| Tom Ford Plans to open two Moscow Shops
Offering Fur Hats and $5,000 Suits. Ford
said he plans to open two outlets of his
year-old retail venture in Moscow next year.
Ford and franchisee Mercury Group will offer
$5,000 custom- made men's suits in stores
planned for September on Tretyakovsky Passage,
a city-center lane of boutiques, and Barvikha
Village on the capital's fringe.
The Moscow Tom Ford shops would carry exclusive
items for the local market, including sable
hats. The designer opened his first store
on New York's Madison Avenue a year ago,
aiming to capitalize on global demand for
luxury goods that has swelled the industry's
annual revenue to about $250 billion, according
to consulting firm Bain & Co. in Boston.
“Russians are hardwired to appreciate
the fine things in life. They have been
denied nice things for years,” said
Ford.
Luxury brands including Louis Vuitton,
Ferragamo and Burberry are all expanding
into Russia as the country's 2.5 billion-euro
luxury goods market has almost tripled in
the past five years. It's expected to gain
about 30 percent a year as oil-fueled growth
swells incomes at a faster pace than any
country in the European Union, according
to Bain data.
“Emerging markets are the future,''
the designer said after his speech at a
Moscow conference organized by the International
Herald Tribune. Ford, raised in Texas, called
Americans, “so last century.”
 Ford,
who is president and chief executive officer
of his company, plans to open his first
directly operated store after New York on
Via Verri in Milan this summer as his retail
expansion focuses on markets outside the
U.S. Franchises also are planned from Beijing
to Dubai.
There are more than 33 billionaires and
more than 90,000 people with wealth of more
than 1 million euros in Moscow, while more
than 200,000 Russians have annual incomes
of more than 130,000 euros, a report from
Bain shows.
Ford has signed with Italian men's wear
maker Ermenegildo Zegna SpA to produce his
clothing and with Estee Lauder Cos. for
fragrances. |
According
to Time magazine's special issue called "America
By The Numbers.", the average American
goes online 2.1 times at work and 1.2 times
at home each day. He or she visits an average
of 6 domains per day and spends an average
of 3 hours and 43 minutes online between work
and home.
French
designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac will
open a London flagship store in February 2008.
The store will carry fashion items, luggage,
sunglasses, shoes, Headwear and stationary.
The brand is also into other areas through
licensing agreements and partnerships with
Rossignol, Okaidi and Lee Cooper.