>> Even designers are shopping the closet when it comes to piecing together their latest collection. Fortune's Peter Gumbel writes in his new profile on Francois-Henri Pinault of PPR: "All the brands have been scouring for ways to save cash. Hiring and salaries have been frozen since last September. Bonuses for this year have been halved too. Inventiveness has become the order of the day."
Robert Polet, CEO of PPR's Gucci Group, illustrates with a story of how he found Tomas Maier on the floor of Bottega Veneta's headquarters in New York City with his shoe manager last November, going through a pile of books filled with leather and skin samples. Fortune relates: "They were checking how much of each material they had in stock, planning to use it up in the next collections. 'I left the room and thought, Wow,' Polet says. 'Finding ways to manage down inventory has almost become a sport.'"
François Pinault
PPR Update: Tomas Maier Recycling Unused Material for Bottega Shoes, YSL Reporting $24M Loss, and Pinault "Impressed" With Son
>> Bernard Arnault, Francois Pinault Are Playing Nice, Still Rich —With the lapse of almost a decade since the fight over Gucci, LVMH's Bernard Arnault and PPR's Francois Pinault are experiencing a detente, symbolized by their willingness to appear on the cover of French business magazine Challenges together this week. The accompanying story credits Arnault's wife, Helene, with the warming of feelings when she embraced Pinault's wife Maryvonne at an event last November. Since, the Arnaults invited the Pinaults to dinner on May 26. The magazine also tabulates France's largest fortunes, with Arnault (14.58 billion euros) in second, the Hermes family (7.68bn euros) in fourth, Pinault (4.95bn euros) in sixth, and Alain Wertheimer and family, owner of Chanel, (3.5bn euros) in tenth. [WWD]
Venice Biennale Overflowing with Fashion Figures and Their Families
>> Where art goes, fashion is soon to follow, and with the contemporary arts Biennale going on in Venice right now, there are plenty of designers, editors, and even models in town. On Wednesday, Olympia Scarry’s installation brought out Patrick Demarchelier, Vogue Russia's Aliona Doletskaya, and POP's Dasha Zhukova, as well as Justin Portman and Natalia Vodianova, the latter whose face was reflected in a luminated, aged sketch on display called Dorian Gray, by artist Dasha Fursey.
Naomi Campbell and boyfriend Vladislav Doronin stopped by a lunch for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and popped up again yesterday at the opening of Francois Pinault's new museum, the Punta della Dogana. Stella McCartney was there with husband Alasdhair Willis to support her financier in his new endeavor, as were Franca Sozzani and Marc Jacobs, always the fan of contemporary art, who apparently kept exclaiming, "This place rocks."
Meanwhile, down the river, Angela Missoni held her annual party on boyfriend Bruno Ragazzi's yacht. It was quite the family and friends affair: Angela's daughters Margherita and Teresa, plus son Francesco were all mingling, Franca Sozzani brought son Francesco Carrozzini, and Vladimir Restoin-Roitfeld arrived with Carine Roitfeld, who neglected to follow the rest in taking her lace-up shoes off: "It would just take too long to undo them." Bee Shaffer was sans Anna Wintour, but Jefferson Hack brought fiancee Anouck Lepere.
Even those who aren't in Venice in person are there in spirit — Mario Testino sent one of his art consultants to scout the exhibition.
Sonia Rykiel
Timberland
Fantasie