YStyle Picks

Passing on

MANILA, Philippines - Missoni patriarch Ottavio Missoni passed away last Thursday at the age of 92. The wake was held over the weekend in the Missoni company courtyard in Sumirago, Italy, according to Vogue.co.uk, and the funeral was earlier this week in the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta in Gallarate. Among the many well-wishers who paid their respects were Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani, Browns founder Joan Burstein and Valentino CEO Stafano Massi, wearing the signature multicolored zig-zag knits that Ottavio pioneered when he started the Missoni label in 1953 with his widow, Rosita. He is survived by his children Angela and Luca, and his grandchildren. His first-born Vittorio’s remains have not yet been found after his plane went down on his way back to Italy from a vacation in Venezuela. The plane wreckage was discovered last February.

Brand revamp

Apparently a lot has happened since the time Calvin Klein first stripped Kate Moss’s top off in the ‘90s. PVH Corp., the company that owns CK Calvin Klein, the global line of apparel and accessories, recently acquired the licenses for Calvin Klein Jeans and Calvin Klein Underwear from the Warnaco Group. Confused yet? That’s why they’ve announced a rebrand. From now on, the company men’s and women’s “bridge” sportswear and accessories will be under the Calvin Klein platinum label, while Calvin Klein Jeans and Underwear, along with the brand’s home products, will be placed under the Calvin Klein white label. The Calvin Klein Collection, which is creatively directed by Francisco Costa for women’s and Italo Zucchelli for men’s, will remain unchanged, along with the CK and CK One fragrances. “I believe that this rebranding, and the efforts we are taking to enhance our own bridge apparel and accessory offerings, will benefit the brand image and result in the enhancement and expansion of the Calvin Klein lifestyle,” Calvin Klein, Inc. CEO Tom Murry told WWD.

Clothing conundrum

In the wake of the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Savar, a sub-district in Bangladesh, which took the lives of 1,127 last month, Bangladeshi economist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus offers a viable solution to the problem of hazardous working environments for garment factory workers: by tacking on as little as 50 US cents onto the price of clothing, which would be labeled as “ethically made.” In his op-ed piece for The Guardian, he writes, “With that additional 50 cents, we could resolve most of the problems workers face –— safety, work environment, pensions, healthcare, housing, their children’s health, education, childcare, retirement, old age and travel. Everything could be taken care of through this trust.” In addition to this, H&M, Inditex, which owns Zara, and PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, have agreed to sign a fire and building safety agreement to protect Bangladeshi garment factory workers. The pledge stipulates that companies should pay for renovation and repairs in order to ensure that the country’s garment factories are safe, while allowing independent safety inspections to be conducted.

Designer target

Phillip Lim is set to release a 3.1 Phillip Lim collection for Target, which is due out on Sept. 15. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Phillip reveals that the mass retailer approached him as early as five years ago, way before heavyweight fashion houses like Marni and Maison Martin Margiela rolled out their own capsule collections. “It was a courtship of five years now and what was exciting to me this time around was that they gave me the opportunity to do lifestyle instead of a capsule collection of dresses or blouses or something that might be diffused. It was the chance to really create a new concept of the modern day wardrobe and accessories to really address the modern day citizen,” he said. The line will consist of 100 items in categories ranging from apparel, handbags, and shoes, to travel accessories in a “classic palette of neutral tones and prints.” Pieces will run from $19.99 to $299.99 for apparel and $19.99 to $59.99 for accessories.

Keeping abreast

News of Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy was splashed everywhere as soon as her piece “My Medical Choice” was published in The New York Times. She prefaces the article by saying that her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died of cancer at 56 and she carried the same “faulty” gene, BRCA1, that gave her an 87-percent chance of getting breast cancer and a 50-percent chance of ovarian cancer. Knowing her risks, she opted for a double mastectomy with a “nipple delay” procedure, which would prevent them being removed. Her breast tissue, however, was removed completely and nine weeks later, her breasts were reconstructed with implants. In the piece, she credits Brad Pitt for his unwavering support, and writes, “I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.” She encourages women to know their options and calls out the state of health care in the US, since the cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2 is more than $3,000.