My friend Al Radley died at age 94 on Valentine’s Day, and London won’t be the same for me without a visit with him. I first met Al at his home there in March 2005, following an introduction by our mutual friend Cameron Silver, the founder of the Los Angeles vintage store Decades. Cameron knew…
topshop
My Word-Necklace Style Is Catching On!
Gorgeous blogger and concerned citizen Kate of Twisted Skirt tweeted me a clip from the magazine Grazia, showing a word necklace by DKNY. I was intrigued to see that the style of word necklace I added to my line in 2012 is catching on in the big leagues. I started with this necklace in June…
Rihanna, River Island and Topshop
Rihanna announced her second collection for high-street retailer River Island yesterday. It features lots of camouflage in both traditional green/khaki and black/gray/white. (I hope Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, sees this. Steele and I were recently talking about the lifespan of the camo-print trend.)…
WWD Updates the Rihanna v. Topshop Story
Today’s WWD has an update on last week’s reports that Rihanna is suing a Topshop supplier for using her image on a t-shirt without permission. Topshop and Rihanna’s lawyers declined to comment, as did River Island, the Topshop competitor with whom Rihanna is officially collaborating. The article does say that even though the U.K. has…
Forever 21 and Topshop Are Amusing
Fast-fashion retailer Forever 21 has been widely accused of selling knockoffs of other designers’ work and blaming its suppliers for the copying. In a 2011 Bloomberg Businessweek story called “Forever 21’s Fast (and Loose) Fashion Empire,” Susan Berfield wrote: “Starting in about 2004, the Changs decided to create different brands to appeal to slightly more…
Thank You to the Peeps at Patricia Field
I’m happy to say that the very apologetic and gracious peeps at Patricia Field have pulled the copy of my swear rings from the website after a chat with my gorgeous publicist, Sakita Holley. READ MY PREVIOUS POST ON THE KNOCKOFF RINGS. As I expected, the Patricia Field team had unwittingly purchased the pieces from…
A Familiar Sight at Patricia Field
UPDATE OCTOBER 17, 2012: I’m currently trying to trace back the knockoff rings to the original wholesaler because, as I suspected, Patricia Field’s team bought the design from another source. Patricia Field has removed the rings from its website. I figured the Topshop copy of my signature swear rings would open the floodgates for more…
Get Smart (About $4,000 Suits and $10,000 Rings)
I’ve written plenty about the classic small-business issue of economy of scale: the high cost of producing low quantity (and the even higher cost of producing low quality without a way to distribute the goods). My Huffington Post story, “The Agony and Ecstasy of Small Business,” offers the most concise explanation, but you can get…
OMG! I’m Such a Trendsetter!
Because I’m a gracious bitch, I want to congratulate my friends at Topshop and DCK Concessions for getting props for their clever three-ring OMG set. I think that is such a cute jewelry concept! In fact, I’ve thought so since 2010, when I introduced my own OMG rings. My sterling-silver, limited-edition rings cost $300 for…
Making a Long Story Longer: Update on Topshop, Swear Rings
In the past week, I received a number of emails and tweets from gorgeous readers who are concerned about my situation with Topshop, so I realized I should give you an update. But first I’m going to go way back to the beginning for the sake of those of you who don’t know the story,…