Benetton’s chief executive Silvano Cassano and chief financial officer Pier Francesco Facchini have both tendered their resignation, effective immediately. They leave the Italian fashion house without a CEO and CFO. Benetton said it could be months before replacements are found. Their departure coincided with the company’s release of interim results and investor relations staff was left to deal with questions from analysts and press. During the company conference call Mara Di Giorgio, head of investor relations, said Cassano and the Benetton board had disagreed about the group’s international strategy, particularly in emerging markets. A spokesman for the company said Cassano had voluntarily left the company, while Facchini had decided to resign for personal reasons.

While the company searches for Cassano’s and Facchini’s replacements, chairman Luciano Benetton and his son Alessandro, vice chairman, will oversee the overall group strategy, while senior and mid-level executives will be responsible for the day to day management. Meanwhile, Cassano will remain a board member until his term ends in May. Benetton said the new chief executive will be responsible for developing the company, especially in the Far East .

The upheaval follows the company’s large scale celebration of its 40 th anniversary in October. Luciano Benetton famously began his fashion empire hawking a sweater his sister knitted on his bicycle, before selling it for a sewing machine. The rest, as they say, is history.To commemorate the anniversary Benetton held its first ever fashion show in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, parading almost 100 colourful looks down the catwalk. It also organized a month long exhibition in honour of the company’s world of communication.

With 5,000 stores in 120 countries, Benetton is truly a global brand. The company’s success is reflected in the results. Group net revenues for the first nine months rose 6.5 percent to €1.37 billion. Apparel wholesale sales gained 7 percent to €1.27 billion. Net income rose from €89 million last year to €94 million, an increase of 6.5 percent. However, disregarding a one-time gain of €6 million related to a real estate sale in Madrid and other transactions, third quarter profits actually dropped 6.2 percent. The group’s net position in the first nine months improved significantly at €452 million.

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“With these results we can already say we have achieved the objectives that we set for this phase of the company’s development,” Luciano Benetton said in a statement. “We are now ready to tackle a new period in which we can plan, in addition to strengthening areas where we are already present, renewed commitment to growth in emerging countries and, generally, in all countries with significant demographic growth.” The company forecasts full-year sales growth of 8 percent and profits for the year between 6.5 and 7 percent of revenues.

Dolcis, the footwear retailer, is set to change hands after its owner, the quoted fashion group Alexon, decided to offload the loss-making chain. Alexon has hired Hawkpoint, the corporate-finance boutique, to oversee the sale of Dolcis, which operates from 67 stand-alone stores in Britain and almost 150 concessions.

An information memorandum relating to the sale has been circulated to a number of interested parties within the past fortnight. These are understood to include a number of private-equity firms. A disposal will leave Alexon, which has a market value of £81million, with the Bay Trading young fashion chain and its Alexon Brands and menswear divisions. In total, the group operates from almost 1,600 stores in Britain and Europe.Alexon has decided to sell Dolcis because of the intense competition in footwear retailing in the UK.

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The company is also struggling more generally, having announced a 5.7 per cent fall in group like-for-like sales in the 16 weeks to May 20.Alexon refused to comment on the sale of Dolcis, which recorded an operating loss of £700,000 last year against a £3.6 million profit the previous year.

With an ear to the ground that picks up even the faintest fashion rumblings, Harvey Nichols menswear is bringing some great new labels to town this Autumn, to add to its established fold that covers all bases from Kilgour to Kiminori Morishita.

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Those looking to catch on to the next big thing in tailoring should consider a once very traditional label with a new lease of life. New to their stores for Autumn is Hardy Amies (couturier to HRH The Queen no less). The house has produced a dapper collection of suits, shirts and silk ties with modern, elegant cuts and an undercurrent of cool that should assure success with a new young gentleman.

Hot on their rails is also Alexander McQueen’s brand new diffusion collection, McQ. Look out for rebellious styles influenced by teenagers and biker gangs – plaid trenches, sheepskin-lined denim and scorpion emblazoned knitwear. Danish label Nerve is new this Autumn and getting hotter by the minute. A super-skinny silhouette of slender pants, slim-lapel tailoring and fine-gauge knits is already being picked up by the indie band brigade. Harvey Nichols in the UK has stores in London, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Dublin.

British Elle on Thursday launched their first website at www.elleuk.com . The online magazine covers everything from fashion news, seasonal style solutions, celebrity to the obligatory catwalk images, entertainment and beauty. In addition to the Elle Hot 10, a weekly newsletter sent to subscribers which covers 10 ‘hot’ products, the e-zine will have unique content from the magazine and be updated daily.

A section called ‘wear it your way’ lets the user style a look individually, by choosing key pieces and trends of the season as selected by Elle, dragging and dropping them into a lightbox to layer an individual look. This can subsequently be saved or emailed to a friend.

Fashion footwear specialist Global Brand Marketing Inc has inked a licensing agreement with US sportswear brand Sean John. GMBI will exclusively design, develop, manufacture and globally distribute the label’s footwear for men, women and children. The new summer 2008 collection, which will include dressy, casual and athletic styles, will be introduced in New York in June.

“We launched a capsule collection of footwear, the Sean John Elites, in the Fall of 2005, and it was an instant success,” says Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs, the rapper turned fashion mogul. “With this new partnership, we will be able to dramatically increase our offerings and distribution. We look forward to working with GBMI as we believe they are the industry leader in both design and distribution.”

GBMI, founded in 1996 by Killick Datta, is also the global footwear licensee of Nautica, 7 For All Mankind, and Mecca and Diesel. A spokeswoman for the company revealed that development of the collection has already begun and added that details of the agreement would be announced at the fashion trade show Bread & Butter in Barcelona next week.

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High street fashion chain New Look has gained a serious bid interest from Warburg Pincus and has been hoping to attract bids in the £2 bn range. The Sunday Times disclosed six weeks ago that New Look’s current owners, the private-equity groups Apax and Permira, were considering a sale of the retailer. They had received an approach from Texas Pacific Group. It later emerged that bid plans were also being put together by the Dubai-based Landmark Group, headed by Mahesh ”Micky” Jagtiani. Landmark owns 3% of New Look.

With Warburg Pincus now unveiled as the third likely bidder, it seems inevitable that New Look, Britain’s third-largest retailer of women’s fashion, will end up in foreign hands. New Look was taken private three years ago in a £700m deal backed by the company’s founder, Tom Singh, and led by the group’s chief executive, Phil Wrigley. The company recently hired the accountancy firm Ernst & Young to help draw up an international expansion strategy after signing a five-year deal with Landmark to open 40 stores in the Middle East through a franchise agreement.

Francesca Versace, the 25-year-old daughter of Santo Versace, is making her fashion debut in Paris, having designed a capsule line for the Singapore-based fashion label All Dressed Up.

The designer graduated from Central Saint Martins a year ago, and fashion has been a party of her life since she was born, having the likes of Donatella Versace as her aunt and the late Gianni her uncle.

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“Glamour’s in my blood, isn’t it, but I’m trying to do it my own way,” said Versace, whose line is inspired by the Silk Route. Linen tops with vibrant piping and coral print cotton dresses with hand-woven details are among highlights.

The success of a Second Life is causing a virtual fashion frenzy. Some players are buying up high-end fashion brands for their online personas, also known as avatars. Others, armed with Adobe Photoshop instead of a needle and thread, are designing their own creations, marketing it to

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fashion editors and selling their collections to other players. What many thought was just a pr exercise – why else would Armani, American Apparel and Stella McCartney set up virtual boutiques – is now a bonafide business. Second Life is a simulated world with almost 10 million “residents,” and players are as fashion savvy as they are in real life.

Residents can do whatever they want, whether it is building a business, tending bar or launching a fashion label. Residents chat, shop, build homes, travel and hold down jobs, and they are encouraged to create items in Second Life that they can sell to others or use themselves. Many virtual items are bought and sold in Second Life, according to the Wall Street Journal, but clothing has emerged as one of the hottest categories. Real clothing makers, such as Adidas, sell items in Second Life that mimic apparel they sell in the real world. Thus, players can dress their avatars in some of the same clothes they wear themselves.

Because Second Life creators own their products and can sell them, the game has attracted both professional and amateur designers, says Linden spokeswoman Catherine Smith. That has led to a thriving fashion scene that includes not just dressmaking but also jewellery, hair and even skin design, as people purchase the elements to create a look for their online alter egos. Selling virtual clothes to real people for their avatars can even be lucrative.

Like offline fashion designers, Second Lifers can spend hours or days sketching and developing the textures and patterns of a single garment, then refining its measurements through fittings on an online model, states the Wall Street Journal.

Designers do have some costs. Uploading a dress design from a computer to the Second Life world costs about four cents, though once it’s there it can be duplicated and sold over and over again. Many designers also “rent” online storefronts or stalls in shopping malls, which cost about $5 a month.

HOM, the French men’s underwear brand, is celebrating the 10th anniversary of HO1! The famous pants, known for their 3D design horizontal front opening, revolutionized men’s underwear with their unique practicality, comfort and support features. To mark this special anniversary, HOM teamed up with Selfridges and is offering customers an exclusive chic and sparkling birthday gift box, including a bottle of Lanson champagne and a Collector’s Edition of the HO1 pants in black microfibre with a champagne bubble print and golden waistband.

HOM, which hails from Marseille, was founded in 1968 offering style and innovation to a much forgotten arena of men’s fashion. In 1976 the company created the HOMIX, the first briefs requiring no elastic waisband, using an exclusive and very comfortable fabric mixing lycra, cotton and polyamide . The design proved to be an innovation as they were invisible under light coloured trousers.

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Last year HOM launched its vintage collection, a range of underwear inspired by the shapes that brought the brand its early success.

Over 150 years Aquascutum has offered its British bespoke tailoring service to its male clientele; from September women can enjoy this luxury as well. Female customers can design their ideal suits, jackets, coats, skirts and trousers choosing from more then 200 different fabrics, printed or plain linings, detailing like buttons, cuffs and pockets positioning. Even the colour of the threads used for the stitching or sowing a name into the lining is optional.

The classic custom-made service is available from September at the Aquascutum flagship store in London applying across all womenswear collections with prices starting from £700 for a tailored suit.

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