Another Year In Which Jessica Simpson Will Not Make $1 Billion Off Her Clothing Line

By Jenna Sauers  |  March 28, 2011 | 3:57pm
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Jessica Simpson‘s licensing empire — which she does not own, personally design (though she and mother Tina have approval rights), or control; the master licensee is a corporation called Camuto Group — is “expected to hit $1 billion in retail sales next year,” reports Women’s Wear Daily. Again. Last January, would you believe it, Camuto Group announced it expected to reach $1 billion in sales during the year 2010, which Women’s Wear Daily also dutifully reported. (Sales of Jessica Simpson products fell well short of that projection, reaching $750 million last year, but there were tons of stories about how Jessica Simpson is “a fashion billionaire” anyway, because apparently reporters can’t count, and don’t know that the Simp is only getting licensing fees plus a percentage of sales out of that not-a-billion-dollars, anyway.) But, Camuto Group swears, this is the year that it will finally gross $1 billion off Jessica Simpson’s name! And Jess — who says she’d like to open a line of her own branded stores, and admires Ralph Lauren — is a team player: “I’ll get mad if I see something with my name on it and I don’t like it. I’ll say, ‘Mom, did you approve that? I don’t like that. I never saw that, please tell me if you approved that.'” [WWD]
Jessica Simpson, on Twitter: “It’s a very powerful text message.” [WWD]

Prince Harry, the kind of hot (though undeniably ginger) younger unattached British prince, is on the cover of the new British GQ. David Bailey took the photo. [GK UK]

Jil Sander‘s newest +J women’s collection for Uniqlo looks pretty enticing. [Vogue UK]

Proenza Schouler, which did a capsule collection for Target in 2007 (we still have, and wear, the nifty yellow button-down with turquoise trim), is upset that the retailer knocked off its best-selling and brand-making $1,500 PS1 bag. Target’s version costs $34.99. “The attitude, the slouch of the bag — they got the weight really right,” admitted Proenza co-founder Lazaro Hernandez. [On The Runway]

  • A Marc Jacobs intern left temporarily in charge of the company Twitter account (the company is currently seeking a professional brand Tweeter; @ them to apply) had a kind of a breakdown in the early hours of Friday morning. The intern wrote: “I was asked to do this until we found a replacement… I hate this job. Hope they find someone soon. Robert is so picky! We have presented him with 50 people. He’s not happy.” (The intern was referring to Jacobs’ business partner and occasional Tweeter, Robert Duffy.) And: “You guys and gals have no idea how difficult Robert is. I am only an intern. My last day is tomorrow. I wouldn’t be tweeting this if not!” Then: “Good luck! I pray for you all. If you get the job! I’m out of here. See ya! Son’t want to be ya! Roberts a tyrant! Seriously! He is tough!” Furthermore: “I can call him out! I’m out! Won’t work in this town again! I know that! Learned a lot. But, I don’t have the energy for what is expected!” Then finally: “Yea, walk in my MJ shoes! Don’t judge me! I’m alone in this office having to try and entertain you all. This isn’t easy. I have tried. Done!” We were in line at an airport somewhere when this unfolded, saw it, and Tweeted back. Sadly, the company took the Tweets down later that night, adding, “All is well here at MJ. Twitter is a crazy place. Protect your passwords.” [Daily Mail]
  • Indian models say that the fashion industry in their country has a racist preference for white skin. “It’s not just the fashion industry, India per se is obsessed with white skin,” says model Dipannita Sharma. “We will take another hundred years to completely get over it. The industry doesn’t openly agree that preferring foreign models over Indian models just for the skin tone is racism. It has some kind of fairness obsession…One could have understood, if it was about getting supermodels of international fame or to work in India but that’s not happening, it’s just they want fairer skin on the Indian ramps.” Another model, Carol Gracias, says darker-skinned models are paid significantly less and book fewer jobs. “You never see a dark-skinned girl on TV ads and that’s where the lucrative work is. Everyone uses fair-skinned girls, people use skin-lighteners like ‘Fair and Lovely’. I don’t — maybe I would have been fair and lovely by now.” [Telegraph]
  • Coco Rocha has launched a new website. It features over 10,000 photographs and covers from the course of her career. [@Oh_So_Coco]
  • Elise Crombez! Any excuse to type that long-unheard name is good enough for us. [Telegraph]
  • Rick Owens owns several commissioned waxworks of himself. “At a certain point in his life,” Owens says, “when he reaches a level of stature, a man commissions his portrait to go over the fireplace. It’s a classical tradition, but I thought I’d do it in wax because that’s funnier. It’s my Dorian Gray moment.” He also says, of the Catholic school he attended growing up in Porterville, California, that he was “a very sheltered, very thin-skinned, super-sensitive little boy. It was hard, it was very hard. I mean, the other kids were vicious, like animals. It still makes me angry thinking of a nice little kid going into that environment…I could totally have gone Columbine over there.” And on his relationship with his retired seamstress mother and social worker father, Owens says, “They’re great — my mother is a walking hug. But it’s complicated. Dad’s very homophobic. He can be very racist. He is anti-abortionist. And he’s active politically in all of these things. I am an obvious reaction to that. Obviously. Spectacularly. But there’s also this side of him that is very gentle. He’s a very loving spirit. It’s difficult to figure him out because you’re thinking, ‘You’re a Nazi but you’re so sweet.’ I resented it as I was growing up, resented my dad for too much control, but he turned me into this. I advocate any kind of sexuality. I’m liberal. I’m anti-conventional. And, to keep me in his life, he has turned a blind eye to all of that.” [Independent]
  • Rodarte‘s Kate and Laura Mulleavy went on the KCRW music show “Morning Becomes Eclectic” and played Tom Petty, the Doors, and the theme from Star Wars, among other songs. They also discussed music and road trips. [KCRW]
  • The Hearst/Lagardère deal is going through. After three months of negotiations, the French publishing company is selling all of its overseas titles — including American Elle — to Hearst, which publishes fashion titles like Elle competitor Harper’s Bazaar. Hearst is paying $900 million (think of it as more than one year’s gross of Jessica Simpson branded merchandise!) for the privilege. [NYPost]
  • “So many people today are alive — and many more will be in the future — because of her.” — AmfAR chairman Kenneth Cole, on the legacy of Elizabeth Taylor‘s AIDS work. [WWD]
  • Dov Charney has spent $2 million of his personal fortune on American Apparel shares. He has also converted a $4.7 million loan he gave the company earlier into shares, relieving his troubled clothier of a tiny fraction of its staggering debt. Shares in the company — beset with financial woes almost too many to enumerate, and five new sexual harassment lawsuits — are still trading below $1. If any company’s shares trade below $1 for more than a month, that company is eligible to get kicked off the stock exchange. [WWD]
  • Bespoke tailor Yingmei Quan has won the Golden Shears prize for 2011. Her new tailoring trophy comes with £2,000. In addition, 18 of the 24 finalists were women, and the winner of the Rising Star Silver Shears award was also a woman. [FT]
  • Columnist Has Extreme Reaction To Male Colleague’s Pointy Toed Shoes. And they wonder why print is dying. [Telegraph]
  • Some of those protesting government “austerity” measures in London smashed and paint-bombed shop windows, including those of the Topshop flagship store in Oxford Circus. One-hundred and forty-nine people were arrested. [Vogue UK]
  • Polish magazine Fashion did an editorial in tribute to Carine Roitfeld. [Fashion Indie]

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