The Inside: Top Parties of the Year Pg. 12 RETAIL SHARES RECOVER/2 A NEW $200M WORLD/13 WWD WWDWomen’s Wear Daily • The Retailers’THURSDAY Daily Newspaper • December 28, 2006 • $2.00 List Sportswear Big Night NEW YORK — Greeting the new year is an international affair — sometimes social, often private. WWD asked eight designers to render a vision of how and where they saw their customers celebrating the occasion. For more takes on the evening, see pages 6 and 7. Coffee, Cakes, Clothes: Luxury Retailers Use Food to Lure Shoppers Carmen Marc Valvo endorses New York. “New By Miles Socha Year’s Eve is the best party night of the year, PARIS — Is the way to a luxury and what better way to customer’s wallet through her stomach? celebrate than in a sexy, dazzling dress, sipping Perhaps, which is why a growing champagne with friends number of luxury flagships and in the greatest city in the world?” he asks. Here, multibrand retailers now offer food Valvo’s embroidered, sequined silk chiffon products and services as a value- trapeze dress. added feature, revenue stream and an attraction in and of themselves. This winter alone, Gucci has christened a cafe in its new Ginza building in Tokyo, Lane Crawford in Hong Kong has opened a “chocolate room” at its flagship, Dolce & Gabbana is serving up martinis at its new Shanghai flagship, and Hermès is shepherding shoppers to See Luring, Page 8 2 WWD, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2006 WWD.COM Fashion for New York’s Next First Lady WWDTHURSDAY Sportswear By Marc Karimzadeh NEW YORK — New York State FASHION Designers give their take on New Year’s Eve, offering a glamorous picture first lady-to-be Silda Spitzer went straight to the heart of Manhattan’s 6 ranging from stark to dazzling, from downright quirky to quite grand. fashion industry for her inaugural wardrobe. GENERAL WWD has learned that Spitzer A growing number of luxury stores now offer food products and ser- will wear pieces made exclusively 1 vices as a value-added feature, revenue stream and an attraction. for her by ready-to-wear designer Neil Bieff when her husband, Eliot, As the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high, crossing the is inaugurated as governor at a cer- 2 12,500 mark, most retail stocks rebounded on Wednesday. emony in Albany on Monday. Dai Fujiwara, new creative director of Issey Miyake, plans to be faithful Bieff met Spitzer last summer at 3 to the house’s commitment to innovation, while developing novelty. a trunk show he held at the now- defunct Greenwich, Conn., store WorldStreet, set to open in 2008 in Virginia, aims to take on globalization Razook’s. The two have kept in 13 by offering retail space for small fi rms from around the world. touch since, and Bieff has designed three daytime outfi ts for her for the inaugural. EYE “She is a wonderful person to Talking with Emily Watson, who injects even a Victorian spinster with dress because she is tall and lean 4 typical gumption as Millie in “Miss Potter,” which opens Friday. and in great shape,” Bieff told WWD on Wednesday. “She has a terrifi c DENIM sense of who she is. She is an at- Unlike most premium denim players, Mel Matsui doesn’t clamor after torney and has a full plate, and the 10 celebrity endorsements or media hype for his Christopher Blue line. clothes are just a part of it. She is Three Neil Bieff not a clothes-horse type of person.” designs for Bieff, whose atelier is located THE BEAT Silda Spitzer. in the Garment District, is perhaps Shopping online is now as routine as walking into a store, so it’s only best known for his made-to-order 11 natural the virtual world has begun to mirror the real one. eveningwear and suits, and most of his business is through trunk shows nationwide; he works with spe- Classifi ed Advertisements.............................................................15 cialty stores like Mary Jane Denzer in White Plains, N.Y., and John de To e-mail reporters and editors at WWD, the address is fi rstname. Medeiros in Palm Beach, Fla. Over [email protected], using the individual’s name. the years, he has dressed the likes of Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan and WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF FAIRCHILD PUBLICATIONS, INC. COPY- Kate Burton. Bieff is cur- RIGHT ©2006 FAIRCHILD PUBLICATIONS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. rently working on a rtw VOLUME 192, NO. 134. WWD (ISSN # 0149-5380) is published daily except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, with one diffusion line. additional issue in January, two additional issues in March, May, June, August, October, November and December, and three additional issues in February, April, and September by Fairchild Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Advance Publications, Inc. For Spitzer to wear Silda PRINCIPAL OFFICE: 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. Shared Services provided by Advance Magazine Publishers Inc.: Monday, the design- Spitzer S.I. Newhouse Jr., Chairman; Charles H. Townsend, President & C.E.O.; John W. Bellando, Executive Vice President and C.O.O.; er created a coral Jill Bright, Executive Vice President_Human Resources; John Buese, Executive Vice President_Chief Information Officer; David red double wool AGOSTINI/GETTY EVAN IMAGES PHOTO BY Orlin, Senior Vice President_Strategic Sourcing; Robert Bennis, Senior Vice President_Real Estate; Maurie Perl, Senior Vice Presi- crepe princess- dent_Chief Communications Officer. Shared Services provided by Advance Magazine Group: Steven T. Florio, Advance Magazine shape coat with a very confident Group Vice Chairman; David B. Chemidlin, Senior Vice President_General Manager, Shared Services Center. dramatic black silk in who she is. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. velvet collar, to be She knows when 40644503. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 88654-9096-RT0001. Canada post return undeliverable paired with a sleek something is good Canadian addresses to: DPGM, 7496 Bath Road, Unit 2, Mississauga, ON L4T 1L2. POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO WWD, P.O. Box 15008, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5008. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, black or red matching or bad for her ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE INQUIRIES: Please write to WOMEN’S WEAR red skirt and a black when she puts it on. DAILY, P.O. Box 15008, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5008; Call 800-289-0273; or visit www.subnow.com/wd . Four sweater, as well as a black With her, the clothes weeks is required for change of address. Please give both new and old address as printed on most recent label. waffl e-weave collarless coat either work or they don’t. Subscriptions Rates: U.S. possessions, Retailer, daily one year: $109; Manufacturer, daily one year $145. All other with a semi-obi effect that harkens I never have to sell her. She has U.S., daily one year $205. Canada/Mexico, daily one year, $295. All other foreign (Air Speed), daily one year $595. back to vintage Balenciaga shapes, an idea, I come up with something First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of order. Address all editorial, business, and a navy double crepe suit with and that’s it.” and production correspondence to WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY, 750 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. For permissions a navy satin collar. There is something else that sets and reprint requests, please call 212-221-9595 or fax requests to 212-221-9195. Visit us online: www.wwd.com. To subscribe to other Fairchild magazines on the World Wide Web, visit www.fairchildpub.com. Occasionally, we make “We are not certain what she will the incoming fi rst lady apart from our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would wear when,” said Bieff, who plans the rest. interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information by mail and/or e-mail, please advise to be at the inauguration in Albany “It’s amusing having her body- us at P.O. Box 15008, North Hollywood, CA 91615-5008 or call 800-289-0273. with his wife and two sons. “She guard around,” Bieff said. “But he is WOMEN’S WEAR DAILY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOSS, DAMAGE, OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO UNSOLICITED MANU- is delightful to work with. She is just a perfect gentleman anyway.” SCRIPTS, UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPAR- ENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED Retail Shares Rise With Surging Dow In Brief By Vicki M. Young The reports coming in are that a CIBC World Markets, wrote in huge amount of gift cards were her research note Tuesday, “J. ● HATS OFF: Concept One Accessories, a New York fi rm, has NEW YORK — As the Dow Jones sold and are expected to be re- Crew stores have been among acquired Drew Pearson Marketing, an Addison, Tex., hat com- Industrial Average hit a record deemed beginning this week the most crowded stores this hol- pany, for $8 million in cash. Concept One bought Pearson from high, most retail stocks rebound- through January. That has built iday season and we see them as Mainland Headwear Holdings Ltd., a publicly held headwear ed on Wednesday. some optimism into today’s trad- one of the winners. The Garden factory in Hong Kong. Under a separate agreement, Mainland The Dow Jones index crossed ing activity.” State Plaza store currently fea- is building a 125,000-square-foot plant, set to open next year, for the 12,500 mark, rising 0.83 per- Among the gainers were a few tures resort-early spring, which 1,500 workers for the production of Concept One and Pearson cent to close at 12,510.57, hitting stocks that shed some ground looks terrifi c.” women’s headwear.