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      Tapestry and Capri End Plans for ‘Accessible Luxury’ Merger

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      Tapestry, the owner of Coach, said it would abandon its $8.5 billion deal to buy Capri, the parent company of Michael Kors, after the Federal Trade Commission successfully sued to stop the transaction.An attempt to assemble an “accessible luxury” powerhouse in the United States has unraveled.Tapestry, the owner of Coach and Kate Spade, and Capri Holdings, the parent company of Versace and Michael Kors, on Thursday called off their plan to merge, which was first announced last year. The Federal Trade Commission had sued to block the $8.5 billion deal last spring over antitrust concerns, and a federal judge sided with the agency last month.At the center of the F.TC’s case was a worry that consumers would end up paying more for the relatively less expensive handbags and other fashion items sold by Coach, Kate Spade and Michael Kors in what the industry calls the accessible luxury market.While Tapestry and Capri argued that it was not a defined category, the federal judge ruled that accessible luxury handbags appeared to have traits that distinguished them from true luxury brands. The court determined that the category was defined by bags that start with a price of about $100 and “heavily rely on discounting.”Tapestry and Capri said that they had “mutually agreed that terminating the merger agreement was in the best interests of both companies.” The decision to abandon their appeal suggested that the companies were not more optimistic about a judge’s ruling under the Trump administration, and that they did not think putting in the time and money required by a lengthy appeal process would result in a viable pathway to acquisition.“We are now focusing on the future of Capri and our three iconic luxury houses,” John Idol, Capri’s chief executive, said in a statement. Mr. Idol stressed Capri’s strong customer loyalty and store base, with more than 1,200 retail locations worldwide.Joanne Crevoiserat, the chief executive of Tapestry, said in a statement that “we have always had multiple paths to growth, and our decision today clarifies the forward strategy.”“Tapestry remains in a position of strength,” she added.Tapestry also said its board had approved a program in which the company would buy an additional $2 billion of its own shares.The company’s shares rose about 10 percent, and shares of Capri fell 4 percent, in early trading on Thursday. More

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      Fashion World Fears High Tariffs in Trump Administration

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened a tax of at least 60 percent on goods from China — a move with the potential to decimate small American brands.In the days after Donald J. Trump won the presidency, several small American fashion designers placed anxious calls to overseas manufacturing partners. Spurred by fears that the president-elect will make good on promises to raise tariffs, thereby upending their operations, they scrambled to find alternatives.The tariffs “would be devastating,” according to Chris Gentile, owner of the Brooklyn-based Pilgrim Surf + Supply, which produces items like padded work coats and fleece zip-ups in China. “I don’t know how we could function.”Throughout his campaign, Mr. Trump threatened to levy a 10 to 20 percent tax on most foreign products and, most significantly, at least a 60 percent tariff on goods from China. The thinking is that sharp taxes would compel companies to begin producing in America again. In conversations with clothing designers over the past week, that logic was met with extreme skepticism.Some designers are not convinced that talk of dizzying tariffs will survive past the campaign trail. But for smaller, independent apparel businesses that rely on the comparative affordability and high quality of Chinese clothing manufacturers, the mere threat of increased taxes on foreign goods was enough to plan for the worst.“We’ve established relationships with these factories,” Mr. Gentile said. “They’ve become almost like family.”A still-scrappy entrepreneur 12 years in, Mr. Gentile doesn’t have an army of supply-chain wonks to ferret out new factories. The task of corresponding with his manufacturers falls largely on him. He’s spent untold hours working with his Chinese production partners on how to set in the sleeves of his shirts just so or how poofy a down jacket should be.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kamala Harris Wears a Dark Suit and Weary Smile in Concession Speech

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      In her concession speech, Kamala Harris offered an image for a long fight.Kamala Harris speaking at Howard University was to be an image for history: a record of the first female president, not to mention the first Black female president and the first president of South Asian descent, giving her victory speech. Instead, what turned out to be her concession speech became the coda to an unprecedented election; the end of one story, rather than the beginning of another.That did not mean that Ms. Harris was any less a pioneer, or a role model, in the moment. Even if what she was modeling was how to make over the public face of defeat.Standing before the red bricks and the white columns that provide the backdrop for Howard commencements, Ms. Harris wore a businesslike pantsuit in a muddy burgundy that read, through the screen, as almost purple (interpret that as you will). The jacket was buttoned, an American flag pin bright against one lapel, and the pants were cut with a bit of a flare at the calf. With it, she wore her usual pumps, pearl earrings and a satin blouse in the same eggplant shade, complete with a cravat, or ascot-like tie. If there was a telling detail, that was it.The cravat is a cousin of the floppy bow Ms. Harris has often worn at major public occasions — the one that seemed to symbolize both tradition and subversion, men’s wear and a woman’s place, and to acknowledge that despite the fact that she had never put gender at the center of her candidacy, it was there all the same.Ms. Harris paired her suit with a cravat, an accessory that hearkened back to history.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesIn the context of her concession speech, the cravat hearkened back to history — her own and that of the women and the politicians who came before her — and in that context, it represented, as she said in that speech, the idea that some fights were long. That this one had been going on for decades (even centuries) and would continue afterward. It was, in that way, a symbol of both a promise and a lament.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      LACMA Gala Photos: Charli XCX, Blake Lively and More Celebrities Turn Out

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      Blake Lively, Kaia Gerber and Kim Kardashian took pictures under the lights, posing against a backdrop of more than 200 restored street lamps from “Urban Light,” an installation by the artist Chris Burden that served as a stand-in for a red carpet.It was the 13th annual Art+Film gala, held Saturday night, which raised more than $6.4 million for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the Western United States.On one side, a sage green carpet contrasted with striking red and glass galleries designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. On the other, there was a concrete wall of the much-anticipated new LACMA building by the architect Peter Zumthor.And the guest list for the gala, sponsored by Gucci, felt as eclectic as the museum it benefited, as Hollywood fixtures rubbed shoulders with luminaries from the art world, who gathered to honor the filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and the artist Simone Leigh. (LACMA is currently co-presenting an exhibit of Ms. Leigh’s work with the California African American Museum.)This starry mix of creative worlds aligns with the museum director Michael Govan’s vision for LACMA. “The idea was to design it as a place of inspiration for creative people,” Mr. Govan said.The filmmaker Baz Luhrmann.Michelle Groskopf for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump and Harris Have One Thing in Common: Power Shoulders

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      This is an installment of Visual Studies, a series that explores how images move through and shape culture.In terms of personality and policy, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are starkly contrasting figures. Yet they’ve often had one thing in common: a silhouette that features powerfully padded shoulders.For 150 years, the size of a suit jacket’s shoulder pad — which exists today as a small, simple, triangular shaped piece of material stuffed with wadding — has fluctuated in response to fashion trends. But in this year’s election, the power shoulder has become a potent, multifaceted symbol.The complex history of the power shoulder means it can convey confidence, power and authority. But it can also conjure swagger, playful subversion and an outsider’s defiance of an established order. For both candidates, this strong silhouette offers the opportunity to shape a defining image: for Mr. Trump, as a billionaire who positions himself as anti-establishment; for Ms. Harris, as a formidable figure who more than belongs in a realm once reserved for men.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Louis Vuitton Owner LVMH Sees Stock Drop on Weak China Sales

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      Weak sales in China at LVMH, the owner of Dior, Tiffany and more, sent a shudder through the luxury sector.Shares in LVMH dropped on Wednesday after the luxury goods giant warned about an “uncertain economic and geopolitical environment” and its latest earnings disappointed analysts.The conglomerate — which owns Dior, Tiffany, Fendi and more — is a bellwether for the industry. Its financial results, released on Tuesday after European markets closed, has sent a shudder through the luxury sector, particularly in response to slowing sales in the hugely important Chinese market.LVMH, which is run by the French billionaire Bernard Arnault, said that sales for last quarter fell 3 percent from the same period the previous year. The company also reported a decline in sales in its fashion and leather goods unit, which makes up about half of the conglomerate’s revenue, for the first time since early in the coronavirus pandemic.Shares of other fashion and lifestyle brands also declined, including Hermès and Kering, the owner of Gucci.Investors are jittery about the Chinese economy. Beijing introduced a package of measures last month that spurred a major rally in Chinese stocks, but details remain vague about the extent of the measures to bolster weak consumer spending, stabilize the real estate market and strengthen banks.China recently announced retaliatory penalties on European brandy — LVMH owns Moët Hennessy — in response to higher tariffs imposed by the European Union on Chinese-made electric vehicles.“Consumer confidence in mainland China today is back in line with the all-time low reached during Covid,” Jean-Jacques Guiony, LVMH’s chief financial officer, told analysts on Tuesday.Some industry observers are betting that LVMH will cope. “We are not sure this quarter particularly changes the LVMH story,” analysts at Bernstein wrote in a note. Even without a lot of detail, the stimulus signals in China are encouraging and demand will return, the analysts said.China’s housing minister is set to hold a news conference on Thursday and is expected to outline more measures to bolster growth.Danielle Kaye More

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      The Met’s Next Costume Fashion Blockbuster Take On the Politics of Race

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      With support from LeBron James, ASAP Rocky, Pharrell Williams and more.The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is wading into the politics of race relations.On Wednesday, the museum announced that its spring 2025 blockbuster fashion show will be “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” focusing on the history of the Black dandy and the way peacocking goes beyond aesthetics to empowerment. ASAP Rocky, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, Pharrell Williams and Anna Wintour will be co-chairs of the gala that opens the show; LeBron James will be the honorary chair.The Met’s first fashion exhibition to focus solely on the work of designers of color, as well as the first in more than two decades to focus explicitly on men’s wear, the show is another step in the Costume Institute’s efforts to rectify its own historic failures in diversity and inclusion, said Andrew Bolton, the curator in charge.“I wanted to stage a show on race that could use our collection to tell a story that had been absent from the conversation both within the museum and outside,” Mr. Bolton said. “This is a first of its kind.”LeBron James will be the honorary chair of the event. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThe goal, he said, is to demonstrate what happens to the concept of the “dandy,” as defined by Beau Brummell in Regency England, when it is racialized. When, for example, an enslaved person is treated as a luxury object to be dressed up and displayed — and how those clothes in turn were appropriated by the enslaved and used to subvert existing systems and create new identities. Additionally, it will illustrate how contemporary Black men’s wear designers use their work to connect to this tradition.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Milan Fashion Week Full of Surprising Stranger Things

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      Standout shows from Bally and Bottega Veneta bring Milan Fashion Week to a close. Gucci, Versace and Moschino do some recycling.And thus began the season of the weird. After decades in which clothes that telegraphed sex or stealth wealth dominated the Milanese runways, it’s the stranger things that seem the most on target now.“There’s a feeling that anything could happen, no matter how fantastical,” Matthieu Blazy wrote in his Bottega Veneta show notes, before seating his audience on low-slung leather bean bags in animal shapes — Jacob Elordi plopped down onto a bunny, Michelle Yeoh onto a lady bug. It turned a cavernous warehouse into a fun house and forced every guest to adopt an alternate perspective.“Well, it’s kind of an irrational time,” Simone Bellotti said in something of an understatement backstage after his brilliant Bally show, inspired by the German Dadaist Hugo Ball.Indeed, the most eye-catching appearance of the week was not, as it turned out, Mr. Elordi, or Jin of BTS taking a post-military service front row seat at Gucci, but Cheryl Hines, the actress-wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She showed up at Bally just after the news broke about her husband’s sexting relationship with a political reporter. (Apparently Ms. Hines is friends with the brand’s new owner, Michael Reinstein of the global private equity firm Regent.) And the best casting was not Cavalli’s supermodel reunion but Sunnei’s embrace of 70- and 80-something models in its 10th anniversary meditation on time. As opposed to that old fashion shibboleth, timelessness.Sunnei, spring 2025SunneiYou can either retreat into the safety of the elegant chocolate suit (for that, go to MaxMara), the always-appropriate leather trench (at Tod’s, Matteo Tamburini did it best) or you can take the confounding, bizarro nature of this global moment and turn it into a look. The best shows in Milan did.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More