fASHION LUX URY UNLIMITED

A Special Report
International Herald Tribune
Thursday, December 5, 2002 21
Pyramid’s base
keeps widening
From Page 19

introduced accessible pieces like the canvas bags that

sell at a tenth the price of a Kelly. Saga Furs
America’s big three — Donna Karan (now owned by New techniques are making furs into fabrics. From left, ‘Air Gallon,’ with leather backing; hand shearing honed to an art form; the airy ‘Windows’ developed by Saga; and a pattern etched in dévoré.
LVMH), Calvin Klein (once again on the block) and
Ralph Lauren — are not perceived as luxury brands by
most European managers. Yet Weinberg admits that a
European shopper, knowing Ralph Lauren through im-
age-making stores, has a different perspective than an
American who buys into the Polo brand.
The days when American customers believed that
classy brands had to come from Europe are long gone,
Return of an outlaw: Fur bounds back
and globalization has changed public perceptions.
‘‘I don’t think it is Europe versus America — it’s about
taste,’’ says Lauren. ‘‘People who buy labels don’t under-
stand, they love the product. Artistry, quality and refine-
ment are equally effective. I believe that I have a luxury
company in the sense of standards of taste, whether it is
beautiful suede shoes or a rugged pair of shoes.’’
Any rules in the luxury world, about products and
how to sell them, seem made to be broken.
Au Printemps in Paris and Selfridges in London have
both disproved the idea that modern branded goods have
to be nurtured in their own stores.
Au Printemps has had phenomenal success in combin-
ing accessories, jewelry and luxury products on one
floor, with sales up 30 percent in 2002 over the previous
year — despite Sept. 11 and the tourist slow-down. Sel-
fridges has had comparable success by turning the fash-
ion floors into a ‘‘souk’’ of brands, allowing the customer
to make all the choices
‘‘Luxury is changing,’’ says Laurence Danon, chair of
the management board of Printemps, where the 3,000
square meters of floor space devoted to luxury, with the
accent on accessories, are filled with products selected
by the store’s own buying team.
Weinberg says Printemps started with the idea of en-
couraging people ‘‘who would not dare to push open the
door in Place Vendome’’ to enter the luxury world. Then,
after creating a marketplace in which customers could
feel at ease, the store found it could sell jewelry at
¤150,000.
It is ironic that while the designer stores are trading
down, the department stores have traded up. But it is
part of the confusion about the limits of luxury.
‘‘When a child can buy a Dior bracelet for ¤12 with her
pocket money, luxury is for everyone,’’ says Danon. ‘‘The
question is, if there are objects that practically anyone
can buy, how far can you go without making the label
ba na l?’’

Suzy Menkes is fashion editor of the International

Herald Tribune. Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas Fashion Wire Daily Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
A fur for all seasons: Marni’s swingy spring/summer fox vest. Jennifer Lopez is among celebrities leading the rush back to fur. Dolce & Gabbana’s mink jacket matched with metal mesh.

Lighter styles for year-round wear

By Jessica Michault ‘‘We had to make it into a material that no leather as a canvas on which I could print, courting younger and younger clients by
longer had any boundaries,’’ Steifel- paint or embroider, playing games of pattern making it possible to start out small. Pur-
PARIS Kristensen said. For fur as light as a feather, and symmetry.’’ chasing a pair of fur cuffs, a fur scarf or a bag
or years fur was fashion’s outlaw. Stars Saga Fur invented two techniques: ‘‘Win- With designers convinced of fur’s viability with fur trim is an easy way for younger buy-

F shunned it, designers deserted it and

Burberry/Mario Testino
Expanding its line of childrenswear in 2000 helped Burberry
increase its product range and start kids on the logo trail.
the rich recoiled from it. But fa shionis-
tas love a comeback, and for the new
millennium fur has come out of hibernation.
Fur is transforming itself from dark, heavy
pelts worn only in the winter into light,
bright fabrics worn the year round. The
makeover has been taking place in the wings
of the fashion world for the last 10 years.
While fashion went through its anti-fur
phase and a minimalist moment, the fur in-
dustry went back to the drawing board to
find a way to make fur a product for the fu-
ture and not a relic of fashions past. With the
Italian houses Fendi and Marni at the cutting
edge of style and technology, fur specialists
focused on innovation.
‘‘We realized we needed to learn how to
speak a new language: fashion,’’ says Tom
Steifel-Kristensen, worldwide communica-
tions director of Saga Furs, the largest fur
producer in Europe. ‘‘We had to adapt and
change according to the trends in fashion.’’
Saga, an association of Scandinavian fur
farmers, produces 65 percent of the world’s
mink and 70 percent of the world’s fox fur. It
is considered by many to be the leading inno-
vator in fur technology.
In its research center in Copenhagen, Saga
Furs has come up with new techniques that
fit the company’s philosophy: Fur is a fabric.
dows,’’ in which minuscule windows are
woven into the fur, and ‘‘Air Gallon,’’ which
uses a honeycomb patterned leather support.
New methods of weaving have created ‘‘Fox-
wool,’’ a fur-wool blend that has expanded
the possible uses of fur in fashion design.
Dyeing has also been refined to create fur
in any color of the rainbow. Hand shearing
has been honed to an art form in which the
silky hairs of fur, measuring as little as half a
millimeter, can be sculpted into countless
shapes and patterns. And work is underway
to create a process to weave mink into knit-
wear to make a new stretchable material.
Through techniques like these, the fur in-
dustry has been able to transform its product
into one of the most adaptable luxury textiles
available today — as witnessed in a number
of the spring/summer 2003 collections. Sea-
sons have started to blend together. After past
successes of summer leather and cashmere,
fashion houses like Dolce and Gabbana and
Marni sent out warm-weather furs.
‘‘These techniques allow a versatile use of
fur — for instance we matched mink and
chinchilla to metallic mesh,’’ says Stefano
Gabbana, one half of the Italian designer duo.
Consuelo Castiglioni, the designer for
Marni, agrees. ‘‘I love experimenting, and in
my spring/summer 2003 collection I worked
mainly on reversible unlined furs using the
— 300 designers used it in their collections
this year — many of the fashion faithful have
tuned back in. Celebrities again led the way,
wearing fur without fear. But this time they
banished the big, bulky fur coats of the 1980s.
People like Jennifer Lopez, Cuba Gooding Jr.,
Sarah Michelle Gellar and Minnie Driver
have become walking billboards for the rev-
olutionary changes taking place in the fur in-
dustry. They have sent out a message that fur
is young, cool and can be worn anywhere.
‘‘We sold fur in my store for the first time
this year after 14 years in the business and I
sold out of everything,’’ said Maria Luisa
Poumaillou, owner and buyer of the ultra-
chic Parisian multibrand store bearing her
name. ‘‘I had to reorder.’’
And, ironically, the ongoing clash between
groups like PETA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals) and the fur industry
has seemed to help sales by giving fur the
ever-appealing rebellion factor.
‘‘The young generation of customers and
designers were educated in an ‘against fur’
period,’’ says Christian Lacroix, ‘‘and they
are even more attracted by the transgressing
of something forbidden, which seems even
more desirable, fun and grand.’’
As the average age of the fur customer con-
tinues to plummet — it is now 35, compared
to 48 two years ago — the fur industry is
ers to start to gain an appreciation for fur.
‘‘Fur has a different social meaning today,’’
says Silvia Venturini-Fendi. ‘‘It is not a status
symbol anymore and has finally lost its tradi-
tional social elitist value.’’
While fur is shedding its bourgeois con-
notation, it has gained logo status. More furs
are being bought from fashion houses than
ever before. Where once only the quality of
the pelt was important and coats were bought
mainly from furriers, it has now become cru-
cial to the consumer to have the creativity of a
name designer embodied in their fur.
The recent success of fashion furs by de-
signers like Jean Paul Gaultier and John Gal-
liano, relative newcomers to the discipline,
demonstrates the change in attitude.
But fashion houses like Fendi still have a
distinct advantage over their designer com-
petition in the blossoming fur boom. Fendi
has the best of both worlds: The company
began as a furrier in 1925 and, with the de-
signer Karl Lagerfeld, has a creative force
known the world over. ‘‘I wouldn’t by a fur
anywhere else,’’ says Ana Lucia Adams, a
young businesswoman. ‘‘I know I am going to
get the best and I know it will be something
young that I can wear with my jeans.’’
Jessica Michault is on the staff of the
International Herald Tribune

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