Sometimes reality surpasses fiction in the best way possible. It happened last Tuesday when actress Anne Hathaway discovered, while going through hair and makeup for a cover shoot with Vanity Fair, that the employees of Condé Nast, the publishing group that publishes that magazine, as well as GQ, Vogue and Glamour, were on strike due to the cost reduction that the company is going through, which includes the dismissal of 90 people. Those 90 people, by the way, know their fate, but they must continue to perform their duties so as not to be fired for insubordination.
Hathaway got up and left unceremoniously, in the same way that, at the end of The Devil Wears Prada (2006), her character turns her back on Meryl Streep in the role of Miranda Priestley, inspired by Anna Wintour.
Protesters asked the audience on social media not to click on links in Condé Nast publications, a particularly damaging gesture for Vogue in the middle of fashion week. The situation is so tense that the publishing group went so far as to block access to email for its employees, those who joined the strike and those who did not (more than a two-way fight, this conflict has three contenders because no all workers support their union), so those who decided to work could not do so for practically the entire afternoon.
All in all, Anna Wintour ended the week smiling thanks to her eternal protégé John Galliano. The designer from Gibraltar presented a collection for Maison Margiela with which he simply reminded the world why he was one of the most relevant designers of the late nineties and early 2000s. Or rather he let them know why he is still a of the industry's brightest creative minds. She was great, theatrical, she had hair on end and tears of emotion.
Galliano has been artistic director of the firm owned by the OTB group for ten years, a decade that has passed with his head slightly bowed as a result of the scandal that ended his days at Dior in 2011. Next March the documentary High will be released
A small stop along the way to give a special mention to the other star of fashion week: Svetlana Hunt, animal rescuer and one of the few well-known haute couture client names, caught the attention of X (formerly Twitter) upon arrival at the Jean Paul Gaultier by Simone Rocha show dressed as Jean Paul Gaultier by Julien Dossena.
In addition to the firm step of John Galliano, on Thursday LVMH presented its results for the last three months of 2023. The group reached 24 billion euros in profits, 10% more than the previous quarter and Bernard Arnault, CEO of the conglomerate, He attributed the growth directly to the sale of higher-end products, which demonstrates what we already knew: that the rich are getting richer while the rest of us are getting poorer every day.
With those numbers in hand, the businessman was optimistic about a 2024 with uncertain forecasts for his sector. In addition, he proposed a dividend of 13 euros per share, one euro more than last year, for shareholders who are beginning to ask for a split of the group into different parts, separating luxury brands such as Dior or Louis Vuitton from those parts of the business that They do not belong to the same category, like Sephora.
About Arnault. This week it has also been commented that he could be considering acquiring Schiaparelli. The Tod's group firm, which opened the haute couture event on Monday to applause, was attended by the current and future president of the LVMH Fashion Group, Sidney Toledano and Michael Burke. Questioned about this by journalist Godfrey Deeny, Burke stated that “we are here to see a great show by a very interesting designer.” Who knows. Sometimes executives are like celebrities. They just want us to talk about them.
