Michael Kors On Leaving Celine

Lena

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amazing story :flower:

Kors on his own words, extracts from wwd of today:

“Was I mistreated?” Kors said in an interview. “No. Was I neglected? Yes.

“I never felt as though there was a strategy at LVMH as far as pitting the designers against each other or the brands against each other,” Kors said. “It’s just that I never felt anyone was watching the smaller companies at all, but everybody was spending their time on the two first-born children — Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. In a way, if you’re a nice kid, no one pays attention to you. If you’re a bad kid, you get :huh: spoiled.” :innocent:
.....
“I feel like Carrie Bradshaw,” Kors said, referring to the “Sex and the City” character who left Paris in the series’ final episode. “I’m not sorry to leave Paris at all. I’ve done a great job, but it’s time to move on and do my own thing.”
....
In his six-and-a-half years of working for LVMH, Kors estimated he spent a total of :shock: three hours in Arnault’s company, including the two shows and two “how do you dos” when he ran into Arnault at the Dior store in Paris.

“I’ve never been to a meal with him :blink: ,” Kors said. “At the time, I didn’t realize that his not being there meant that Celine was not as important. It became apparent to me that Celine was not going to become the priority at LVMH, so why am I going to keep trying to make that happen?”
.....
“It was also challenging to me from the beginning, as Celine had never been known as a ready-to-wear label. My challenge was to turn Celine into a ready-to-wear business, where we’re really selling clothes and not just T-shirts.”
.......
“I’ve had to be incredibly flexible,” Kors said. “It was a different time when I got there, when I didn’t understand what Celine was about, like that it was predominantly an Asian business and that they had never wholesaled a collection before. I didn’t know what DFS in Asia looked like. They told me I had 40 Celine doors in Tokyo and it wasn’t for a while that I realized that meant 40 counters. But it has been the greatest learning experience, especially from the point of being able to see the world. I never would have known what was going on in Singapore, or that the European client is a different client than that in America. I learned what it was like to work with a bigger company and how that works, and that let me know what’s in store for me as I build my own company into a bigger business.”
......
“I think the biggest thing to remember is that you really end up doing a disservice to a brand when you have a designer who cannot devote 24/7 to it,” Kors said. “I don’t know if it needs to be a box-office name. I would pick for them someone who could be the designer, full-time, who lived in Paris or is willing to move there, and that might not be someone who anyone has ever heard of. In retrospect, I don’t know I believe that any designer in the long term can have an enormously successful business of their own and at the same time work for another company. At some point, you have to make a decision because, otherwise, you’re competing with yourself. And it’s tough to compete with yourself.”
 
Why does he reference SATC so much? I'm sure everything he says is true but he sounds so bratty to me and he really wasn't that great.
 
he only referred to Sex in the City once..

now my question.. what is this DFS that Michael Kors refers to
 
i won't miss him.

to quote karl lagerfeld: "Ugh! With his big smile and gestures he reminds me of a sales assistant in a Midwest department store -- make that on the seventh floor." :lol:
 
Originally posted by nikos@Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:17 pm
i won't miss him.

to quote karl lagerfeld: "Ugh! With his big smile and gestures he reminds me of a sales assistant in a Midwest department store -- make that on the seventh floor." :lol:
F*** karl lagerfeld...he reminds me of some overblown, puffed up, leather faced caricature of what he thinks a fashion designer is supposed to be...skeletor with an inflated idea of his own importance...he's basically criticising michael kors for the way he looks...THE WAY HE LOOKS??? :doh: ...has karl looked at himself in the mirror lately?@!?!?! maybe he needs glasses-(probably, but when was the last time you saw one of these fashion freaks wearing a pr of glasses? HA!) karl looks like an extra from a bad vampire flick...and who made him the arbiter of good taste...he's really living in his own universe...


i've never been a huge fan of kors myself, but it's because i find the clothes boring and predictable, not because i thought i was PRETTIER than him...UGH!!! that just makes me :sick: :yuk: :yuk: :sick:

how utterly high school!!! :yuk:
 
Originally posted by softgrey@Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:37 pm
F*** karl lagerfeld...
i see...
i hope you'll get rid of all that stress! :innocent:
 
Not just this article. In general he is always referring to that show when talking about his collections or whatever else. :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by nikos+Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:57 pm--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nikos @ Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:57 pm)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-softgrey@Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:37 pm
F*** karl lagerfeld...
i see...
i hope you'll get rid of all that stress! :innocent: [/b][/quote]
and i hope you'll find a better role model... :innocent:
 
Originally posted by softgrey@Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:37 pm

i've never been a huge fan of kors myself, but it's because i find the clothes boring and predictable, not because i thought i was PRETTIER than him...UGH!!! that just makes me :sick: :yuk: :yuk: :sick:

how utterly high school!!! :yuk:
:lol:
 
Originally posted by nikos@Mar 4th, 2004 - 12:17 pm
i won't miss him.

to quote karl lagerfeld: "Ugh! With his big smile and gestures he reminds me of a sales assistant in a Midwest department store -- make that on the seventh floor." :lol:
didnt KL also refer to him as a "fat howdy doody" ? HAHA :rofl:
 
WAAAAAAAAAA Karl is such a b*tch i love it

then again, Kors has a very good sence of humour, i wonder how they'd get on together

Karl seems the very unforgiving type
 
guys you are getting off topic :P ,
our dearest slimmer Karl has nothing to do with Celine, Kors or LVMH
(and btw, i think he's getting back some weight :lol: )
its not a matter whos the fat or the slim, the big smile,
the fake tan or retirement age... :innocent:

on topic and regardless what i think of Kors ability as a designer,
he actually did a big favour to Celine.
Celine was nothing when Kors took over,
and he was obviously 'ignored' by his bosses,
thats what this is all about.

:winkiss:
 
*avoiding the discussion about Lagerfeld*

I second Lena's words - really, think about what Celine was 6 years ago, and compare that to what it is now. As far as I'm concerned it was the epitome of tacky licensed grossness specifically catered to the Asian market (no offense to Asian consumers - I'm one myself), and now it is one of the most consistently wearable brands within LVMH.

Kor's negative sentiments regarding the lack of attention and priority from the brand's parent company are well founded. Dior is profitable simply because LVMH has been spending stratospheric amounts of money marketing it - Galliano's unbearable tackiness surely has nothing to do with it. Any truly successful brand also needs to have a coherent design language; Celine can claim to have that under Kor's direction. With both Slimane and Galliano at the helm, plus some other designer for the accessories and jewelry range, can Dior say that? Don't think so. I've said this time and time again - LVMH has absolutely NO CLUE in how to properly manage a brand. Neglecting, and now losing Kors, will be another one in long line of profound mistakes Bernard Arnault and his lemmings have made.
 
celine has been neglected not just by lvmh but by magazines.. sad really.
 
Originally posted by Lena@Mar 4th, 2004 - 5:17 pm
on topic and regardless what i think of Kors ability as a designer,
he actually did a big favour to Celine.
Celine was nothing when Kors took over,
and he was obviously 'ignored' by his bosses,
thats what this is all about.

:winkiss:
Exactly, Dior and LV seem really like the ones "cared for".
 
Originally posted by Erzébeth@Mar 5th, 2004 - 2:28 am
celine has been neglected not just by lvmh but by magazines.. sad really.
That's because most magazines are slaves to LVMH due to their huge advertising budget and enormous clout. Whatever LVMH wants to put in, and out of, the spotlight, is what people would or would not see in the glossy pages.
 
:blink: ironic or not, seems like everyone in Paris today is talking
about the success of Kors' last collection for Celine..
seems hotter than Veronique Branquinho,
most of my friends are mailing me on Celine & Kors...
and we are certainly NOT a bunch of Kors fans :P

Originally posted by Orochian+Mar 5th, 2004 - 1:34 pm--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Orochian @ Mar 5th, 2004 - 1:34 pm)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-Erzébeth@Mar 5th, 2004 - 2:28 am
celine has been neglected not just by lvmh but by magazines.. sad really.
That's because most magazines are slaves to LVMH due to their huge advertising budget and enormous clout. Whatever LVMH wants to put in, and out of, the spotlight, is what people would or would not see in the glossy pages. [/b][/quote]
ditto, budgets rule editorials, thats the game :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by Jentlemen@Mar 4th, 2004 - 2:05 pm
now my question.. what is this DFS that Michael Kors refers to
Answer (I think this is what he's talking about:(

Since LVMH acquired in 1997 the Duty Free Shoppers (DFS) group of stores, which are mostly located in Asia, the Dior distribution has been expanded to the 165 DFS-outlets.

Go here for more info:

http://www.dfsgalleria.com/Galleria/Englis..._About_DFS.html

Thanks for posting the article, Lena. It's always good to hear the big boys speak frankly. Provides valuable insight into the many hats they wear.
 

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