Fashion Corporations' Sales & Earnings: Who's Pulling Ahead and Who's Falling?

[candlebougie]

The Fashion Spot was missing a thread to discuss the sales / earnings of companies in the fashion industry. It should be interesting to take a look which companies are improving financially, which collections are a success sales-wise, which ad campaigns are able to actually sell the clothes, etc.
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Let's start with Valentino's first quarter 2011 results.

"Valentino sales in the first quarter are up at least 40 percent and wholesale sales of the fall collection improved 35 percent over last year."

www.com

Obviously good results. It's a clear indication that the FW10.11-collection was received favourably by customers/clients - and the new direction by Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli yields fruit.
It's hard to judge the influence of the current ad campaign to this success (Freja Beha Erichsen, Caroline Brasch-Nielsen, Julia Saner by David Sims), but the delicate black-and-white pictures seem to sell the soft and feminine designs very well.

 

[candlebougie]

The sales of Gianfranco Ferré's recent collection are bad. The new owner has ousted the brand's creative directors, Tommaso Aquilano and Roberto Rimondi.

A well-placed source said “sales didn’t go well at all and the designers have already left.”

A retailer who asked to remain anonymous also blamed poor salesas the main reason for their departure. “We bought a minimal amount of the collection for the sake of carrying the brand, but there simply were not enough samples,” said the retailer. “There was almost no daywear and evening wear was fairy-tale-like, something for the Oscars. It may work for a small, niche brand, but not for such a global brand.”

wwd.com

 

[almudena]

PPR (PP) SA, owner of the Gucci fashion brand, advanced in Paris trading after reporting first-quarter sales that beat analysts’ estimates and saying it’s confident of surpassing its 2010 financial performance.

The stock climbed as much as 2.2 percent, the biggest intraday gain in more than a month, and traded at 120.80 euros, a 2 percent advance, as of 9:20 a.m. in Paris. PPR has risen 16 percent in the past year, valuing the maker of $725 covered gladiator sandals at 15.3 billion euros ($22.7 billion).

Revenue from continuing operations rose 9.1 percent to 3.71 billion euros, the Paris-based company said yesterday in a statement after markets closed. The average estimate of four analysts compiled by Bloomberg was for sales of 3.61 billion euros. Excluding acquisitions and currency moves, luxury-goods sales climbed 22 percent even as revenue from these products declined 7 percent in Japan, PPR said.

PPR’s luxury division is “the key highlight,” Antoine Belge, an analyst at HSBC Holdings Plc who rates PPR “overweight,” wrote in a note after the release. He said the results “back up our thesis that the Gucci brand will catch up with best-in-class in 2011 and that Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga would confirm their rising star status.”

Overall sales increased 24 percent at Gucci, PPR’s largest luxury brand, and 38 percent at its Bottega Veneta leather goods and clothing unit. The Balenciaga brand had “vigorous double- digit sales growth,” PPR said.

bloomberg.com

I'm glad Frida is selling well, I liked her latest collections and I hope she keeps improving.