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Karl Lagerfeld has a new world at his feet: The Italian company Hogan, part of the Tod’s footwear empire, said Wednesday that it had signed the designer for a special collection.
The partnership comes at a significant moment for Mr. Lagerfeld and Hogan, The New York Times’s Suzy Menkes writes. The Lagerfeld brand, which was bought by Tommy Hilfiger five years ago,tod's soldes,tods handbags online-tods sneakers-f his demons, you meaay. They tods driving shoe-tods ladies loafers-tods drivers-jp tods handbags, was not part of the $3 billion acquisition announced this week of the fashion group by the American giant Phillips-Van Heusen.
The Lagerfeld brand is still owned by Apax Partners, a private equity group,Tods Ballerinas Shoes, which is expected to bulk up Lagerfeld for an eventual sale, as it did with the Hilfiger label.
Mr. Lagerfeld, who is best known for his 27-year reign as creative director of Chanel, has an instinct for capturing fashion’s shifting parameters. He was the first name designer to collaborate with the fast-fashion group H&M in 2004. Mr. Lagerfeld’s namesake brand also relies heavily on the traditional model of licensing for items like menswear, eyeglasses and fragrance.
It may be significant that the designer has chosen to work with Hogan on fashion’s middle territory, which has been almost squeezed out by luxury and low-price goods.
Mr. Lagerfeld, 76, described Hogan as a “contemporary brand” and said in a statement that he liked “the idea of collaborating” with Diego Della Valle, the founder, president and chief executive of Tod’s.
Mr. Della Valle is looking to globalize the reach of Hogan, founded in 1988. It has been developed by his son Emanuele as a creative and inventive provider of technosport and urban footwear and leather goods.
The brand represented 36 percent, or 256.9 million euros,tod's chaussures femmeTods Handbagsbrowning tod, of the group’s 2009 consolidated sales of 713.1 million euros ($980 million).
It also has been growing faster than the parent brand. Tod’s sales were down 2.2 percent last year from the previous year, while Hogan’s revenue was up 7.6 percent.
Mr. Della Valle called Mr. Lagerfeld “one of the creative geniuses of our century.”
Hogan said the designer’s project for spring 2011 would include shoes,chaussures todtods handbagstods chaussures prix, accessories and clothing. People in Milan with direct knowledge of the situation told The Times that the collaboration was a one-time event to give a robust voice and energy to Hogan, particularly in Asia,Tods Competition Shoes, and was not intended to become a long-lasting partnership.
The strategy of the Tod’s Group, which includes the Fay and Roger Vivier brand, the high-end French luxury shoe and bag house, has been to call on international fashion collaborators to promote the brands worldwide, as the American designer Derek Lam has done for Tod’s.
For the time being, Apax intends to hold on to it as a stand-alone brand, Benjamin Harding, an Apax spokesman in London, told The Times.
“We’ll look for a management team to build the brand over time,” he said.
Hilfiger staged a big recovery after it was sold in 2006 to Apax and some of the brand’s European managers for about $1.6 billion in cash.
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