Shake Your Money Maker Will Ferrell’s cash-covered suit was a hit for comedy but missed on fashion elements. Page MW8

April 18, 2013

PLUS:Canali arrives on Madison Avenue with a New York

flagship. Page MW2

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by LUISA ZARGANI

MILAN — The Ermenegildo Zegna Group is heading Down Under as part of a slew of projects this year.

On the back of another strong year, Zegna is planning a major two-day event in Sydney Monday and Tuesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the Ermenegildo Zegna Extrafine Wool Trophy and the ex-cellence of Australian merino.

Looking beyond Australia, chief ex-ecutive officer Gildo Zegna is expecting growth for the company in 2013, but said it is “very difficult to make forecasts in the short term — it’s a watch-and-see phase.”

He said the company would “stay the course,” investing “more than last year” in capital expenditures and marketing; opening 20 to 30 stores; rolling out its new Uomo fragrance under a license with Estée Lauder, and unveiling collections under Stefano Pilati. Pilati started Jan. 1 as cre-ative director of the group’s Agnona wom-en’s line and head of design at Ermenegildo Zegna, with responsibility for that brand’s fashion show as well as for the Ermenegildo Zegna Couture collection. (Pilati will not be attending the Sydney event.)

To support its growth plans, the com-pany, which is headquartered in Italy’s Trivero, near Biella, will open a new ex-panded manufacturing plant in Novara in the first half of 2014.

Last year, the company posted revenues of 1.26 billion euros, or $1.61 billion, up 12 percent compared with the previous year.

The executive characterized 2012 as “smoother” than 2013, as the first three months were “slower than expected.”

China, he remarked, is “slowing down, and, after the change of leadership, there is no return to what it was like before, but the market is still growing.” The num-ber of Chinese shoppers has decreased in Europe and in the U.S. in the first three months, but Zegna wondered if they were perhaps choosing other locations, such as Hong Kong and Macau, for example, which showed a “very positive” performance.

He identified the U.S. as “spotty and un-even,” varying depending on the city.

Europe’s capitals are helping to lift business in the continent, but he said foul weather and psychological issues are reining in some spending.

He singled out the Middle East and Russia as “perhaps among the few areas that are not suffering,” while Brazil has “stalled” and India is still too small in the world of luxury.

China remains the company’s main market, followed by the U.S., Italy and Japan, which Zegna said is showing signs of recovery. Retail currently accounts for around 70 percent of the group’s sales

Zegna to Celebrate Australian WoolCapsule collection with specially designed fabric will also be offered.

Ralph Lauren’s cotton boxers.

The boxer short is still a strong contender in the men’s underwear market. Traditional patterns and cropped fits, many

with contrasting waistbands, have pushed this men’s wear staple firmly into loungewear territory. For more on the men’s

underwear market, see pages MW4 and MW5.

BOXING DAY

Men’s WeekMW2 WWD thursday, april 18, 2013

Canali Opens New York Flagshipby JEAN E. PALMIERI

NEW YORK — Canali has arrived on Madison Avenue.

The 6,000-square-foot, two-level New York City flagship at 625 Madison Avenue be-tween 58th and 59th streets opened quietly last weekend, joining a five-year-old unit on Broad Street downtown. The store is the first to showcase the company’s new logo, a styl-ized version of a needle and thread and the year of its founding, 1934. The logo also is being used on the company’s apparel labels, as well as its packaging, marketing materials and Web site.

In a walkthrough, Giorgio Canali, presi-dent of North American operations, said, “We’ve finally come to Madison Avenue. New York is our biggest market, and we felt we were missing the experience of being in the luxury shopping district.” Neighbors in the upscale neighborhood include Eton, Wolford, Bally, Stuart Weitzman and Baccarat. Although he would not provide a volume projection, he said he expects it to be “one of our top two stores.”

This is Canali’s seventh company-owned unit in the U.S. The last to open was in Bal Harbour, Fla., in July 2012. The company also operates boutiques in Coral Gables, Fla.; Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles; South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., and at The Palazzo in Las Vegas. All told, it has more than 200 stores and shops-in-shop around the world.

Upon entering, shoppers first see the company’s lifestyle collection of sportswear and sport coats. That’s followed by a selec-tion of furnishings and accessories, includ-ing shoes and small leather goods. In the rear of the main floor is the company’s suit collection. The store design features gray stone, dark walnut and smoked glass. Fabric-lined display cases also help set the tone. “It creates three different atmospheres as you walk back,” Canali said.

A crystal glass elevator and a marble staircase lead downstairs, where “the finest

part of the collection” is showcased, Canali said. This assortment retails for around 30 percent above the core line and includes suits in luxury fabrics as well as high-end accessories such as crocodile briefcases and wallets. There is a separate area for made-to-measure services, as well as a VIP room. The downstairs also houses a tailor shop and a stockroom.

“This is an evolution of what we did in Bal Harbour and, prior to that, in London,” Canali said. The London unit, which opened in May 2010, also includes a VIP room, which has “worked very well,” he said. “Some cus-tomers like the tranquility.”

Next up is a company-owned, 3,500-square-foot Hong Kong flagship slated to open next month that will carry the company’s entire collection. “We already have four stores in Hong Kong,” he said. “Now we’re opening in Central. It will be our largest shop there.”

Canali said for this year the company is an-ticipating the most growth in North America and Asia. Although the firm would like to expand with additional stores in the States, Canali said no leases have been signed. “But our retail business is growing nicely and is

part of our global strategy,” he said.Company-owned retail stores account

for 20 percent of global revenues, which hit 209.8 million euros, or $272.4 million at current exchange, in 2012, a 15.1 percent increase over the prior year. Canali said 2012 was “the best year we’ve ever had,” with the U.S. still the company’s number-one market, followed by China. Same-store sales at the U.S. stores increased 20 per-cent last year, he added. Canali said its wholesale customers in New York, which include Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Barneys New York, were accepting of the opening of the flagship. “It’s good for the brand to get more exposure,” he said, noting that he is not expecting a drop-off in wholesale business as a result.

Since opening, tailored clothing, sports-wear and furnishings have been among the bestsellers, he said.

THE 2(x)IST DIVISION of The Moret Group has poached Thomas Speight, a top executive from The Warnaco Group Inc., to be its new chief ex-ecutive officer.

He comes to 2(x)ist after three years with Warnaco, where he was president and manag-ing director of the Calvin Klein Jeans and Calvin Klein Underwear units. At Warnaco, Speight oversaw sales, retail operations, merchandis-ing, forecasting and planning as well as regional marketing. Speight has also held top posts at ap-parel companies including the Kate Spade and Sigrid Olsen brands at Liz Claiborne Inc., now Fifth & Pacific Co. Inc., and at Sara Lee Intimate Apparel before it was spun off to Hanesbrands Inc. in 2006.

At 2(x)ist, Speight will report to Joey Harary, ceo of Moret. He will start in mid-June.

Harary, whose company introduced the 2(x)ist brand in the early Nineties, said Speight will add marketing and merchandising skills to grow the brand’s exposure in the international marketplace.

Harary said Speight will be responsible for expanding the 2(x)ist business worldwide and will oversee all aspects of managing and grow-ing the brand into new categories. In the past few years, 2(x)ist has launched men’s swim and sock collections as well as watches, and it is currently exploring body-care and fragrance licenses.

“Our plans are to explode this brand and break it out with worldwide recognition. We’ve been looking for this unique opportunity for a long time,” said Harary. “Thomas has a lot of knowledge from the Calvin Klein business and at Kate Spade, where he’s had a lot of experience building international businesses and licensees.”

Harary added that expansion plans include opening the first 2(x)ist store in New York City by 2015. The company operates several 2(x)ist free-standing boutiques and in-store shops at depart-ment stores in China, Malaysia and Singapore.

— KARYN MONGET

by ARNOLD J. KARR

STRUGGLING TANDY BRANDS Accessories Inc. has received a belated holiday gift — more time to dig itself out of a sizable credit hole.

The Dallas-based men’s accessories and gifts firm said Wednesday that it had been granted a waiver by Wells Fargo, its senior lender, after falling out of compli-ance with the profitability requirements of its $35 million credit facility with the bank.

Additionally, it said it had signed a “nonbinding term sheet” with another lender, as yet unidentified, for a facility that would replace the existing loan agree-ment by the end of next month. Based on LIBOR rates, the new facility is expected to carry interest rates of between 9.3 and 12 percent over a two-year period.

“We expected the new facility would be more expensive than our previous facility,” said Rod McGeachy, president and chief executive officer of Tandy. “However, it is important to us to bal-ance the capital cost with potential dilution to our shareholders. The cur-rent term sheet contains no dilutive features, and we believe this new facil-ity will provide us the liquidity we need to execute our recently announced re-structuring initiatives.”

Tandy has confronted a series of daunting challenges since the holiday season, when it experienced higher-than-expected returns and allowances in the gift segment of its business and wound up in violation of the provisions of its Wells Fargo facility. Since alerting the Securities and Exchange Commission to the problem in mid-February, its shares have shed more than two-thirds of their

value and it’s faced the prospect of being delisted by the Nasdaq exchange.

Shares picked up on Wednesday fol-lowing news of the waiver and nego-tiations, ending the day at 46 cents, up 2 cents, or 4.6 percent. Shares were valued at $1.52 as recently as Feb. 13.

The waiver from Wells Fargo was con-sidered particularly crucial. The facility, initiated in August 2011 and amended on five different occasions since then, was secured by “substantially all of our assets and those of our subsidiaries,” Tandy said in an SEC filing last September.

Last month it hired Deloitte Financial Advisory Services to help it resolve its problems and named John Little, a principal at Deloitte, its chief restructuring officer. Since then it’s said it expected to cut nearly a third of its workforce, streamline its product offer-ings and ultimately shed $6 million to

$7 million in annual expenses.On Wednesday it made good on its

pledge to report its long-delayed second-quarter financial results by April 22. In the three months ended Dec. 31, the company had a net loss of $5.7 million, or 79 cents a diluted share, versus net in-come of $2.8 million, or 39 cents, in the prior-year period. Eliminating the effect of a $6.7 million inventory writedown related to the holiday returns, it would have had net income of $1.8 million, or 25 cents a diluted share.

Sales grew 5.5 percent, to $47.9 mil-lion from $45.4 million, principally on the contributions of newly licensed businesses, such as Eddie Bauer. Gross margin contracted to 14 percent of sales, from 32.3 percent in the prior year. Excluding the writedown, gross margin would have been roughly twice the re-ported level, at 27.9 percent.

“Although we met our gross shipment plan in our gifts segment and reported 17 percent net sales growth during the quarter, our net sales were lower than expectations due to the higher-than-expected returns of unsold inventory and unplanned promotional activity by some of our retail partners, which drove higher-than-expected sales concessions,” McGeachy commented. “Meanwhile, our accessories segment ongoing sales met our expectations at virtually flat to last year considering the lower sales of exited product categories.”

He added that gift-segment margins are expected to improve in the future through “reducing our exposure to sales concessions and outsourcing our gifts dis-tribution center to reduce both our vari-able and fixed expenses.”

Speight to Be CEO of 2(x)ist Tandy Gets Wells Fargo Waiver

A made-to-measure display.

The main floor of the store.

The new flagship is Canali’s second store in New York.

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Men’s WeekWWD THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013MW4

Michael Kors’ boxers and sweatpants, both in cotton,

and Calvin Klein’s cotton tank.

2(x)ist’s cotton boxer briefs.

Fruit of the Loom’s cotton sweater.

Calvin Klein’s cotton boxers and H&M’s cotton hoodie.

Adidas boxing wraps.

Ralph Lauren’s

cotton boxers.

PHOTOS BY ELI SCHMIDT

Men’s Week WWD THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013 MW5

The traditional boxer continues its winning streak, with updated form-fitting silhouettes, smart prints and inventive waistband treatments that add to its ultimate heritage factor. — ALEX BADIA

Bread and Boxers’ cotton boxers. Adidas

boxing sneakers.Flint and Tinder’s cotton boxers.

Flint and Tinder’s cotton boxers. Adidas boxing sneakers.

Jockey’s cotton boxers and Diesel’s cotton and polyester sweatpants. Adidas boxing gloves.

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Men’s WeekMW6 WWD THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013

and Zegna underscored the com-pany’s ongoing efforts to avoid ag-gressive discounting.

A big unit in Osaka, de-signed by Peter Marino, is expected to open in the first half of the year. Additionally, a boutique on Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles will open in the summer.

Last year, the group reorganized its distribution in Australia, so that, despite it being in the Southern H e m i s p h e r e , seasonal collec-tions would be in line with the rest of the world. Zegna said it was “not easy to go against season, but we knew this change would contribute to the brand’s luxury re-tail development and add prestige to the presence in the region by provid-ing the very latest and best product offerings in line with the rest of the world.”

The executive touted the beauty and “bountiful resources” of Australia, which is emerging as a top tourist location for the Chinese and others. Zegna has been pres-ent in the country for 30 years and is slowly changing its distribution from wholesale to retail, which now accounts for two-thirds of its sales in the region. There are eight stores locally, in-cluding one in Sydney that opened in 2012 and another that was unveiled in Brisbane earlier this year; two more are in the works. Zegna’s first directly operated store in the coun-try opened in Melbourne in 2002.

For the event next week, Zegna is partnering with The Woolmark Co. and will show its fall collection, stage an installa-tion with multimedia projections, organize a party at the historical

Royal Hall of Industries and host a tour of top wool growing farms in New South Wales.

The brand also will unveil a dedicated capsule collection

featuring an exclusive new fabric, Trofeo Natural Comfort, in a pied-de-poule pattern, which is in-spired by the model the company produced in the

Sixties from the first win-ning wools. The pieces will

bear the Ermenegildo Zegna 50th Wool Trophy 1963-2013 Anniversary label. There will also be products with printed fabrics in two patterns inspired by ab-original “dot art” paintings, paying tribute to that native culture.

The company has a history of supporting the arts and has tapped American artist Kiki Smith

to design the award this year. The trophy

has awarded and re-warded the Australian

wool growers’ commit-ment to quality annually since 1963.

Almost 300 guests, journalists and top cli-ents will attend the event, along with celebrities such as Australian actor Chris Hemsworth and Australian actress and model Megan Gale, Korean-American model and actor Daniel Henney and Hong Kong-based actor and sing-

er Leon Lai. “This event is a

novelty for the area, and we’d like to cre-

ate interest in the region, after so many recent events held in China,” said Zegna

in an interview at his Milan of-fice ahead of his departure for Sydney, where he will be joined by his sister Anna, the company’s image director and president of Fondazione Zegna, and his cous-in, chairman Paolo Zegna.

The Zegnas have family memo-ries connected to the trophy and

earlier trips to Australia. “It was a must to visit the farms, and a way to understand the business our family had built,” said Zegna. “The life of wool growers was not always easy,” he added, comparing wool to other commodities such as steel or copper. “Wool is booming again now,” he said. “This is a mo-ment in time when raw materials are more expensive, but for next summer, silk is more expensive than wool.”

Zegna has built its collections and reputation on fine and su-perfine Australian wool and the company has invested in efforts to evolve the fineness and excellence of the fiber over the years. The ceo also noted that wool is making its mark in active sports, no lon-ger the realm of man-made fibers alone. “The U.S. is among those countries that responded before others,” he said.

In other news, the company said that it has signed a three-year deal with the Maserati car com-pany to collaborate on a limited edition Maserati Quattroporte by Ermenegildo Zegna. The car will be introduced next year, the date of Maserati’s centennial, and will offer colors, materials and trims inspired by the Zegna collection in fabrics produced by the company’s woolen mill, Lanificio Zegna, in Trivero. Only 100 of the cars will be produced.

Zegna Turns Attention to Australia {Continued from page MW1}

by CATHERINE BLANCHARD

MOSCOW — Brooks Brothers has opened its first store in Russia in the historic GUM mall on Red Square.

“We are a very traditional brand, so we wanted to start in a place that represented something traditional,” chief ex-ecutive officer Claudio Del Vecchio said of the store’s loca-tion. “It’s a beautiful building, and being a historical brand, there’s a big match there.”

The store is operated by Bosco di Ciliegi, the main shareholder in GUM and the distributor of luxury brands including Max Mara, Alberta Ferretti and Kenzo, among others, in Russia.

Del Vecchio said he was “very happy” with the way the store came out. “I wasn’t sure about the range, but it’s a very good expression of what we are; it’s very true to the founda-tion of our business.”

The store, which marked its opening with an ele-gant cocktail party and runway show last week, sells all of Brooks Brothers’ lines, including the upscale Thom Browne-designed Black Fleece collection. The shop itself is lined with traditional details including Singer sewing ma-chines, as well as antique books by Russian authors such as Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov.

“As an American working in Russia, I’m just kind of delighted every time we have a new American store opening here,” said Michael Idov, the editor in chief of GQ Russia. “Russia has been Italian-oriented in its men’s wear for a long time, nothing wrong with it, but I like seeing something like Brooks Brothers here. The goal is to make Russians wear better suits, and that I think is the direction that we’re heading. The whole sort of ‘shark skin’ is a bit of a stereotype that’s reced-ing pretty fast. Over the last five years, Russian men have discovered the value of understatement,” he said.

“The store is really stylish and beautiful,” said Maxim’s advertising director, Alexey Stavrovsky. “It’s a very famous brand, and lots of people in the fashion world were waiting for Brooks Brothers to come to Russia,” he said.

Since the store’s opening, iconic Brooks Brothers items such as men’s dress shirts and navy blazers, as well as casual sportswear including Supima cotton sweaters and khakis, have been strong, the company said.

Women’s wear, which accounts for around 25 to 30 per-cent of the business, is also expected to play an important role in Russia.

“After a week of business there, it’s clear that our

women’s [line] is very well accepted,” Del Vecchio said. “Hopefully it will stay that way. Maybe one day we’ll have to open a women’s-only store.”

If the store continues to perform well, it could be a pre-cursor to other units in that country, but nothing has been set at this point. “This is our first entry into the Russian mar-ket, and we have a strong partner in Moscow,” a company spokesman said. “We first want to learn about the customer and their needs before we look at expanding to other cities.”

AN INTERVIEW with The Woolmark Co. global strategy advisor Fabrizio Servente provides hard facts as well as more lyrical details. Case in point: “There is nothing more natural than wool, a fiber made of sun, grass and water.” Woolmark has partnered with the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, its first-ever license in 1964, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Ermenegildo Zegna Extrafine Wool Trophy and the excellence of Australian merino. “We strongly believe in this project, which is perfectly in line with our wool promotion,” said Servente, who helped choose the seven wool growers for the event and will provide insight into the

first steps of the wool production process. “It’s a fantastic endorsement from Zegna and this is a great opportunity to focus on the origins and quality of wool.” — LUISA ZARGANI

Here are a few statistics on wool: ■ Australia stands as the world’s largest producer, accounting for 85 percent of the wool used in the fashion and luxury sectors. ■ Australia has been producing the best merino wool since 1805, when the first merino sheep flocks were sold by the English king to Australian John Macarthur, who took them to Sydney. ■ The Australian flock of

more than 72 million sheep is composed of about 70 percent merinos. ■ In the Western world, consumers spend around $75 billion annually on wool apparel. ■ Wool is separated into grades based on the measurement of its diameter in microns and also its style. Ultrafine Merino is less than 15.5 microns (1 micron equals 1 thousandth of a millimeter in diameter). The finest wool is 10.4 microns, invisible to the naked eye. One human hair is between 60 and 90 microns.■ There are 30,000 wool growers in Australia and 50 million sheep — and only 20 million people.

Brooks Brothers Opens Store in Moscow

The Skinny on Wool

A look from the new capsule collection

The store in Sydney.

Inside the store in Red Square.

212-391-4143

sales@unitedlegwear.com

www.breadandboxers.com

Men’s WeekMW8 WWD THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 2013

Country musiC runs deep in thomas rhett’s veins.

the 22-year-old singer-songwriter is the son of rhett Akins, a country singer who had a string of hit singles in the nineties. But following in his father’s footsteps was not inevitable. “my dad didn’t want me to be a singer,” he says, “and neither did my mom.”

After pondering careers in everything from kinesiology and business to construction, he turned to music. “i hated college with every ounce of my being,” he says. so he laid hardwood floors and worked on his uncle’s farm in Georgia and realized, “i hated manual labor too. And i’m not a 9-to-5 job guy either, my brain is too scattered. i have to do something at all times, so i figured i’d do something in entertainment.”

rhett had been dabbling in the music business his whole life and even had a punk rock band in middle school. “We recorded our record in my dad’s living room,” he says with a laugh. But it wasn’t until his songwriting skills got noticed that he and his parents got fully on board. Jason Aldean selected one of his songs, “i Ain’t ready to Quit,” for his “my Kinda Party” album, the best-selling country album of 2011, and rhett was on his way. He signed with Valory music Co., a division of Big machine, which also boasts tim mcGraw, taylor swift and reba mcEntire on its roster.

since signing with the label in late 2011, rhett has charted two singles — “something to Do With my Hands” and “Beer With Jesus” — and he knows he made the right career choice. His latest single, “it Goes Like this,” is being released to radio on monday. “Whether as an artist or a songwriter, i was born to do this,” says rhett, who last month hit a milestone when he opened for Aldean at madison square Garden, which he said was “the most amazing thing i’ve done in my life.”

He currently has a five-cut EP featuring his two singles as well as three other songs, and he continues to write new material as Valory prepares to release his first full-length album. Although a date has not been set, it’s expected to be released this summer.

rhett is also in the spotlight for penning the newest single for Aldean — “1994,” a tribute to another nineties singer, Joe Diffie — as well as Lee Brice’s latest song, “Parking Lot Party.”

rhett says that most of the time it’s not hard for him to decide to give up a song to another artist. “i work a lot with cowriters, and i can’t look at them and ask if they’d mind whether we hold a song two years until i cut my own record. unless i’m really dying for it, i give it away.”

one of those cowriters is his father, who often travels with him on the road. rhett said that although he makes no attempt to distance himself from his father, he decided against using his last name professionally. “i’ve always been called

thomas rhett,” he said. “it’s a southern thing to use two names. thomas Akins sounded like what i’d put on a test paper in high school, and part of it was also separation between me and Dad.”

their styles are also different. Akins was more traditional country, while rhett’s musical tastes incorporate rock, hip-hop and rap. since signing his record deal, rhett has been honing his image, one that includes a baseball hat worn backwards, “jeans that are too tight and a megaphone.” When he performs, rhett uses a camouflage-print megaphone that a former guitarist picked up for him at radio shack. “you have to brand yourself,” he said. “Jason [Aldean] always wears a cowboy hat, a short-sleeve button-down shirt and Wrangler jeans, and Eric [Church] wears sunglasses. i dance and i’m an idiot and have fun.”

in terms of his fashion choices, rhett said he’s partial to Diesel jeans, “tight-fitting cool old rock ’n’ roll t-shirts,” denim or leather jackets and cowboy boots. “And

i always wear [knee] socks with different designs.” When appearing at awards shows, he opts for John Varvatos suits. “my body’s weird,” he said. “i have long legs and not a very big rear. i need pants that are like a push-up bra for women.”

Looking to the future, rhett hopes that one day he will headline a show at madison square Garden. until that time, he’s prepared to stay on the road, write and learn. “i’ve been on the road a full year, and i’ve learned a lot about what i want to do and what kinds of fans i want to attract.” He’s also married, and he and his wife, Lauren, who met in the first grade, are working to figure out “how to deal with my being on the road.”

But even when they’re not together, Lauren can find a photo of her husband at her breakfast table every morning. Big machine has teamed up with General mills to put its artists on specially marked cereal packages to benefit the outnumber Hunger initiative.

— JEAN E. PALMIERI

Will FErrEll: B-Man ofTHE WEEK

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miLAn — Prada and italian publishing giant Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore have teamed to launch a writing contest, which kicks off today.

the competition, Prada Journal, invites budding au-thors and Prada lovers to send in their musings on how vision shapes experience: “What realities do our eyes give us? And how do these realities get filtered through lenses?” Participants from around the world can load their essays onto Prada’s Web site in a specially cre-ated section through June 18. Feltrinelli will then be in charge of sifting through the submissions — which can be written in any language — translating them as needed and selecting winners to be revealed in september.

the Prada Pantos frames from the Eyewear Journal Collection, featured in the fashion house’s spring men’s and wom-en’s advertising cam-paigns, partially in-spired the contest, but Prada Group communi-cations and external re-lations director stefano Cantino was quick to emphasize its communi-cation value.

“the project stems from the brand’s con-scious desire to seek

out alternative forms of communication,” he said. “Writing and reading are so closely tied, and glasses are an interesting object — not just in terms of fashion. For this, it was important for us to find an authoritative

partner such as Feltrinelli to help us navigate an area [writing] that is not our own….We think this is a proj-ect that can have continuity.”

Cantino added that the multilingual component of the contest was crucial, as “the brand is global.” And instead of having a competi-tion with first, second and third place, he explained, Feltrinelli was devising a subset of style categories to choose winners.

Prada eyewear is pro-duced by Luxottica Group, and the companies renewed

their licensing agreement last December through the end of 2018.

Prada Forms Writing Contest

A Prada Pantos ad.

A page from the Journal section of the Prada Web site.

The entertainer gave new meaning to the expression “in the money” with the suit he chose for last Sunday’s MTV Movie Awards, where he got the nod as Comedic Genius. Funny maybe, but definitely not the usual high-fashion red-carpet statement.

The cat-eye sunglasses are very reminiscent of a Desperate Housewife,

but strangely enough, they work well with his facial structure.

The Seventies moustache might be appropriate for the

role he’s currently filming in “Anchorman: The legend

Continues,” but it just enhances the crazy funny factor.

The geometric-patterned green tie

has a retro quality and plays well with the

money theme. it’s the only saving grace of this

fashion disaster.

The thick gold buttons enhance

the costumey effect of the outfit. But

they match the trophy perfectly.

The three-piece camouflage-style money suit makes it clear that he is not taking anything seriously. But it’s the kind of thing that we have come to expect from someone who played an adult elf.

it’s OK to be funny but please always have a clean break on your pants.

The light-blue suede shoes, which have a

subtle street edge, work well with the

busy pattern.

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