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Sephora has gotten itself into hot water after a 20 percent off sale in early November that crashed its site. Four women of Chinese descent have filed a class-action suit against the beauty retailer and LVMH, its parent company, for discriminating against minority customers. In this case, deactivating and blocking accounts of shoppers "of perceived Chinese/Asian descent based on the ill-founded and discriminatory belief that all Chinese/Asian customers abuse discount sales to engage in bulk purchase for re-sale." According to "Fashionista," the court filing states the Sephora site crashed Nov. 6, preventing any customers from accessing their accounts or making purchases, but later that evening the site was back up and running. As the retailer explained things on its Facebook site, the malfunctioning was due to "high levels of bulk buys for reselling purposes in North America and other countries" and a number of accounts it believed to be associated with that activity remained suspended. According to the plaintiffs, the blocked accounts belonged to "email addresses with names that appeared to signify Chinese/Asian race/ethnicity/national origin/descent" or Web domains originating in China or Asia. Hence the suit, which the four women — Xiao Xiao, Man Xu, Jiali Chen and Tiantian Zou — filed in the Southern District of New York U.S. District Court Tuesday, Nov. 18. Read More »
On Tuesday, Nov. 4, John Galliano, the creative director of Maison Martin Margiela, lost his unfair dismissal lawsuit against his two former employers: Christian Dior SA and John Galliano SA. Galliano was fired from Dior and his namesake label — both owned by LVMH — after his public, anti-Semitic and racist rant in Paris in 2011. Back in 2013, Galliano thought he was winning the suit after a French court ruled in his favor, moving the trial to a labor court instead of a commercial court. But according to "WWD," at a hearing Tuesday, the French labor court ruled against Galliano, who was asking both parties for damages from $3 million to $16.3 million. Galliano now owes each winning party one symbolic euro — approximately $1.26 — each because of the ruling. "Fashionista" reports Galliano claimed that both employers were completely knowledgable of his debilitating addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol. Read More »
While other retailers will be fighting to win shoppers' dollars this holiday season by offering major discounts, the CEO of Michael Kors, John Idol, says the brand isn't taking a promotional posture. Essentially, the company isn't willing to devalue its status as a luxury brand for the short-term benefit of stronger holiday sales. Read More »
Pharrell Williams, a huge fan of Chanel sautoirs, is taking his love of the French brand to a higher level. WWD reports that Karl Lagerfeld directed the musician/producer in his latest movie, to be screened in tandem with the Paris-Salzburg pre-fall collection the designer plans to parade Dec. 2. Read More »
World-renowned Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry designed a new art center in Paris, France, for luxury goods company Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, called Fondation Louis Vuitton. "Vanity Fair" reported the $143 million art center opens to the public Oct. 27 and was commissioned by Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of the luxury-goods conglomerate LVMH as a contemporary art museum and cultural center. Read More »
According to Fashionista, this morning, (October 17) Jimmy Choo became the first luxury shoe company to go public, listing about a quarter of its shares on the London Stock Exchange for $2.25, valuing the company at about $874 million, $63 million more than Labelux paid to acquire the company in 2011. Read More »
Earlier this year, Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld was asked by Louis Vuitton's executive vice president, Delphine Arnault, to give his interpretation of the signature LV monogram for a series of bags to celebrate the label's 160th anniversary. Six artists and designers, in total, were chosen to create monogram bags and luggage for an "Iconoclasts" capsule collection, which was released yesterday (October 15). Read More »
