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A who’s who of haute couture houses are lining up for possible initial public offerings in the next few months, looking to cash in at the peak of the cycle for the luxury goods market.
 In the past month, Italian high-fashion legends Manolo SpA and Roberto Cavalli SpA have both reportedly floated the idea of IPOs to the financial community, while shoe making giant Salvatore Ferragamo Italia SpA is also considering going public next year. Other big names, including Giorgio Armani, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana, are also being touted as possible IPO or takeover candidates in the next year, according to analysts who track the industry.
 "We are at the very peak of the luxury goods cycle. That’s when everyone looks to take their stocks to the public," said analyst Allesandra Coppola of Standard & Poor’s in London. 
 She believes the prospects for a slowing of the global economy,jimmy choo, coupled with the strengthening of the euro against the U.S. dollar and Japanese yen, will put the brakes on expansion for luxury goods makers, particularly those based in Europe. As a result, she suggested any new IPOs would hit the market at a time when their peers are in a sideways drift.
 "We’re not going to see much of an expansion of profits," she said.
 Luxury goods stocks have grown in popularity among investors over the past couple of years, amid double-digit sales and profit growth. The strong global economy and surging wealth in many parts of the world, particularly emerging giants such as China and India, have spurred demand for high-end goods and allowed their makers to expand their profit margins. The number of millionaires in the world has doubled in the past 10 years, to 9.5 million at the end of last year, according to the World Wealth Report, published annually by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

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 USUALLY, THEY DON’T HAVE THE PREMIERES THERE. KELLY: ONCE IN A WHILE. REGIS: AND YOU’VE LIVED THERE FOR A FEW YEARS AND YOU KNOW THE AGGRAVATION GETTING HOME, RIGHT? KELLY: OH, DO I KNOW. REGIS: AND THE STREET WAS FILLED WITH PAPARAZZIS AGAIN. I LOVE SAYING THAT. WHEN THEY CAME AFTER ME, I SAID YOU PAPARAZZIS. THEY LOVE IT! ANYWAY, YES, JODIE FOSTER WAS THERE. KELLY: YES,manolo blahnik, SHE IS. REGIS: WITH TERRENCE HOWARD. LOOKING VERY DAPPER. YOU MADE A COMMENT ABOUT HIS SHOES, WHICH WERE PRETTY DARN LOOKING. KELLY: YES, MANOLO SHOES. REGIS: HE WAS PROUD TO TELL US I GOT THESE IN ROME, YES. MY NEW MANOLO SHOES. LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT THE KING HAS GOT RIGHT HERE. I’M GOING TO TAKE THAFSE IN A MINUTE. HERE YOU GO. CHECK IT OUT. THESE ARE MY GORDON RUSH LITTLE SHOES. LOOK INSIDE THE SHOE IS A PAINTING. KELLY: WHAT DOES THAT SAY? >> [LAUGHTER] REGIS: I DON’T KNOW. IT’S AN OLD MASTER. KELLY: DOES THAT SAY A WOMAN’S 5? [APPLAUSE] REGIS: I’LL TAKE CARE OF IT. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING. YOU TAKE THAT BACK. KELLY: I’M SORRY. REGIS: IT’S A MEN’S 5 IF IT’S ANYTHING. NO. IT’S A BEAUTIFUL SHOE. BUT YOU GET THIS OLD PICTURE. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, YOU TURN THE SHOE AROUND, LOOK AT THIS! OH! KELLY: THAT IS BEAUTIFUL! REGIS: I HATE EVEN TO WEAR THEM. KELLY: I DON’T BLAME THEM. IT’S VERY ASIAN AND BEAUTIFUL. FOR HEAVEN’S SAKES, DON’T WEAR THEM. REGIS: OH, I WISH TERRENCE HOWARD WAS ON THE SHOW TODAY! WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS? MANOLOS. KELLY: I’M SURE HE’S GOING TO GO OUT THERE AND MAKE A PAIR FOR HIMSELF. THOSE ARE SWANKY. REGIS: I HOPE IT GETS BIGGER THAN A 5. THEY ARE A LITTLE LOOSE ON ME. I WANT TO THANK GORDON RUSH FOR SENDING THOSE SHOES OVER. KELLY: OH, THEY SENT THEM OVER AFTER THEY SAW THE SNOW REGIS: NO, IT’S JUST COINS DENLY. UNDERSTAND YOU STEPPED OUT LAST NIGHT. KELLY: I DID. YES. IT WAS HAMPTONS MAGAZINE PARTY. YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU DO A COVER FOR "HAMPTONS" MAGAZINE, THEY HOST A PARTY. REGIS: WE SLOBBERED, WE SLAVED. YEAH. KELLY: BUT THERE WAS THIS GREAT PLACE CALLED — I’VE NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE.

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For Gucci, which is incorporated in the Netherlands but does most of its manufacturing in Italy, it would be the next step in Mr. De Sole’s declared strategy of transforming itself into a multibrand luxury goods conglomerate to challenge its main European rival, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton of France.
Manolo has experienced a revival in recent years, largely on the success of its new Baguette bags, the hottest fashion item of the moment and the design product of Silvia Venturini, the 39-year-old head of accessories at Manolo and Anna Manolo’s daughter.
In recent months, the acquisition-minded chairman of LVMH, Bernard Arnault, has also expressed interest in Manolo, and if Gucci succeeded in bringing Manolo into its fold, it would be Mr. De Sole’s second victory over Mr. Arnault this year.
Earlier this year, Gucci successfully resisted a hostile takeover attempt by Mr. Arnault,manolo blahnik store, who had built up a sizable stake in Gucci and who holds 20 percent of Gucci’s shares.
To thwart Mr. Arnault’s bid, Mr. De Sole agreed to sell a large stake in Gucci for $3 billion to Francois Pinault, the French billionaire. As part of the deal, Gucci said it would consider acquiring Sanofi Beaute, the division of Sanofi S.A. that owns the Yves Saint Laurent name. Mr. Pinault bought the business earlier this year for $1 billion with an eye to incorporating it into Gucci.
Since receiving the $3 billion from Mr. Pinault, who controls the French Pinault-Printemps-Redoute department store group and the Christie’s auction house, Gucci executives have looked at several possible fashion industry takeovers. But priority has been given to completing due diligence at Sanofi Beaute, which Mr. De Sole has said he expects to be completed by the end of this month.
Texas Pacific has been on a recent shopping spree in Europe. Before announcing a takeover of Bally, the Swiss shoe retailer, late last month, the investor group said it was acquiring Piaggio Veicoli Europei, the Italian maker of motor scooters.

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Building and holding on to a brand is tough. For 11 years since the death of Franco Moschino, the house has kept alive the flame. But now it seems to be fizzling out. Or perhaps the funereal black that filled so much of the collection, although lightened with appliqued leaves or as whorl at the back of a coat, is just a symbol of the general dark mood in Milan. Moschino’s merry blend of sharp wit and sharper cutting was missing from the show, which opened with little black dresses, with metallic decoration that appeared as studs and eyelets on shoes.
Although tailoring remains the house’s strength, who needs brown check tweeds (including Milan’s pervasive knickers) shown with purses shaped into gingerbread men or Xmas heart cookies? Of course, the retailers who love Moschino for its sales appeal can find plenty to buy (but perhaps not a big-sleeved blouse or an egg-shaped skirt). Yet the house has to find a way to keep up its perky, quirky spirit.
In the field of brands, Antonio Marras is like a meadow flower, sweet and different, justifying his existence by the quality of his imagination and craftsmanship. Now that he is also design director at Kenzo, Marras could have been forgiven for taking short cuts for Thursday’s show. But instead he showed the same intense passion,manolo blahnik store, romantic story line and mixes of exceptional fabrics and the same drama in the set. This season, a line of telephone poles led to a video backdrop of trains and to a final destination where all the models appeared as if in a mountain encampment.
"I was inspired by the western and the paintings of Tina Modotti, whose best friend was Frida Kahlo," said Marras, to explain the mix of Hispanic florals, dark nobility and embroidered decoration with an undercurrent of military camouflage. In spite of its historic starting point and the long Edwardian skirts, this was an approachable Marras collection, in which he mixed deftly brief denim jackets, embroidered drop-crotch jeans, bright flowers on a black velvet coat, leather with lace, and tiered skirts with rich jacquard weaves. This skill makes him the romantic artist he is.

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Italy’s cut-price, high-class designer outlets are tourist attractions in their own right. Natasha Bita reports from Florence
AS lightning struck, panic gripped the American tourist rifling through racks of cut-price Giorgio Armani evening gowns. "We won’t have to leave, will we?" she wailed as emergency lights flickered in the gloom. After all, there are worse places to be trapped in a blackout than Armani’s discount outlet in the hills of Tuscany.
 In the club of haute couture, last season’s fashions used to be as passe as day-old gossip. Once the end-of-season sales were over, leftover stock would be banished from flagship stores to obscure suburban warehouses. But in these belt-tightening times, even the luxury brands have stopped sneering at the idea of offloading their orphaned stock in discount outlets.
 Gucci, Armani, Prada, Yves Saint Laurent, Roberto Cavalli, Dolce&Gabbana and Manolo — the same labels that cultivate their exclusivity with waiting lists and celebrity endorsements — have all opened cut-price, high-class factory outlets outside Florence.
 The French LVMH empire, too, is dabbling in discounting, opening the first Italian factory outlets in Tuscany for its brands Manolo, Celine and Loewe. "There are already lots of tourists travelling in this area, so it’s favourable for us," says Cristina Toccafondi, manager of LVMH’s Modulo outlet. It is not the quantity of tourists that interests luxury labels so much as the quality — Japanese, Americans and Brits with an eye for quality, a fetish for labels and wads of heavyweight currency.
&nbsp,blahnik manolo;Unlike traditional factory outlets, where crumpled merchandise is often stuffed into boxes or jammed on to wire racks, customers at luxury goods outlets still enjoy luxury service — the same gleaming glass cabinets, white leather lounges and artful displays found in flagship stores. "It’s a way of safeguarding the image of the brand," says Toccafondi, caressing a butter-soft Celine leather coat marked down to a half-price E500 ($886). "The clothing is discounted, but it’s still precious."  Indeed, Prada even has fashion police patrolling the doors at its discount outlet, which resembles a prison compound with high-security walls, bitumen courtyard and uniformed guards. Prada pilgrims have to take a ticket and wait until their number flashes to enter. Rival outlets snipe (off-the-record, naturally) that Prada is behaving like a pretentious nightclub, making customers queue to build buyer anticipation.

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Certainly in the case of Marc Jacobs, LVMH’s investment has enhanced the stature of the New York designer, who also oversees collections for Louis Vuitton. But Robert Duffy, president of Marc Jacobs, in which LVMH acquired a 33 percent stake four years ago, said he would like to see LVMH invest real growth money in the Jacobs label instead of acquiring new businesses. "It’s my wish that LVMH would invest the money here and grow this label."
The Manolo deal is full of quirks that may make it even more difficult to manage than most would be. For example, although LVMH and Prada together will own 51 percent of Manolo, it is unclear which has primacy, and that could eventually lead to internal feuding. And Manolo, Vuitton and Prada are direct competitors on leather goods; what happens if Manolo’s growth comes at the expense of the owners’ own businesses?
There is also the issue of whether after paying so much for Manolo, Prada will have enough money left over to help Manolo along as promised. Prada, with sales under $800 million, had a drop in net profit of nearly 27 percent last year as overhead ballooned. Debt also jumped as the company borrowed heavily to finance the recent investments in Church &amp,manolo blahnik; Company, Helmut Lang and Jil Sanders. (Though LVMH has also been on a buying spree, it has remained very profitable.)
For the Manolos there remains the issue of who will run the company. For now the five Manolo sisters and their family are firmly ensconced at the helm, but industry experts like Allen J. Ellinger, a partner in MMG, a New York fashion management consulting firm, say that real money in family businesses comes only when "somebody starts to put structure into a company, and deal with the margins." That is code for replacing the family with a professional cadre of mangers.
"You retain management only until something goes wrong," said Massimo Ferragamo, chief executive of Ferragamo USA. "It is why we have no interest in selling."

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Those who hoped designers had gotten over short skirts by now better think again. Here in Milan, where Round 1 of the spring fashion shows began Sunday, skirts are, if anything, getting shorter.
If you were looking for long skirts this week you would have to go to the showrooms of the fashion avant-garde. Short skirts are mainstream. Long skirts are being shown primarily by designers such as Romeo Gigli and Dolce and Gabbana, whose monasterial style appeals to a rather small group of women.
It is no surprise that designers here think briefer is better. They need only walk outside their offices on the Via della Spiga or the Via Montenapoleone where the chic women stroll and shop. Many Milanese women are wearing above-the-knee-length skirts. While some of the young wear them scarcely longer than a bandage,manolo shoes, mothers and daughters, often walking together, show hems an inch or two above the knee, as do the hundreds of worldwide fashion journalists who have come to cover the six or eight shows being staged each day.
In boutiques like the Manolo shop here and in Rome, the short tent coat, for example, is far outselling the longer styles. "We were surprised," admitted Carla Manolo. "We were sure the long coat would sell better."
The signals for the short skirt are good in the States, too, according to the American buyers and merchandisers. Dawn Mello, president of Bergdorf Goodman, says that short skirts are selling over long more than two to one. At Saks Fifth Avenue, short outsells long three to two, according to a representative. And at Bloomingdale’s it’s short over long, three to one — even in Washington. A pretty convincing picture.
The Krizia collection, with some of the prettiest and most agreeable ways to wear the briefer length, includes a rounded, oval-shape skirt as an alternative to the short straight skirt. It also shows many Bermuda-length shorts, meant to be worn with tailored jackets for the office. "I’ve been proposing them for a long time," says Mandelli. She has seen them on the streets in New York. With coordinated hose and flat shoes, she finds, they are an appropriately modest look for business.

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 From Louis Vuitton luggage to the latest Gucci sunglasses, the democratisation of the luxury goods market meant that we could all buy into the jet-set dream. But now, as the big fashion houses see their profits plummet and shoppers tighten their designer belts, Tina Gaudoin asks: is this the end of luxury as we know it?
 Claire Kent, Morgan Stanley’s top-rated analyst, cuts an incongruous figure, as we sit perched in the glass and concrete behemoth that constitutes the bank’s London headquarters at Canary Wharf. In a world routinely peopled by males in suits with egos the size of a small African republic, Kent is a breath of fresh air. Dressed in a grey cashmere sweater and fitted black wool pants, her long red hair fixed with a slightly naive diamante Kirby Grip, Kent is the type of woman (slightly bookish, fiercely intelligent) you might expect to find running the library of a red-brick university rather than carrying the burden and expectations of multibillion-pound clients on her shoulders. Kent is actually a member of a relatively new species of analyst in what could also be termed a "new" market. Thirty years ago the luxury goods market did not exist (in those days who but the obscenely rich could afford Louis Vuitton luggage or a Patek Philippe watch?). Today everything looks very different. In a world where anyone and everyone can "buy" a piece of luxury (see Martine McCutcheon’s handbag collection), the luxury goods industry has grown faster than a Victoria Beckham hair extension; to the point where it’s now worth some Pounds 38 billion. But its future is uncertain. Two years ago without warning the bottom dropped out of the market,manolo blahnik shoes, with some companies seeing a wipe-out of profits. Today the market is running scared, with the war in Iraq, the outbreak of Sars and concerns over job security all having a knock-on effect.
 The predicament of the luxury goods market was highlighted by the recent announcement that the Gucci group had suffered a 97 per cent slide in their first-quarter profits; the Burberry group also recently warned of tougher times to come (alongside the release of their robust sales figures). The last person to be worried, though, should be Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company, which released "strong" sales figures in March. It’s perhaps a sign of the instability of the market that as Kent and I speak, LVMH are in the process of taking legal action against her bank, claiming that last year Morgan Stanley released research (Kent’s research) biased against the LVMH group.

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"We’ve sold 500 of them in a year," said Stuart Hamon of Browns, in London’s smart South Molton Street. "Some clients have three or four different styles. They’re so popular, there’s now a waiting list – and you can wait anything from three weeks to two months. We’ve got 22 clients waiting for a bead-and-tapestry bag (pounds 1,100) and one of them is a count. And 10 others are after the weasel-fur bag in black and blue, which costs pounds 2,060…"
 At Harvey Nichols, they shook their heads sadly. "Anyone still looking for a Manolo baguette will have to wait until next season. They’ll have to put their name down on a list that is already as long as your arm. Or steal one from a friend."
 The baguette, then, is a luxury that has become a necessity. But it also lies at the heart of the biggest commercial war that the luxury goods market has ever seen – a war that culminated this week with the $ 850m takeover of Manolo by a twinset of fashion rivals. The story involves most of the big fashion names you’ve ever heard of, with a few expensive drinks, watches and shoes thrown in. And it will affect the new century’s approach to conspicuous extravagance in ways that we can hardly anticipate.
 The main players are Gucci, Prada and the LVMH conglomerate. Gucci and Prada you know about; but the third contender outstrips them by light years. Behind the boring initials lie the names Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy – pulling the world’s most glamorous luggage, champagne and cognac into a trio that shouts Breakfast-at-Tiffany’s -style sybaritism – and behind that is a huge portfolio of names that are equally suggestive of glittering fashion and froth.
 There’s Krug and Christian Lacroix, Dior and Dom Perignon, Givenchy and Kenzo, both diversified from tailoring into perfume,ysl boots, and Loewe, masters of the softest Spanish leather belts imaginable. Recently they added the names of Thomas Pink – the posh British shirt-makers responsible for those unfeasibly wide, Harry Hill collars – and Tag Heuer, the Swiss watch- makers, without one of whose products no Gstaad seducer’s wrist is complete.
 The LVMH line-up reads like the ultimate shopping list, as if a billionaire giant were to sweep up Bond Street and Knightsbridge, buying up the most glamorous shops like so many hats and shoes, and bearing them all home in a taxi.

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Shares in Gucci Group, the Italian luxury goods maker, rose yesterday on renewed reports that it was about to acquire a domestic rival, Manolo S.p.A.,jimmy choo boots, for $710 million. People close to the matter said an announcement could be made as early as next week.
Gucci’s share price rose by as much as 3.3 percent after a weekly Italian business magazine, Il Mondo, reported that Gucci’s chairman, Domenico De Sole, had persuaded two of the five Manolo sisters, who own equal shares of Manolo, to sell the company to Gucci. The report is scheduled to appear today.
 Gucci shares have risen by about 15 percent since late July, when the first reports of Gucci’s interest in Manolo surfaced. On the New York Stock Exchange, shares of Gucci rose $1.375 yesterday, or 1.6 percent, to $85.9375.
Tommaso Galli, Gucci’s spokesman in Milan, called the report "one of numerous rumors about the company" and said Gucci would not comment. Manolo refused to comment.
The Italian report said Mr. De Sole had persuaded Carla Manolo, the company’s president, and Anna Manolo to accept the Gucci offer. It said another sister, Franca Manolo, preferred a competing bid by Texas Pacific Group of Fort Worth, while Alda and Paola Manolo were leaning toward Gucci.
Gucci is expected to report its quarterly earnings in the coming week, and one person close to the negotiations said that a decision could be announced at that time.
Gucci’s move, if successful, would be the latest step in a mounting consolidation of the European fashion and luxury goods industry, especially in Italy, with its relatively small but creatively vigorous family-owned businesses like Manolo.
Prada, another Italian fashion house with a multibrand strategy similar to Gucci’s, recently said it was acquiring control of the German fashion leader Jil Sander. Today, Prada said it was offering $170 million to acquire Church & Company P.L.C., the British maker of high-quality shoes.

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