TANNERY DEAL: LVMH Métiers d’Art, the French luxury group’s specialist crafts division, has acquired a majority stake in Italian tannery Nuti Ivo SpA.

“With the addition of Nuti Ivo Group, we complete our operations within the leather business, expanding our savoir-faire and product offering while ensuring traceable and sustainable sourcing,” Matteo de Rosa, chief executive officer of LVMH Métiers d’Art, said in a press release Monday announcing the operation.

Ivo Nuti established the tannery in 1955 in Santa Croce sull’Arno, a historic leather-working and tanning area in Italy’s Tuscany region, in 1955. Today, the corporate is managed by Fabrizio and Andrea Nuti, second-generation members of the founding family, and counts greater than 300 employees throughout Italy.

Based on Italian media reports, Nuti Ivo SpA’s revenue stood at 160 million euros for 2022.

The tannery company stated it exports 85 percent of its production abroad and has introduced technical and procedural innovations to the sector of leather processing, investing in sustainability and reduction of waste and energy consumption. It has also developed partnerships in Paraguay, Morocco and China for materials destined to the footwear market or after-sales services.

For Fabrizio Nuti, president and CEO of the Italian company, the move was recognition of “greater than 40 years of collaborations with the perfect brands on the planet” in addition to “a recent starting, a recent departure, which serves as an incentive for us to grow and improve in all areas of our savoir-faire, guaranteeing a future for our history and our company.”

Jean-Baptiste Voisin, LVMH chief strategy officer and president of LVMH Métiers d’Art, said such an acquisition fit into its goal of “ensuring a future, by providing recent opportunities to local artisan excellences which, alone, in the brand new scenarios of the posh industry, may struggle to take care of a world projection.”

The Nuti Ivo acquisition reinforces the group’s presence within the leather, exotic skins and metal sectors, where it counts partners in breeding, tanning, ending and leather ready-to-wear production across France, Italy and Spain for calfskin and lambskin, and in Africa, Australia and the U.S. for exotic skins. It also owns the noted Heng Long tannery in Singapore and Italy, specialized the tanning and ending of crocodilian skins.

In April, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton reported an 18 percent jump in first-quarter revenue for its fashion and leather goods business, headlined by its star mega-brands Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, and a 17 percent increase overall.

Leather goods, alongside hard luxury and apparel, have been leading the post-pandemic resurgence of the posh industry, in line with Federica Levato, partner at Bain & Co., leader of its EMEA Luxury Goods and Fashion practice, and coauthor of a Bain & Company Luxury Study in collaboration with Fondazione Altagamma released in November 2022. — LILY TEMPLETON AND MARTINO CARRERA

NEW FACE: The favored Chinese actor Yang Yang has been named Valentino’s latest brand ambassador.

The announcement of his appointment is being accompanied by a recent campaign, shot within the brand’s Rome headquarters, wherein Yang sports various looks from Valentino’s pre-fall 2023 collection while highlighting the Rockstud23 handbag.

Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director of Valentino, said he’s comfortable to welcome a recent friend from China to affix his community.

“My dialogue with Yang is cultural, generational, multidisciplinary: a whole experience of diversity and mutual appreciation. His talent relates concretely to human emotions, and I value this an amazing deal,” he added.

Considered one of the vital successful actors of his generation, Yang shot to fame in 2010 for taking part in the lead role of Jia Baoyu within the TV adaptation of “The Dream of Red Mansions,” one in all China’s most sought-after novels in history.

Since then he has starred in a protracted list of hit TV series and turn into a favourite amongst luxury brands in China. Prior to Valentino, Yang has been the face of L’Oréal, CeraVe, Dunhill, Bulgari, Chandon and Coca-Cola.

Speaking about his partnership with Valentino, Yang said, “The distinctive individuality and unique aesthetic of Valentino have at all times been appealing to me, and Piccioli’s unique talent and sense in fashion do surprise me each time.”

With greater than 56 million followers on Weibo, Yang’s repost of the brand’s announcement logged greater than 1 million shares, 300,000 likes, and 72,000 comments in lower than a day.

Valentino’s other ambassadors within the within the region include actress Sun Li, Guan Xiaotong, actor Lay Zhang, and singer Li Ronghao. — TIANWEI ZHANG

LONDON LANDING: Jeanne Damas has landed in London’s Mayfair with a store for her fashion and wonder brand, Rouje.

“It’s funny because just a few years ago once I wasn’t searching for boutiques or anything, I used to be walking in London, and I walked on these streets, which I believed were beautiful for shopping,” said Damas, who got here across South Molton Street again when she was looking for a spot for her store.

She plans to open boutiques in key countries, including Spain, Germany and the U.S., which is one in all her biggest markets, along along with her home country of France.

As an extension of the brand, Damas launched Rouje Beauté line in 2018, which firstly consisted of makeup, but now could be now venturing into skincare via a collaboration with clean beauty retailer Oh My Cream.

“It was really essential for me to be [stocked] there because in France it’s the concept store of unpolluted beauty,” she added.

Oh My Cream launched in London last winter on the King’s Road.

“I actually have at all times loved coming to London, especially for shopping, however it seems to me that a recent generation of beauty destinations continues to be missing,” Lévy told WWD on the time, adding that her brand’s holistic approach and stocking of exclusively clean beauty brands fills the gap within the capital city’s market. Her ambition is to “turn into the following favorite beauty destination for English women.”

In the style realm, Damas has teamed up with ‘90s French designer Lamine Badian Kouyaté, founding father of Xuly Bët, who Damas thinks shall be a shock to many individuals. She said it felt right because they each share similar values, despite the contrast in aesthetic.

She’s even taken the duty of shooting the pictures for the collaboration with Kouyaté — something she’s never tried before. — HIKMAT MOHAMMED

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK: Legends, a Los Angeles-based men’s essentials brand founded by a bunch of athletes and celebrities in 2019, is launching its first kids’ collection.

The direct-to-consumer brand that counts the rapper Quavo, NBA players Matt Barnes, Larry Nance Jr., Marcus and Markieff Morris, and NFL player Baker Mayfield and former NBA star and coach Steve Nash amongst its investors, was created by former All-American lacrosse player Scott Hochstadt as a substitute for the prevailing offerings in performance activewear.

The children’ collection, called Lil’ Legends, was created in partnership with Nash. It launches Wednesday and consists of shorts, T-shirts and swim trunks in colours and silhouettes that match those in the boys’s collection. The road is offered in youth sizes XS-L in addition to adult sizes S-XXL.

Nash is keen about inspiring youth through sports and passing his love of athletics to the following generation. In launching the youngsters’ collection, Nash passed along some words of inspiration to each kids and adults: “No lesson that you just write or tell them goes to be as essential as the best way they’ve watched you behave for everything of their life,” he said. “Your kids are watching and learning and that’s a crucial component of parenting — that you just represent the values that you should represent especially when it’s difficult. If you should improve you’ve to undergo difficult times. As a parent that has afforded me so much, I don’t wish to protect my kids from all their falls. All of us make mistakes, we’re all human, use this stuff as a teaching moment.”

The gathering will retail from $40 to $65 and shall be sold on the Legends website. — JEAN E. PALMIERI