specialty retailers. Still, there is a lot of inventory in the market, and at least one analyst believes planned sales could turn into unplanned markdowns as early as the beginning of next week.

In the department store sector, Dana Telsey, chief research offi cer at Telsey Advisory Group, said the sales are well planned and in line with expectations. She was in the midst of a national retail check Thursday and was pleased with what she saw in the sector.

“The department store retailers are in check, relative to what we’ve seen in the past,” Telsey said. “Retailers were very aggressive on Black Friday, then it slowed down, and now we’re in the second phase of the holiday season. We definitely are seeing markdowns to move the merchan-dise. A lot of these markdowns are planned markdowns built into retailers’ margins.”

Telsey said stores are going through a transition right now. “Inventory levels are lean,” she explained. “You’re seeing a transition to new in-ventory levels with new ‘transitionwear’ between winter and spring. That is be-ginning to come into stores now. There’s more frequent fl ows of new product, which helps to maintain full prices.”

Telsey said the promotions scream sales but are not any steeper than prior seasons. Still, there are retailers that are accelerating their markdowns.

In the specialty channel, promo-tional activity also is planned. “There are a lot of sales going on right now, but much of it is planned promotions in-stead of reactionary price slashing. You may look at retailers such as Coldwater Creek, Victoria’s Secret, Express and others and say, ‘They look very promo-tional.’ But the sales are [scheduled], and I would say retailers [in the spe-cialty sector] are right on plan,” said Mark Montagna, analyst at CL King & Associates.

Montagna said some retailers, such as Gap, are not faring as well as others this holiday, and they could be forced into making steep, unplanned markdowns. “It depends on [who] you are talking about. It is company-specifi c,” he said.

The analyst said the planned mark-downs in the market right now are easy to spot because of the signage. “You’re not seeing any handwritten, ‘50 percent off ’ signs right now,” he said. But that could change.

Walter Loeb, analyst at Loeb Associates, said retailers are dealing with several hurdles, such as warmer-than-normal temperatures across most of the U.S. as well as a weaker housing market, “which is making people feel less rich,” he said. This consumer sen-timent could negatively impact depart-ment stores.

Loeb said he expects retailers to move from planned markdowns to slash-ing prices during unplanned sales after this weekend. “And I don’t think gift-card redemption after the holidays will make up for those sales,” he added.

“Retailers want to be lean and clean by the end of the season with as little liability as possible,” Loeb said, adding that troubled segments this holiday in-clude outerwear and apparel. Stronger-performing categories so far have been accessories, shoes, handbags and jew-elry, Loeb said.

Eric Beder, a Brean Murray Carrett & Co. analyst, said in a research note earlier this week that he is “pleasantly surprised at the margin cohesion and in-ventory levels we are seeing from most of our [coverage] universe. This coming week should be crucial, as virtually all the product ‘bets’ have been made.”

Beder’s top picks for holiday win-ners in the specialty sector include

companies such as Bebe Stores, Guess, Blue Holdings, Caché and True Religion.

A quick retail check over the past week and a look at national print advertising Thursday showed heavy promo-tions across retail chan-nels.

Bloomingdale’s was offering 25 percent off a selection of cashmere cold-weather accesso-ries, while a separate ad in Thursday’s news-papers touting 20 to 60 percent off furs, outer-wear, sportswear and other items during a sale beginning Thursday and ending Tuesday. In an-other ad, Macy’s promot-ed 50 percent off, “plus an extra 15 percent” on natural/dyed fur-trimmed

or mink coats from its Fur Vault.Lord & Taylor’s ad pitched 50 percent

off cold-weather accessories, children’s outerwear, men’s outerwear and wom-en’s down and fake-fur coats. Cashmere sweaters, sleepwear and cubic zirconia jewelry also were reduced.

In specialty store retail checks by Brean Murray Carrett & Co. and Jennifer Black & Associates as well as phone calls to stores made by WWD, promotions were light to nonexistent at Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfi tters and J. Crew.

A sales associate at an Abercrombie & Fitch store in the Park Meadows Mall, Littleton, Colo., said there was just the “usual clearance rack of merchandise” that included T-shirts, long-sleeved but-ton-downs and hoodies. The Freehold Raceway store, in Freehold, N.J., echoed a similar take on a lack of sales.

At Hollister, fl eece was on sale for $29.50 from $49, and camis were as low as $9.99. American Eagle offered aerie underwear, fi ve for $20. At Ann Taylor, outerwear was 25 percent off, while se-lect cashmere items were buy one, get the second for 50 percent off.

Gap stores were deep in sales, with window promotions touting “up to 40 percent off.”

A sales associate at the Gap at Roosevelt Field Mall said, “There is stuff everywhere in the store for $20 or less.”

On Thursday afternoon, Sears Holdings Corp. said in a statement that it was extending store hours “and [offer-ing] special deals this weekend to help shoppers beat the last-minute rush the weekend before Christmas.”

Some of the specials include 30 per-cent reductions on consumer electron-ics, tools and home goods.

Retailers Poised for Markdowns Heading Into Holiday Home Stretch

Dash Inks License for Pro-Keds LineHIP-HOP MOGUL DAMON DASH IS ADDING ANOTHER ELEMENT TO HIS EXPAND-ing empire.

Dash, chief executive offi cer of Damon Dash Enterprises, has entered into a licens-ing agreement with Stride Rite Corp. to produce and distribute men’s, women’s and children’s apparel under the Pro-Keds brand. Dash plans to launch the line to the trade at the MAGIC show in Las Vegas in February. It will be in stores next summer.

“I always knew this would happen. The clothes are always supposed to match the sneakers, so it was just a matter of time,” Dash said. “The apparel will have the same fresh ideas that have made Pro-Keds sneakers so successful in the past couple of years.”

Consumers can eventually expect two lines, one more urban in feeling and set at a lower price point and the other more “retro and higher priced,” he said.

Dash, who has licensed the Pro-Keds brand from Stride Rite since 2004, was awarded the Crystal Shoe Award from the Two-Ten Footwear Foundation earlier this month. The award was given in tribute to his work on the revitalization of the brand, which moved from an $8 million business to a $22 million business in the past year. Pro-Keds fi rst launched in 1949 by Keds as an athletic footwear line primarily aimed at basketball.

Besides Pro-Keds, Damon Dash Enterprises also owns Rachel Roy, State Property, Armadale vodka and Dash’s new men’s line, CEO Collection.

— Julee Greenberg

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Promotions were light to nonexistent at Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfi tters and J. Crew.

Nancy Pelosi at a press

conference on Thursday.

WWD.COM13WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

By David Moin

CAN GUCCI PLAY IN THE LAND of grunge?

The Pacifi c Northwest’s fi rst luxury enclave, called Luxury Village, will strive to make it happen. It’s a 140,000-square-foot project opening in two phases in 2009 and 2010 within The Bellevue Collection.

Luring luxury to the region has been like pulling teeth. At The Bellevue Collection, which is in the city of Bellevue, Wash., eight miles east of Seattle on the other side of Lake Washington, Tiffany, Coach, Brooks Brothers and Nordstrom are about the extent of the upscale side of the offering.

“Fifteen years ago, when we first [were] talking to luxury brands, many thought anything west of Chicago and north of San Francisco was the Wild West,” said Kemper Freeman Jr., owner of The Bellevue Collection and chairman and chief executive of Kemper Development. “Or they would look at us as if we were from Alaska.”

How times have changed. The luxury market continues to be strong, brands in the sec-tor aggressively seek growth op-portunities and The Bellevue Center has emerged as one of the nation’s most productive shopping complexes. It’s partly due to the region’s prosperity, fueled by the rise of Microsoft, Starbucks, Nordstrom, Costco and a rebound at Boeing. It’s also due to Freeman and his family, who focus entirely on operating and upgrading The Bellevue Collection. “My whole world is right here,” the 65-year-old Freeman said, noting The Bellevue Collection is his sole project, that he lives in a condo on the site and that, if there was a mortuary on site, “that’s where they’d put me when I die.”

Sources say anchors in the mall do well. Nordstrom’s 270,000-square-foot unit report-edly generates $170 to $180 mil-lion in annual sales; Macy’s, with 220,000 square feet, posts $80 million to $90 million, and the 190,000-square-foot J.C. Penney yields $30 million to $40 million.

According to Freeman, the cen-ter is tracking at $650 in sales per square foot this year, and has been averaging 10 percent increases for the last fi ve years. In roughly the same time frame, Freeman has noticed shoppers leaning toward sweaters and sport jackets, instead of tie-dyed shirts and shorts. “Dressing up is a new thing. We are seeing a big change,” he said.

The Bellevue Collection con-sists of the Bellevue Square anchor retail center, two mixed-use projects and the upcoming Luxury Village. Being family-owned and highly productive, the center is often compared with Bal Harbour Shops in Miami, owned by the Whitmans, and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., owned by the Segerstrom family. But the main difference, historically, has been the lack of luxury. The center opened in 1946 with the 16-shop Bellevue Square, and has grown to more than 250 shops and a total of 1.6 million square feet of retail, attracting 16 mil-lion people annually. There are also 18 restaurants, two hotels, a 16-screen cinema, a billiards hall and one million square feet of offi ce space, in which Eddie Bauer headquarters and Microsoft’s northwest marketing division will move.

Last week, Freeman was in New York initiating leasing

talks with brands and packing plans for creating the Luxury Village which he described as an elegant streetscape of high-end shops along both sides of Bellevue Way, with wide, 12- to 16-foot tree-lined sidewalks and views of the lake and Mt. Rainier. Rents for the new luxury tenants will range from $85 to $110 a foot, but Freeman stressed: “Every deal we make is unique. Different categories and different locations have dif-ferent rates.”

The Luxury Village project calls for about 60 stores, a fi ve-star boutique hotel, new res-taurants and “a crescent court” with valet dropoff for the hotel and retail. Phase one will trans-form a parking deck into 75,000 square feet for luxury, and phase two will convert a Safeway and Bartell drugstore into 65,000 square feet of luxury retail. “We’re taking a middle ground approach where it’s very im-portant that the luxury brands are visible and their personali-ties are apparent, but the other side of the story is that buildings should hold together to form a luxury block,” said Kimberly Sheppard, partner in Gabellini Sheppard Associates, which de-signing the master plan. “It will be more village-like, of a pedes-trian scale, so you won’t be shop-ping outside along a giant super block.”

The Pacifi c Northwest: Luxury’s Next Frontier

By Samantha Conti

LONDON — Pringle is making inroads in the U.S. and Japan, and plans fl agships in both countries.

Douglas Fang, the brand’s new chief executive offi cer, told WWD the company fi nally had found a site for its fi rst Manhattan fl agship. He is about to sign the deal, and plans to open the store next year. Pringle has been looking for the past few years for a store location in Manhattan, and al-ready has a showroom there.

The company is also ramping up its presence in Japan, and has set up a new company, Pringle Japan K.K., to deal with demand in that mar-ket. Fang said the company had named Shigeo Matsutani, 51, ceo of the new venture.

Matsutani, previously executive director of Sann Freres S.A., Pringle’s former distributor in Japan, will report directly to Fang.

“Japan has been an important market for us for the past fi ve years. We’ve done exceptionally well there and we’re ready to step up our efforts,” said

Fang. “We’re fortunate to have some very capable individuals at the new company. I have a lot of re-spect for, and confi dence in, Mr. Matsutani; he is a true leader.”

Fang said Pringle was not seeing the sort of slowdown other fashion and luxury labels were experiencing in Japan. “We are in growth mode — and, don’t forget, we’re smaller than a lot of other brands in the market. Japan still makes up a small percentage of [Pringle’s] sales,” he said.

Pringle has a 2,000-square-foot, stand-alone store in Ayoyama that carries both Collection and Red Label. In 2008, the company plans to open a separate fl agship that will carry the Collection label exclusively. The label also is sold at depart-ment stores and specialty shops in Japan.

Fang said the Japanese were embracing Pringle’s Scottish heritage, and the iconic ar-gyle weave and lion logo. “We’ve also found the Japanese customers are very interested in this new era of Pringle — and they love playing with color,” he said.

Pringle Sets Site for N.Y. Flagship

A rendering of Luxury Village’s streetscape.

WELL SUITED: Graphic gurus Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak of Paris-based M/M are dabbling in men’s wear for Japanese concept store

Adelaide. The pair already created the visual identity for the Tokyo boutique, which opened in July. “We thought it would be fun to do a play on the three-piece suit,” said Augustyniak, noting inspiration comes from costumes they recently designed for a stage version of Marguerite Duras’ “Hiroshima Mon Amour.” As the former art directors of French Vogue, as well as the artistic eye behind spring ad campaigns such as Stella McCartney and Blumarine, the pair has had its fair share of exposure to fashion.

Fashion Scoop

By Sharon Edelson

NEW YORK — There’s a lot to be said for doing only one thing and doing it well.

Most retailers are proud of the breadth and depth of their offer-ings, but two new stores on the Upper East Side are making a strong case for having a singular vision.

Roberta Roller Rabbit, at 1019 Lexington Avenue, is devoted to ap-parel and linens made from Indian block print fabrics designed by the store’s owner, Roberta Freymann. She said the 1,200-square-foot unit will pull in $1.5 million to $2 million in sales in the fi rst year.

At House of Mai at 27 East 67th Street near Madison Avenue, Suzan Azuma sells nothing but cashmere — sweat-ers, scarves and blankets — in a compact 700-square-foot store she estimates will have fi rst-year sales of $1.5 million.

Both women are actively involved in designing, sourc-ing and manufacturing their products. Freymann does research at libraries and museums before creating the delicate fl oral and ani-mal patterns for her block prints. On a buying trip for her original epon-ymous store on East 70th Street, she wandered into a block print studio in Jaipur in northern India and fell in love with the craft. Now she spends six weeks a year work-ing with the woman who runs the studio. “She revived the technique of block printing,” Freymann said. “She works exclusively for me now. She pins pieces of cloth to 10-foot-long tables and does her printing. The fabric gets dried in the sun.”

If perfectionism is a trait of the reso-lute, then Freymann and Azuma share it. Scrutinizing a jade sweater, Azuma said: “I’ve been trying to get the right fi t on a turtleneck for a year. This is my fi fth try. I’m very meticulous.”

Azuma is just as discriminating when it comes to choosing the yarn for her sweaters. In the nine years since she started her company, she’s become an expert on goats, visiting farms through-out Asia. Long-haired white alpas and liaonings raised in Inner Mongolia produce hair that is the ne plus ultra of cashmere.

From a simple cashmere T-shirt, Mai’s offerings have grown to include V-neck sweaters ($295), cardigans ($338), polos ($348), vests ($318), robes ($950), drawstring pants ($395) and camisoles ($225). Some of the more popular styles are available in as many as 30 colors. Prices refl ect the rarity of the fi ber, Azuma said. “It’s costly because we’re using fi ne-gauge cashmere yarn — that’s only 3 percent of the goat,” she added. “The white, long hair is the most expensive.”

Last year, House of Mai produced 30,000 units. The company’s wholesale business — Mai is sold at Barneys New York, Fred Segal in Los Angeles and Isetan and Mitsukoshi in Japan — is expected to reach $3 million next year.

Everything at Roberta Roller Rabbit is from India, including the furniture: Victorian-style chairs remade for a maharaja with silver-painted wood and blue-patterned fabric; hand-painted dressers and armoires from Rajastan hold bedsheets, quilts and tablecloths with block print designs. There are tunics, $50; pajama sets, $95; printed robes, $85, and pareos, $70, for adults, and baby tunics, $40, and pa-jamas, $50, for children.

Freymann painted the store a shade she calls “nacho cheese.” The border of blue lotus fl owers near the ceiling was stenciled by her sister.

Before she became a retailer, Freymann designed knitwear for Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. “We did very well until we hit a point where we weren’t getting paid by anyone,” she said. Freymann’s three stores — a location in East Hampton that opened last summer sells hand-knit sweaters, beaded belts and chunky jew-elry — are a reaction to the sameness that affl icts many retailers. “These are things that aren’t mass produced,” she said. “I believe in being special.”

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Top: Roberta Roller Rabbit’s block prints. Above: At House of Mai, cashmere is the name of the game.

WWD.COM14 WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

Rider of the WWII StormIt seemed like a rural idyll. Mireille Marokvia’s sheep and goat had found a piece

of land where they liked to graze; it was, however, some distance from her house, and they refused to go there alone. To summon her, the goat would first knock on the door of the house. If that didn’t work, it would deliberately go to stand on some high ground that clearly could be seen from the second story of the dwelling, where its mistress spent most of her time. The goat would then proceed to make its hair stand on end and slowly puff itself up. Worried the animal was ill, Marokvia would come out at once. The ploy worked every time. The goat would then deflate itself, and the trio would go off to the pasture, accompanied by Marokvia’s orange cat.

Marokvia’s house was in Bergheim, in an isolated part of the German countryside, surrounded by forest. But, animal antics aside, it wasn’t all a Thoreau-like idyll. World War II was raging, and she had moved there because her town, Stuttgart, was under heavy bombardment. She had to share her house with the family of a Nazi offi cer who was away at the front. And a local Nazi offi cial had taken an interest in her, fi nding her presence there suspicious and insisting she report to him weekly.

“Sins of the Innocent” (Unbridled Books) is Marokvia’s memoir of how she spent World War II. Marokvia was French; she had married a German man, Artur Marokvia, referred to as Abel in the book, whom she met in Paris. He hated Germany and particularly the Nazis, and she credits him with making her understand how horrible their regime was. “He was very intelligent, and he saw things that other people didn’t,” she says. “But many people in Germany knew what Hitler was. They were scared. There was a lot of fear; you did not dare not follow the rules. Some were interested, and some gained. They knew how to seduce the people, and many people believed. We had tried to punish Germany too much after the fi rst World War. Not only the Germans were guilty for the fi rst World War. That really is what provoked Hitler.”

The couple had only gone to Germany to take care of his mother. They planned to stay just six months; then World War II broke out. The memoir is an account of how they survived the war in a country so inimical to both of them. The book, which received an excellent review in The New York Times, alternates funny or absurd incidents with disturbing, even frightening ones. At one point, the couple attended a dinner party given by Abel’s boss, the head of a Stuttgart advertising agency. One of the guests was a Nazi offi cial, who began ranting and raving about Jews. Abel was so incensed he called Hitler and the man idiots, and proceeded to slap him. As the couple were thrown out of the party, the offi cial muttered threats after them. They were frightened for months afterward, but nothing happened because the Nazi was involved in an intraparty power struggle of his own and was in no position to exact revenge.

Abel, a gifted artist, used his talents to avoid being conscripted into the army; he joined a group called the Operation Todt. Among many other functions, it sent artists to areas newly occupied by the Germans to make propaganda pictures — fl ower-bearing Russian peasants welcoming the Nazis, for instance. At times, he was sent to places he had long wanted to visit, such as Italy. After having been reprimanded for making sketches that his employers didn’t want — of such things as Russian beggars or soldiers looting (“Our soldiers don’t loot!”) — Abel managed to create uplifting images that satisfi ed their needs and kept his “inappropriate” renderings for himself.

Meanwhile, to keep from having to go to work in a factory, Marokvia fi rst learned weaving and then took on some translations from German to French. She did something slightly subversive with some of them: She changed the tall, perfectly aquiline Aryan heroes of the romances she was working on to men more to the French taste. They were shorter, darker, sometimes with curly hair or even fl eshy noses.

Like most authors of wartime memoirs, Marokvia writes frequently about food — or rather, the lack of it. Even in a restaurant one could get very little to eat.

One hazard of being bombed was having to share the shelter night after night

with one’s annoying neighbors. Marokvia noticed that some of them hadn’t even bothered to make any provision for shelter space for their servants.

After the war, the Marokvias emigrated to America. He was almost 50 and she was over 40, so their prospects might have appeared poor. In a startling piece of good fortune, however, she picked the names of several magazines from the telephone directory. Her husband went to Esquire, asked for work, and when he did an excellent job in two days, the magazine offered him a job. Their luck held; he worked consistently as an illustrator after that and she wrote a total of fi ve children’s books that he illustrated. In addition, she translated costumes from sketches to patterns for the theatrical costumer Brooks. When they retired, they took a trip to Mexico; they liked it so much they stayed there for 13 years. Later, they returned to the U.S. to the state they found most like that country, New Mexico. Mireille Marokvia, now widowed, still lives there at the age of 98.

Surprisingly, her husband, who had many other good qualities, didn’t think she should write. He always told her, “You’ll never make it.” She initially destroyed her diaries during wartime when she heard the Gestapo were sniffi ng around. Later, she wrote a memoir and burned it. It is only in the past few years that she has written “Immortelles: Memoir of a Will-o’-the-Wisp,” published in 1996, about growing up during World War I, and, of course, “Sins of the Innocent.”

She says that she enjoys spending time alone, in her small house, which has a beautiful walled garden with trees. “I’m a troglodyte,” she says. While her publisher claims she’s at work on the third volume of her memoirs, Marokvia denies it. She is writing, she says, about something very specifi c, a time as a young child when her fi rst toy, a small clown, was taken away from her in the middle of the night. With her characteristically apt use of English, she says of the incident: “I’m still miffed about it.”

— Lorna Koski

PHOTOGRAPHER DAVID LACHAPELLE SWEPT INTO Berlin on a wave of New York glamour, complete with entourage, for two exhibits of his work in the German capital.

Accompanied by transsexual muse and model Amanda Lepore, and Heatherette designer Richie Rich, LaChapelle spent a week at the beginning of December here, signing copies of his latest book, “Heaven to Hell,” and opening a show at the Helmut Newton Foundation. Titled “Men, War & Peace,” the three-in-one exhibition features 40 of LaChapelle’s pictures, the work of war photographer James Nachtwey and male portraits by the late Helmut Newton. The show runs until May 20.

“Newton has always been a photography god to me,” explained LaChapelle. “I was telling June [Newton] the other day that when I was growing up, I used to rip out Helmut Newton’s Yves Saint Laurent ads out of W and plaster them all over my bedroom.”

LaChapelle believes it is partly thanks to Newton that fashion photography is now taken seriously as an art form. “The crossover happened with Newton and [Robert] Mapplethorpe,” he said. “There was a time when you were either an artist or a commercial pho-tographer. But then something interesting happened, and over the last few years we have started seeing lots of museum shows by fashion photographers.”

Parallel to the exhibition at the Helmut Newton Foundation, a mini exhibition of eight photographs of LaChapelle’s work is being displayed in Puma’s con-cept store in the central Mitte district here. Tucked

away in a separate room, the photos are from the book “Heaven to Hell.” To lure visitors in, one of the store windows has been designed by LaChapelle, showing Lepore, dripping with smudged makeup, as a trashy transsexual version of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe silk-screen prints.

Although known primarily for his magazine work, LaChapelle is going back to his roots with exhibi-tions: He fi rst showed his pictures at a New York gallery in 1984, which led to a job at Warhol’s maga-zine, Interview. “Suddenly, I found myself working for magazines,” he remembered. “But I have always felt that fashion photo-graphs are never supposed to have any content, or depth, or subtext. In fact, editors get angry when they do. But when you look at pictures at a gallery or a museum, you are sup-posed to look for content — which is great for me because I have al-ways had that anyway. I have al-ways used the medium of fashion photography to express whatever my own personal obsessions at the time have been.”

And certainly LaChapelle couldn’t be accused of shying away from the big themes: Climate change, consumerism, instant grati-fi cation and conspicuous consump-tion are all there — even death. In the book’s title piece, Courtney Love is portrayed in a reenactment of “The Pieta.” The setting, a squal-id hotel room lit by a naked light-

bulb, is sordid, but the painted rays going up to heaven and a smiling angelic cherub in one corner give the scene a transcendent glory.

“Is it Mary the mother of God, or is it Mary the hooker from Third Avenue with her junkie boyfriend?” asked LaChapelle, looking at the picture. “It doesn’t actually matter. Either way, the passing of life is a sacred moment. I wanted to pay tribute to the small deaths, and say that just because someone is not de-picted in history doesn’t make it any less profound.”

— Damien McGuinness

LaChapelle’s Berlin

David LaChapelle and his version of Courtney Love.

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After the D-Day invasion, the Bergheim, Germany, police chief feeds his snack to Marokvia’s goat.

The cover of the fi rst volume of the author’s memoirs and a painting of her by her husband.

WWD.COM15WWD, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2006

By Georgia Lee

ATLANTA — AmericasMart Apparel is changing three of its 2007 market dates from the traditional Thursday to Sunday to Sunday to Wednesday. The move combines the men’s shows with women’s and children’s apparel and accessories markets.

The revised dates affect the April, June and October markets next year, which are now set for April 15 to 18, June 10 to 13 and Oct. 14 to 17. The Feb. 1 to 5 and Aug. 23 to 27 show dates are un-changed. The new October dates overlap the rival FashionCenterDallas show, an event that shares many of the same exhibitors and some buyers with AmericasMart. The February and August shows in Atlanta begin the day after Dallas ends.

AmericasMart offi cials declined requests for com-ment. The market said in a press release the move was “designed to satisfy the evolving needs of retail-ers who say they want and need a single-source mar-ket experience.’’

The decision came months af ter FashionCenterDallas at the Dallas Market Center announced it was switching to the Sunday-to-Wednesday format in response to surveys showing that buyers wanted to be in stores or with their fami-

lies on weekends. Last month, Lawton Hall, senior vice president

of apparel at AmericasMart, told WWD, “We haven’t heard buyers wanting to be home on weekends.’’ He added that AmericasMart was “not obstinate to change,’’ although show dates were diffi cult to change because of logistics. He also said AmericasMart would conduct more surveys and research on the date issue.

Some AmericasMart exhibitors and buyers said the change would pose problems, especially with the overlapping Dallas market in October. Many show in both markets, or don’t have duplicate samples, forc-ing them to either split the sample line or choose between the two shows.

Frank Vaccarelli of the Vaccarelli & Associates showroom at AmericasMart, said the date changes would make it diffi cult to hire part-time showroom help and models, since his part-time weekend em-ployees have weekday jobs. He said AmericasMart said in an e-mail that dates were being changed be-cause of a lack of available hotel space.

“The regional marts need to stop this fi ghting over dates with Dallas…and realize the real prob-lem is how will the regional marts compete with Coterie, Magic, Project and the 70 other shows out there?” he said.

By Julee Greenberg

NEW YORK — Charles Soriano and Michael Isaacman have joined Rocawear in two key executive posts.

Soriano was named to the new post of executive vice presi-dent of retail at the $800 million hip-hop-inspired clothing brand. He will develop a plan to open freestanding Rocawear boutiques, slated for 2008. In addition, he will create a plat-form for international expansion and oversee global retail merchandising to ensure brand consistency for Rocawear and its licensees.

Most recently, Soriano was vice president of retail at Sean John, where he launched the company-owned retail division. Before that, he was vice president of retail for Kate Spade. After several years in banking and fi nancial services, Soriano began his career in fashion at Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. in 1993, holding various posts in the retail group.

Isaacman has been named executive vice president of de-sign and merchandising. He manages the day-to-day develop-ment of Rocawear’s men’s collections, headed by creative di-rector George Robles.

Most recently, Isaacman was senior vice president of de-sign and merchandising for Polo Jeans Co. Prior to that, he was vice president of men’s merchandising at Tommy Hilfi ger. He began his career in the executive training program at R.H. Macy & Co.

Isaacman succeeds Frances Wong, who left the company to pursue other opportunities.

Both Soriano and Isaacman report to the Rocawear board, including Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, Alex Bize and Norton Cher.

Rocawear Adds Two ExecsAmericasMart Apparel Shifts Dates for Upcoming Markets

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57th St. - Full Floor - 3000 ft.Soho Penthouse live / work skylightsBryant Park Duplex - All Great DealsPrime Manhattan Jon 212-268-8043

Showrooms & LoftsBWAY 7TH AVE SIDE STREETS

Great ’New’ Office Space AvailADAMS & CO. 212-679-5500

1411 BROADWAYAvailable Showroom to Share

Call Ronnie516-433-1144 or 516-967-0361

PATTERNS, SAMPLES,PRODUCTIONS

All lines, Any styles. Fine Fast Service.Call Sherry 212-719-0622.

PATTERNS, SAMPLES,PRODUCTIONS

Full service shop to the trade.Fine fast work. 212-869-2699.

Multi-Cultural CosmeticsBrand for Sale

Exp. in cosmetics market for 8 years.Previous dist. in Sephora & Nordstrom.

Great PR, Hands-on research.GREAT PRICE! Call 917-902-5534

or E-mail: lubna@realcosmetics.com

ENGINEERING MANAGERSeeking exp’d. Swimwear or Intimate Apparel Engineer to analyze, plan, organize,direct and control all aspects of product and plant engineering and costing. Posi-tion based in Los Angeles. Must have 5 years exp., knowledge of textiles, cut &sew ops., piecework incentives, garment construction, patterns, and general sewtechniques. Must be proficient in EXCEL, ACS and GSD cert. a+.

Fax or E-mail your cover sheet, resume and salary history to:310-225-2958 or Brodriguez@buyswim.com

Design Director - (REF # 061017):ovrsee apparel design dept; superviseline creation; knowledge of fashiontrends, market & design to production;confer w/upper mgmt for final line;Use s/w Illustrator, Photoshop, Excel.Req: BA Fashion or any Design & 5yrs progssve post-BA exp in job or Se-nior Fashion Dsngr/Fash Dsgnr ORMA Fashion or any Design & 2 yrs expin job or Snr Fash Dsngr/Fash Dsgnr,Res via 1st class mail: Sunny Chung,Wicked Fashions, 222 Bridge PlazaSouth, Fort Lee, NJ 07024

Design

INFANT/TODDLERDESIGNER 50-65K

Leading newborn and infantwear Co.seeking designer with experience ininfant & toddler fashion for boys & girls.Strong Illustrator & Photoshop skillsrequired. Please email resume to:

hrjobs321@gmail.com

Graphic DesignerTop notch New York based watch co.seeks graphic designer for product andpackaging. Must have great computerskills and at least 1 year exp. Positionavailable immediately. Benefits.

Please fax resumes to 951-699-5586

Marketing ManagerSeeking highly motivated team playerw/ 3-5 yrs. exp. preferably in beautyindustry. Responsibilities include brandmanagement and development. Dailycommunication w/ clients. Initiate &follow-thru on new product introduc-tions & promotional marketing pro-grams. Fax resume to 212-317-9056.

Production AssistantSeeking highly motivated person towork in our production department.Computer literate w/ good follow-upand communication skills. Knowledgeof garment and fabric preferred. Emailresume to: TigerJJobs@gmail.com

PRODUCTIONTECH ASSISTANT

TRIM BUYERProduction Assistant - Trim Buyer neededfor Maggy London Dress based in NewYork. This is a fast paced environment& requires someone who is aggressive& has an eagerness to learn the methodsin which we operate. Responsibilitiesinclude but are not limited to: trimbuying & coordination, receiving &sending samples to & from overseas.Will liaison w/ design & head patternmaker to set up fitting schedules, or-ganize & file fit comments, order suppliesfor pattern room, coordinate all paperwork & copies of cost sheets needed forfitting, review all cutting tickets, plusother duties as directed by the productionmgr. TECH & PRIVATE LABEL EXP APLUS TO ASSIST PROD MGR W/ VAR-IOUS TECH & GARMENT RELATEDTASKS. Dress exp. a plus. (BI-LINGUAL- ENGLISH-CANTONESE-MANDARIN-PREFERRED; not mandatory) Benefitsplus 401K.

Please respond w/ salary req’s toE-mail: Susie@maggylondon.com

PUBLIC RELATIONSEXECUTIVE

Great OpportunityLeading prestige beauty co.seeks Executive Directorfor busy, multi-brand U.S.public relations team. Mustbe strategic, creative teamplayer able to lead a PRteam on a domestic levelfor three supreme designerbrands. Minimum 10 years’ experience required.

We offer a great workenvironment, compensation

and benefits package.Please email resume t o:

cosmeticspubrel@yahoo.com

Receptionist/Front Desk CoordinatorsCome work in the hottest, fastestgrowing salon in New York City!

Rita Hazan Salon has moved to 5thAve! With this tremendous expansion,we are looking for long term Recep-tionist /Front Desk Coordinators. Theperfect candidate should be friendly,honest & hard working. The ability tomulti-task in a fast paced environmentis a must. If you are looking to make achange or start your career, the RitaHazan Salon is the place for you! Can-didates must have computer exp, 1year of customer svc. exp. preferred.Full Time applicants only pls. Email:

Angela@ritahazansalon.com

Retail AnalystDesigner Jewelry Co. seeks detail orientedindividual to compile & report sales data.2-3 years min. exp. w/Dept. Stores req’d.Excel a must. E-mail resume & salaryrequest: ancientartresumes@yahoo.com

SAMPLEMAKERHighly skilled sewer w/ exp in women’s

designer ready-to-wear / evening.Call Gregg 212.965.8070 x 20or fax resume to 212.965.8071

COUTURE BRIDAL LABELACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

3-5 yrs. exp. in bridal mkt. Have rela-tionships w/ bridal salons & dept.stores. Build new business & growexisting accts. Some travel req./Nomulti-line reps. Great comm. package.Email resume: careersMR@gmail.com

Need F/T SalespersonFor Swimwear Co. NY OfficeSend resume to 516-433-8450

ASSISTANT SALESMANAGER

Prestigious luxury jewelry companyseeking a qualified assistant salesmanager for their flagship boutiquelocated on Madison Avenue in NYC.Luxury goods experience a must.

Please fax resume to: (212) 439-4222Attention: Ms. J. Simonian

INDEPENDENT SALES REPLuxury Cosmeceuticals skin care com-pany seeks a professional and seasonedsales representative to open & developnew accounts. Fax resume: 212.249.1482or email: douglaskmarshall@aol.com

SR. SALES EXECUTIVEWell connected, outstanding, Sales Exec.in search of serious opportunity. Strongwith mid tier and mass. You need to havevision, finances & a desire to add to yourbusiness growth. CALL: 267-322-0060