HITTING THE AIRWAVES: John Varvatos will be a guest this weekend on Mark Weber’s weekly radio show, “Always in Fashion.” The show, which airs on 77 WABC Radio, is part of a series of interviews with fashion industry leaders.
During the interview, Varvatos and Weber talk about the designer’s early days in fashion, from being a salesman for Ralph Lauren to his work as head of design for Calvin Klein and then starting his own brand in the late Nineties. The two discuss entrepreneurship, the importance of following one’s passion and the discipline involved in building a global fashion brand.
The show will air Saturday at 8 p.m. and will replay on Sunday at 5 p.m.
Weber’s previous guests have included Tommy Hilfiger; Daniella Vitale, chief executive officer of Barneys New York; Liz Rodbell,  president of Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay; Joseph Abboud; Fern Mallis; Mark Badgley and James Mischka; Michael Gould, former chairman and ceo of Bloomingdale’s; Gilbert Harrison, chairman of Financo Inc.; Jerry Storch, ceo of Hudson’s Bay Co., and Roland Herlory, ceo of Vilebrequin.
Weber was previously chairman and ceo of Donna Karan International and ceo of LVMH Inc. He is also the author of a business book, “Always

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PIRATE TALK: What Goes Around Comes Around, the luxury and vintage retailer that has six outposts in the U.S., has gotten in on the “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” action. The movie opens May 26.
The retailer is offering a limited-edition vintage T-shirt with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” skull and crossbones graphic, retailing for $150. The T-shirts were designed using a set of 100 authentic blank Ts from the Sixties. They were unveiled Wednesday night at the Beverly Hills location of What Goes Around Comes Around. The T-shirts are being sold online and at the Beverly Hills location.
The collaboration also includes customized vintage leather jackets (hand-embellished Sixties leather moto jackets) that influencers and celebrity stylists designed in honor of “Pirates of the Caribbean.”Among those who designed the jackets were Patrick Ta, celebrity makeup artist; Rocky Barnes, digital influencer and model; stylist Karla Welch, and celebrity stylist, Samantha McMillen, along with Johnny Depp, who signed the jacket.
They are being auctioned off for charity via Charitybuzz, with all proceeds going to Heal the Bay. The bidding starts at $500.
Gerard Maione, chief creative officer of What Goes Around Comes Around, said they were honored to collaborate with Disney on the “Pirates of

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WEBER’S WIN: Bruce Weber’s black-and-white image of a suntanned, nude couple on a swing — who over the age of 40 could forget it? — broke a new world auction record for the photographer at Phillips in London on Thursday.
The image, “Ric and Natalie, Villa Tejas, Montecito, California, 1988,” was used for the 1989 Obsession ad, and was a part of Ultimate Campaign, a collection of nine fashion advertising photographs that went under the hammer. The nine images were part of a larger sale of photographs at the auction house’s Berkeley Square space.
A buyer snapped up the Weber wonder for $112,875, paying nearly 50 percent more than the top-end estimate. Weber’s image was auctioned alongside those by fellow fashion snappers Nick Knight and Alasdair McLellan.
Other images in Ultimate Campaign included McLellan’s 2012 fly-poster ad for Supreme starring Kate Moss; Nick Knight’s 2009 “Snakes” image for Alexander McQueen; Ellen Von Unwerth’s 2014 “Mission Accomplished” image for Agent Provocateur, with Naomi Campbell; and Mario Sorrenti’s take on Manet’s “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe,” ad with Moss for Yves Saint Laurent in 1999.
According to Phillips, Ultimate Campaign is meant to celebrate “collaborative” creativity. “In our curated selection, these photographs stand alone as works of art that can

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Joyce Azria is finally bringing her fashion vision for Millennial women — her newly launched contemporary line Avec Les Filles — home. The brand, which launched in 155 Macy’s Inc. doors nationwide in March, will open its first retail pop-up at its new Los Angeles headquarters on La Brea Avenue on May 19.

Avec Les Filles’ Los Angeles pop-up shop. 

“It’s a summer pop-up, where all of our L.A. followers and influencers and celebrities can come,” said Azria, the former creative director of her father Max’s company BCBGeneration. “With the Macy’s at Beverly Center still under renovation, we wanted a place close to home. We just moved into our new offices last month, in a former tile factory and auto body shop, so it’s the ultimate revival game.”
Since then, Azria has set about transforming the space into a pink paradise while keeping all the vintage architectural details that define many of the structures on the trendy retail boulevard.
“It’s an interactive hub to showcase our clothes, where we can give our girl everything she’d actually buy and love, married with a cool neighborhood,” said Azria, who will host a party tonight before the shop officially opens.

Avec Les Filles shoes in Macy’s Herald Square shop-in-shop. 

Soon ALF will

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LONDON — The mobile experience is key for the luxury consumer, and especially the big spenders, said Matthew Woolsey, Net-a-porter’s new managing director, during the Decoded Fashion and Beauty Summit, which was hosted in association with the British Fashion Council this week.
Woolsey argued that the mobile experience is key for the luxury consumer. He said customers have dictated how Net-a-porter interacts with them and brought the company into this new era of relationships. “We are working with unprecedented level of engagement,” said Woolsey, who noted their customer is highly engaged in mobile with 60 percent of traffic derived from it.
“Mobile is even more important for our EIP,” he added, “our highest valuable customers who we call ‘extremely important people.’ This is just 2 percent of our customer base who represents 40 percent of our sales. For this group, 60 percent stands on mobile. We spend a lot of time talking about Millennials versus unwanted usage of tech.”
Woolsey said that this year, the e-tailer launched iMessage and WeChat, as well as Whatsapp. Through the use of these messaging platforms, the web site’s personal shoppers can share recommendations, product information and have access to exclusive themes and new arrivals and recommendations as well

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