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Verber’s Vision: Appealing to a Local — and Worldly — Clientele

Alla Verber has been cutting deals at Tsum for as long as she can remember: Like so many Russians during the Soviet era, she knew there was one way to get the things she wanted or needed, and that was with blat, a system of black market deals, quiet, informal negotiations or exchanges. Whether it was a pair of shoes, a banana or theater tickets, blat made it all possible.
“When I was growing up, it was difficult to buy something good because everything was under the table. In the Soviet times, you walked in Tsum and everything was there. The shoes you saw were probably Russian-made and very ugly, and if you wanted to have something good, you had to go to the director of the store, you had to have some blat, to know someone,” said Verber over tea and a crab and quinoa salad at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, a late lunch squeezed between multiple December buying appointments.
“You could not just walk in and say, ‘These shoes are wonderful. I have money, I will buy them.’ You had to say: ‘Can I please, please have those shoes?’ The salesperson would take them from under the table

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Marchesa Marches On

Will Marchesa survive?
That is just one of many interwoven sidebars to the huge, ongoing story of how the exposure of widespread workplace-related sexual misconduct will change the culture.
In the big picture a small sidebar, yet one of major significance to Marchesa principals Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig. As everyone knows, Chapman is the soon-to-be ex-wife of Harvey Weinstein, whose then-incredible Hollywood clout helped launch the brand and catapult it to red-carpet prominence.
Whether the company will ultimately survive the horror of Weinstein’s transgressions remains to be seen. In October, shortly after the news broke, WWD posed the question to a number of retailers. While several bridal stores expressed support for the brand and its principals, among major retailers, only Bergdorf Goodman’s Linda Fargo would go on the record. She noted that Bergdorf’s was the first store to commit to the brand in 2004, and that “We have been avid supporters of Georgina and Keren’s work ever since and hope to continue supporting the brand in the future.” Also in October, Berkshire Hathaway-owned Helzberg Diamonds put on hold the launch of a collection of Marchesa engagement rings.
Since then, there’s been little concrete news to report on Marchesa until now. With the pre-fall season 2018 season winding down,

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