Mulberry bags chief from rival Hermes December 21, 2011 LUXURY handbag and leather goods maker Mulberry has poached Bruno Guillon, the managing director of French rival Hermes, to help drive the group’s international expansion into Asia and the US. Guillon, 46, will become the brand’s first non-British chief executive, joining in March next year after 10 years at the family-owned fashion house Hermes, where [...]
Mulberry bags a big profit overseas December 8, 2011 MULBERRY, the “affordable luxury” fashion brand whose bags have adorned the arms of Kate Middleton and Kate Moss, yesterday reported a trebling of pre-tax profits to £15.6m. It also saw its half-year retail sales jump 47 per cent year-on-year, buoyed by soaring international demand for its designer handbags. The company reached total revenues of £72.3m, [...]
COMMENT ZOE STRIMPEL December 8, 2011 PICK the right It Girl and you’re in clover. For Mulberry, it was the Alexa satchel designed in honour of the style icon and TV presenter Alex Chung that hurled the company into the luxury retail stratosphere – profits quadrupled in 2010 thanks to that willowy fashionista. But it’s not just the Alexa Effect (yes, [...]
DOWNTON LORD LANDS IN THE LAP OF LUXURY November 14, 2011 HE SURVIVED the Great War and Spanish flu and yesterday Lord Grantham – aka the actor Hugh Bonneville – made his first public appearance since the end of series two of Downton Abbey to present the Walpole awards for excellence. No austerity measures at the luxury body’s annual gathering, held in association with Coutts – [...]
Bag it up baby: luxe goes practical October 10, 2011 NOTHING makes a female mouth water quite like a beautiful bag. And, as the City fashionista will know, practicality must merge with style for maximum wearability – after all, what’s the point in having a beautiful tote if you can’t show it off? With fashions changing like gusts of wind, it’s important to choose a [...]
MULBERRY AIMS TO BE BIG IN JAPAN WITH A RAFT OF NEW OPENINGS October 4, 2011 MULBERRY has clinched a distribution deal that will see its products sold in Japanese department stores and flagship shops opened in Tokyo and Osaka. The company said yesterday it had agreed a deal with a joint venture owned by Club 21 and Mammina, a unit of Japanese department store chain Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings. The 10-year [...]
A whirlwind weekend in Hong Kong September 25, 2011 Hong Kong is epic. Everything about the city is exaggerated. The skyline. The escalators. The humidity. Once a busy trading port, it still thrives on exchange, be it financial bonds or dried fish. Being an island, Hong Kong has to work harder than other cities because it can’t reach out into the suburbs for a [...]
London designers to strut their stuff at Fashion Week September 15, 2011 LONDON Fashion Week kicks off today and stores surrounding its Somerset House are already stocking up on Diet Coke and cigarettes in preparation for the barrage of models, fashion editors and buyers descending. From today until next Wednesday, the cobbles of the fabled house will be witness tottering fashionistas and booming music as designers’ collections [...]
British food that’s on the right track July 4, 2011 The Gilbert Scott St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Euston Road, NW1 2AR thegilbertscott.co.uk FOOD *** SERVICE *** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost per person without wine: £35 AS locations go, you can’t really beat it. St Pancras Station is of the most iconic buildings of the Victorian industrial age, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1868 with [...]
AQUASCUTUM PLANS OVERSEAS PUSH WITH STANDALONE STORES July 3, 2011 BRITISH heritage fashion brand Aquascutum is planning to tap the overseas luxury market that has treated rivals Burberry and Mulberry so well in recent years by launching its first stand-alone shops outside of the UK within the next 12 months. The brand, best known for the classic trench coats worn by British soldiers during both [...]