MIES GENERATION: The Neue Nationalgalerie, a storied cultural and architectural landmark in Berlin, can be the location of Saint Laurent’s men’s fashion show next month, sources told WWD.

The French fashion house dispatched a save the date for June 12, but has been mum on other details. Brand representatives couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. Contacted by WWD, museum representatives said they don’t “make any statements about third-party events.”

The low, yet imposing constructing by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe opened in 1968 and is devoted to Twentieth-century art. The listed edifice reopened in 2021 after a five-year renovation overseen by David Chipperfield architects.

Considered a modernist masterpiece, the glass-walled entrance hall sprawls over 28,000 square feet and boasts soaring ceilings.

It was recently the location of the inaugural Rimowa Design Awards, and has hosted fashion shows or presentations prior to now for the likes of Giorgio Armani, Hugo Boss, Joop and Perret Schaad.

Current exhibitions include “Gerhard Richter: 100 Works for Berlin” and Tehching Hsieh’s work “One Yr Performance 1980-1981 (Time Clock Piece).”

Saint Laurent and its creative director Anthony Vaccarello typically go on the road to unveil spring-summer men’s wear collections, last yr inviting the style pack to the desert outside Marrakech for a gobsmacking sunset display around a circular pond.

Lately, the brand staged itinerant shows in Venice, Italy, Recent York City and Malibu, California. — MILES SOCHA

LVMH ROLE: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has named former Sephora executive Gonzague de Pirey chief omnichannel and data officer, charged with spearheading the broad adoption of information and artificial intelligence across brands starting from Louis Vuitton to Guerlain and Tiffany & Co.

Effective June 1, de Pirey will succeed Michael David, who was named chief omnichannel officer in 2021.

De Pirey reports to Antonio Belloni, group managing director of LVMH. His appointment comes as generative artificial intelligence is adopted by a growing number of shops, and as e-commerce adapts to a volatile environment overshadowed by the cost-of-living crisis.

A graduate of Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, the French executive joined LVMH in 2020 as general manager of Sephora Germany, steering the wonder retailer through the pandemic with initiatives that included launching social selling as a recent sales channel.

He was subsequently named global senior vp of recent ventures at Sephora, initiating partnerships including a long-term strategic cope with Zalando to create a prestige beauty experience online.  

“He has extensive experience in omnichannel business across industries and countries. Because the leader of Sephora’s recent ventures, he has shown the power to drive breakthrough initiatives for our customers and business. These assets can be key to speed up the progress of maisons and regions in leveraging the facility of technology and data,” Belloni said in an internal memo shared with WWD.

De Pirey will manage the group centers of competence for omnichannel, data and artificial intelligence and distant customer support.

He’ll work closely with Franck Le Moal, LVMH Group IT director; Frédérique Rousseau, LVMH Holding human resources director and other activities; Nelly Mensah, vp of digital innovation-global head of Web3 and metaverse, and Laetitia Roche-Grenet, open innovation director.  

De Pirey will manage a team that features Olivier Astié, omnichannel and e-commerce director; Anca Marola, chief data officer; Camille Canque, LVMH client services general manager; Lan Luan, senior vp digital, Asia-Pacific, and Larissa Higgins, vp digital, North America.

“His teams will work with innovation thought leading firms, and with our maisons to supply a more integrated and elevated experience to customers across touchpoints, and to extend the efficiency and responsiveness of the provision chains,” LVMH said.

De Pirey has worked as a senior executive in industries including retail, high-performance materials and commodities in France, Russia, China and Germany. — JOELLE DIDERICH

SWIM DREAM: Model, entrepreneur, mother and designer Nicole Williams English is debuting an exclusive Nia Lynn by Nicole Williams English swimwear collection in collaboration with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit on Wednesday.

“My biggest dream and profession goal was to be a Sports Illustrated rookie — my whole entire profession I waited for this moment. Over 20 years — being a swimwear model and living in Recent York, that was my ultimate dream; it’s an enormous accomplishment,” Williams English, one among this yr’s rookies, told WWD. Since 2017, she has been running her exclusive swimwear label and has launched 4 collections in small, exclusive drops.  

Upon receiving the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue rookie news, Williams English (who was pregnant on the time) proposed the thought of designing her own swimwear to wear on the Miami Swim Week runway last July, which Sports Illustrated accepted. 

“I set to work on a suit and I only had 4 days to make it. I sketched the entire suit, designed it and really took an old pattern from my first collection and tweaked it and added the rookie logo to it. It was the preferred suit of my first collection that everyone was just so obsessive about, so I brought it back in gold metallic and mesh with black letters with ‘rookie’ across the front. That’s where it began,” Williams English said, adding she also revealed her pregnancy on the runway (and was later photographed for the 2023 editorial while seven months pregnant).

Following the event, where the Sports Illustrated team loved her rookie suit, Williams English designed a collaborative Nia Lynn x Sports Illustrated Swimsuit collection, which launches the identical day because the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

“It’s been an actual pinch-me moment because this is totally a dream come true to find a way to mix my dream profession path with my love for design,” she said. 

“For this capsule, I wanted to simply have totally recent designs. I knew that I desired to have numerous sexy suits, because if you open the Sports Illustrated magazines — the suits that the women have on at all times have a ‘wow’ factor about them,” Williams English said of her inspiration for the gathering’s one-pieces, cutout and gold hardware details, and custom prints. The 12-piece collaborative collection includes a spread of string bikinis, a G-string and strapless bandeaus in traditional swimwear and recent seersucker fabrications, in addition to three vintage Body Glove-inspired, metallic maillots boasting the Sports Illustrated logo.

The gathering, priced $72 to $152, is obtainable to buy exclusively on the swimwear brand’s e-commerce, in addition to on Instagram. — EMILY MERCER

DIVING IN: Popular luxury K-beauty brand Laneige is about to launch its first immersive virtual store, because of its partnership with experiential commerce firm Obsess, company representatives told WWD.

The hydration skincare company is about to announce the launch sometime on Tuesday. One draft of the discharge seen by WWD highlights features equivalent to exclusive behind-the-scenes content with actress Sydney Sweeney, in addition to the brand new Water Bank Blue Hyaluronic collection.

When it comes to the environment, shoppers can expect to see a five-room layout decked out with animations, 360-degree video, gamified features and integrated checkout. The shop’s themed multiroom setup allows the brand to deal with specific skincare collections.

“The virtual store is a robust customer engagement tool that can allow shoppers to dive into Laneige’s unique scientific expertise and entertaining digital content, while also helping them select the best product for his or her skin needs, including our bestselling Water Sleeping Mask and Lip Sleeping Mask,” Julien Bouzitat, chief marketing officer of Laneige parent company AmorePacific US, is quoted as saying.

One room designed as an underwater world was designed to showcase its Water Bank Blue Hyaluronic Collection, while one other, titled “Dreamland,” is solid as a floating cloud to highlight the sleeping mask category. “Carousel Candyland” is themed for its number-one lip treatments. The Laneige Lab informs guests about ingredients, and the “On Set with Sydney” room features actress Sydney Sweeney, with exclusive behind-the-scenes video from the Laneige spokesperson’s photo shoots for the brand.

Visitors can wander the rooms and look at content, take a skincare quiz for custom product recommendations or go on a scavenger hunt to attain free products with purchase.

The trend of virtual storefronts — visually oriented, immersive online shops built on augmented, virtual or mixed-reality platforms — preceded the once-hot, but now waning metaverse trend, though it benefited from the metaverse hype. The last two years saw an accelerated push for 360-degree shopping experiences, and Obsess has been among the many retail tech firms at the guts of development, working with brand partners equivalent to Charlotte Tilbury, Fendi, Christian Dior, Vacheron + Constantine, Mytheresa and more.

“Virtual stores are scaling rapidly in each brand and consumer adoption, and data from the 85 million+ user interactions which have happened on the Obsess platform proves that these interactive stores increase customer engagement and buy behavior,” explained Neha Singh, founder and chief executive officer at Obsess.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Laneige on this immersive e-commerce store, which brings 3D shopping to a recent generation of consumers who’ve grown up with gaming.” — ADRIANA LEE