The end of the affair - Selfridges and Dolce & Gabbana

Dolce & Gabbana fall 2010 via style.com

It was a beautiful relationship. But apparantly one of the UK's highest profile luxury goods department stores and the sex bomb's label of choice have had a "giant falling out".
It's hard to work out exactly what happened, neither side is being particularly forthcoming, but it seems that Selfridges wanted to move the D&G and Dolce & Gabbana lines to new areas of the store and the label was less than happy about the suggested arrangement.
Forgive me for a being a little bit of a sceptic here but this sounds quite unlikely to me. There must have been a bit more to it, no? I'm hedging my bets on a major personality clash that has turned something quite small and easily resolvable into a battle of the egos.
I know where a label is placed in a shop as big as Selfridges is mightily important, but not important enough to scupper and extremely beneficial arrangement. Dolce & Gabbana are, after all, both the kings of leopard print and satin (also polka dots and lace and the jackets and knickers look this season) AND one of Selfridges biggest sellers, especially in Manchester if Twitter is to be believed. They're an extremely valuable label for Selfridges to have in its mix, which veers toward the more commercial side of high fashion than, say, Liberty which is all about slightly more challenging and niche designers. And Dolce & Gabbana need Selfridges even more than it needs them. They fit in there perfectly and reach hundreds of thousands of consumers as a result.
Can we glean anything from the newspaper coverage of this fracas to help us make this odd situation a little less opaque?
The Evening Standard has quoted industry sources saying that Dolce & Gabbana were "furious" about the department stores decision to move the lines. Hmmm, were they suggesting moving them to the food hall? It still seems a little far fetched.
They've also quoted a 'leading fashion executive' (don't you love this vagueness? I do, it's very useful for my job to be able to quote people anonymously like this because you can beef up a slightly watery story quite easily this way by making someone sound more important than they perhaps are or get someone quite important to say something juicy that they wouldn't usually say if their name was attached to the quote). But the same quote is attributed to a 'co-owner of a premium brand' in the Telegraph and a line from it is also attributed to 'industry sources' in the Times. This is where the "giant falling-out" phrase appears to have come from.
Selfridges has batted all this off quite bruskly with some very non-commital quotes about "seeking to improve the diversity and presentation of our brand portfolio" and being "unable to accomodate Dolce & Gabbana and D&G in our mix going forward".
I like this quote. It's very snooty, very 'we think we're on the higher ground here and we're going to taunt you from it'.
The Times turned to Liberty's managing director, Ed Burstell, for another point of view. "There are certain stores in every country that set the tone for a global commercial brand," he said. "And it is vital that in those certain sotres the brand looks prmoinent and is placed in the best possible location. I think it's a little bit foolish on their [Dolce & Gabbana] part."
This, to me, is a rather honest and also wonderful quote. He's admitting that Selfridges, a major competitior in extracting money from fashion lovers, are quite important. And he's also basically saying that Dolce & Gabbana have thrown all their toys out of the pram and will probably have to go back and come to some sort of compromise.
Only time will tell, but I can't be the only one fascinated to see what happens next. Could Dolce & Gabbana be the ones to prove that they don't need traditional retail to be a commercial player in the UK? Or will they be back in Selfridges in time for the Christmas gifting season? Place your bets now...

Inside the Prada party

So, last night I found myself in the Prada shop on Old Bond Street standing at the side and pretending to look very interested in the book they were launching  because I didn't know anyone and hadn't had enough champagne to talk to the scary people.
Of course, after a couple of glasses of champagne it transpired that some of the scary people were actually nice people who would talk to me like a human being even though I was ostensibly there representing an architecture newspaper (my day job) and not technically a fashion person.

However I was very pleased to be the one who recognised Christopher Kane before the very nice girl from Grazia did, even though she managed to identify a Jagger spawnling that I wouldn't have recognised in a million years.

People I saw/recognised that might mean something to you but I didn't speak to because the pan fried scallops on a bed of black rice seemed like a more sensible option;
- Bianca Jagger (the other Jagger spawn I didn't recognise was a daughter of Jade Jagger - surely too young to be partying already?)
- Various fashion editors and writers
- Christopher Kane
- The doyenne of west London vintage shops Virginia Bates
- Brett from Suede (what does he even do these days that means he gets invited to nice parties?)
- Tolula Adeyemi, model du jour and possesor of the amazing two and a half thousand pounds fur shorts - so expensive it needed words instead of numerals - plus some incredible legs...

People I spoke to;
- Amy Molyneaux and her date Alistair who claimed to also be a non-fashion person but, being a dj, was rather taken with the music selection provided by a girl in a deep blue velvet dress and perfect inky black bob behind the shiny black decks upstairs. Amy was nice even though she didn't have to be because I was patently not anyone of any importance at all, but quickly moved off to talk to someone who was.
- Joanna from Purple PR who was really lovely and friendly and normal.
- Jess from Vogue.com who was wearing an amazing shade of lipstick by Mac which I'm fairly sure was called Impassioned. Or something like that.
- Ashleigh from Grazia who was pretty awesome.

What we drank;
Champagne
Pear cocktails in short tumblers

What we ate;
Pan fried scallops on black rice in a small matt black bowl (black is still the new black)
Smoked Salmon arranged in elegant rounds on tiny squares of bread
Medium rare grilled beef with horseradish dip
Chicken on a stick. No really, it was a bit of chicken on a little bamboo stick.
Little edible chocolate bowls with chocolate and orange mousse
Large profiteroles with a crunchy caramel disc on the top

Here's some general pics;

So there you go. It was actually really fun. I had three glasses of champagne, which as anyone who knows me will attest, is far more than enough to make me tipsy.

Trundling off to the very unglamorous tube home, I passed by the window dresser for Dolce & Gabbana putting the finsihing touches to their Chirstmas displays for the New Bond Street store...

Suffice to say the entire tube journey home was spent thinking about those shoes, the second entry on this year's pointless Christmas wish list. Got home in a merry haze and ate a rather large amount of these before hitting the hay...