 |
|
|
|||||
Donatella Versace has been replaced as creative director of the fashion house founded by her late brother Gianni Versace, assuming the new role of chief brand ambassador, Versace’s U.S. owner Capri Holdings announced on Thursday.Versace will be replaced by Dario Vitale, who most recently was design director at the Miu Miu brand owned by the Prada Group. His appointment is effective on April 1.The creative shift comes amid speculation that the Prada Group is in talks to buy Versace from Capri Holdings, which paid 2 billion euros (currently $2.2 billion) for the fashion house in 2018. The U.S. group also owns Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo.Miuccia Prada acknowledged interest in the brand on the sidelines of Milan Fashion Week last month, while Versace made no comment at what was to be her last runway show. Versace, 69, took over as creative director in 1997, after her brother’s murder in Miami.Capri Holding’s statement made no mention of any plans to sell Versace, but the arrival of a designer from Miu Miu is only likely to fuel speculation of a possible deal.Versace CEO John D. Idol said in a statement that the creative shift was “part of a thoughtful succession plan for Versace.” He called Vitale “a strong leader,” and expressed confidence that “his talent and vision will be instrumental to Versace’s future growth.”As chief brand ambassador, Versace “will continue to champion the Versace brand and its values,” Idol said.Versace said she was “thrilled” as a champion of the next generation of designers that Vitale would join Versace and that she was “excited” to see the brand her brother founded in 1978 “through new eyes.”“It has been the greatest honor of my life to carry on my brother Gianni’s legacy. He was the true genius, but I hope to have some of his spirit and tenacity,” she said in a statement. “In my new role as chief brand ambassador, I will remain Versace’s most passionate supporter. Versace is in my DNA and always in my heart.”Versace represented 20% of Capri Holdings 2024 revenue of 5.2 billion euros. Capri recently laid out strategic plans to rebalance the Versace portfolio to return the brand to its more daring roots, increase sales of accessories and win back entry-level consumers put off by a post-pandemic focus on higher net-worth clients. Colleen Barry, AP Fashion Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
An hours-long outage Wednesday on StudentAid.gov, the federal website for student loans and financial aid, underscored the risks in rapidly gutting the Department of Education, as President Donald Trump aims to dismantle the agency.Hundreds of users reported FAFSA outages to Downdetector starting midday Wednesday, saying they were having trouble completing the form, which is required for financial aid at colleges nationwide. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a group of people who handle colleges’ financial aid awards, also received reports of users experiencing technical issues and having trouble completing the FAFSA.“We’ve been trying to get more clarity on why it’s down,” said Allie Bidwell Arcese, a spokeswoman for NASFAA. The Education Department hadn’t shared any information on the outage, she said. “The maintenance and troubleshooting may be impacted by yesterday’s layoffs.”The developers and IT support staff who worked on the FAFSA form were hard hit in the Education Department’s layoffs Tuesday, along with staff buyouts and the termination of probationary employees. In all, the Education Department has reduced its staff by half, to roughly 2,000, since Trump took office.A list of laid-off staff obtained and verified by AP shows more than 300 people cut from Federal Student Aid two dozen of them from Federal Student Aid’s technology division. That included the entire team responsible for systems supporting the FAFSA form, a person with knowledge of the outage told The Associated Press, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation. While laid-off staffers are still technically employed until March 21, they had limited access to their email, phones and computers, making a response to the outage difficult, the person said. At one point Wednesday, about 70 people had joined a Teams call to try to pinpoint the cause of the outage.The call continued for hours. By Wednesday evening, the website carried a banner claiming “Planned Maintenance” was underway, and login access was cut off.The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on the outage.Problems with the FAFSA had vexed the administration of former President Joe Biden, drawing rebuke from Republicans. The form was overhauled last year in an attempt to simplify it, but technical problems blocked students from submitting forms or bungled financial aid calculations.Advocates had feared frustration would lead thousands of students to give up on going to college at all. But overall freshman enrollment at U.S. colleges increased over the previous year. Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said freshman enrollment at U.S. colleges had dropped in fall 2024. That data was corrected in January by the National Student Clearinghouse, which cited an error in its methodology. Freshman enrollment increased over the previous year. The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Collin Binkley and Jocelyn Gecker, AP Education Writers
Category:
E-Commerce
As buzz around womens sports continues to grow, the largest dedicated female sports fund just got larger. Monarch Collective, the first and largest investment platform that exclusively invests in womens sports, announced Thursday that it has expanded its fund size from $150 million to $250 million. The increased capital will allow the fund to capitalize on what it calls a rapidly accelerating market: womens professional sports teams that have been increasingly filling seats. Since launching our fund last year, womens sports has experienced a cultural transcendence and the ecosystem has evolved dramatically, making the need for operational, value-added capital even more important than it once was, said Kara Nortman, managing partner of Monarch Collective, in a statement. Now is the time to build the right community around the table and deploy new playbooks that will win. Big-name investors on board The fund touts high-profile investors, who contributed to the majority of the new infusion of capital. According to a press release, they include Melinda French Gatess Pivotal Ventures; Hello Sunshine CEO Sarah Harden; and Beth Brooke, former global vice chairman of public policy at EY. The growth of Monarch Collective aligns with an increased interest in womens sports more broadly. Over the last few years, viewership of games has soared alongside merchandise sales and tickets sold. Last year, the National Womens Soccer League (NWSL) reached 2 million total attendance. Monarchs current profile includes three NWSL teams: Angel City Football Club, BOS Nation FC, and the San Diego Wave FC. But the main driver of this womens sports boom is basketball at both the collegiate and professional level. Last year, Caitlin Clark mania drove record-shattering viewership and revenue toward the Womens March Madness tournament last year. The womens championship game was the most-watched basketball game on ESPN since 2019among all mens, womens, collegiate, and professional games. And ever since Clark joined the WNBA for the 2024 season, that league has more than tripled its number of sell-outs. ‘Meaningful change’ This year, get ready for the hype around women’s sports to continue. Womens March Madness begins next Wednesday, and sports-centric X accounts have already begun to share their excitement about seeing stars like Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins playing on national television. Some may say were at a pivotal moment in womens sports, but to us, its much bigger than that, said Jasmine Robinson, managing partner of Monarch Collective, in a statement. Along with our investors, we believe we have the power to drive meaningful change that is representative of todays diverse ownership groups, management teams, and fan bases.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||