A span of four weeks in summer 1986 was important in reshaping the shoe endorsement for good. When future music mogul Lyon Cohen helped take Adidas executive Angelo Anastasio to Run-D.M.C’s Madison Square Garden leg of theirRaising Hell tour on Saturday, July 19, it led to a pioneering hip-hop and sportswear endorsement deal that resulted in its own series of shoes and apparel. It was a particularly high-risk move, not least because of the controversy after violence during the tour’s stop at Long Beach Arena on August 19. 11 days earlier, Spike Lee’s confrontational indie film about sex, empowerment, and identity was released. This wasn’t the squeaky-clean brand connection of old — as with Anastasio’s Adidas work, it was something of a step into the unknown.
She’s Gotta Have It would earn a staggering $7 million at the domestic box office. The Jordan fixation definitely didn’t end there. Lee’s next film, School Daze, was made for a comparatively colossal $6.5 million and shot in the spring of 1987. An unorthodox musical drama about racial divisions and college life, it’s a confrontational piece of work. Eagle-eyed viewers will spot Nike Dunks (it is set at college after all) and, in a scene set in Larry Fishburne’s character dorm, one of his friends is seen lovingly cleaning his Air Jordan IIs.Wieden+Kennedy’s legendary copywriter and creative director Jim Riswold was key to bringing Spike and Mike together to advertise the next Air Jordan — a pivotal reboot of the line that would help send the franchise global. According to Riswold’s account of the project’s genesis on W+K’s blog last year, seeing a commercial for She’s Gotta Have It in 1986 piqued the attention of he and producer Bill Davenport enough to make them make a trip to the cinema to see it a little later. Those shots of Mars’ feet made enough impact for them to phone Spike to see if they could potentially work together.
Filmed in December 1987 and debuted in February (the same month that School Daze was released), the commercials featuring Mars, now a hyper enthusiastic super fan, and his hero were uniquely irreverent and integral to showing viewers a side of Jordan that might have gone unseen. A perfect accompaniment to the Air Jordan III’s offbeat looks, it offered an extension of the She’s Gotta Have It universe that assumed the viewer was, as Mars would put it, already down.
A year later, a TV spot ahead of the February 15, 1989, release of the Air Jordan IV even brought Nola back. The other object of Mars’ affection was seeing Michael Jordan — a twist ending of sorts, three years after that movie ended.
Speaking to an African-American audience rarely acknowledged, but integral to turning performance shoes into must-haves, Spike’s work with Jordan set the standard culturally. We exist in a world where constant social debate regarding the money that Kanye West’s influence brings to a burgeoning brand shows no sign of stopping. There were, by all accounts, numbers to back up the impact of the Jordan and Spike ads. That blitz of late 1980s campaigns that Riswold was key to (including Bo Knows) were reportedly key to expanding an industry market share that was 3 percent ahead of Reebok in 1990.
Looking back at She’s Gotta Have It, thatit would sow the seeds for something that would ultimately shift a lot of shoes was no surprise. Tracy Camilla Johns, who was so magnetic as Nola, only having six acting credits to her name on the on the Internet Movie Database is a total mystery. Hollywood’s subsequent preference for hood-took-me-under cliché over angry auteurs or creativity when it came to black American cinema was a depressing inevitability. But Spike Lee’s impact on what kids lineup for today is entirely understandable.
Everyone in this calendar, at one point in my life, I wanted to marry, and I didn’t have the balls to ask them!”
That's 2017 Pirelli Calendar photographer Peter Lindbergh speaking to Vogue.
Considering Lindbergh was talking about the likes of Nicole Kidman, Lupita Nyong'o, Uma Thurman, Jessica Chastain, Lea Seydoux, Robin Wright, Zhang Ziyi, Helen Mirren, Rooney Mara, Penelope Cruz, Julianne Moore, Charlotte Rampling, Alicia Vikander, Kate Winslet and Moscow State University professor Anastacia Ignatova, it’s kinda hard to blame him for never mustering the courage.
While the 15 ladies (seven Oscar winners among ‘em) Lindbergh selected for his third go-round shooting the Italian tire brand’s annual calendar range in age from 27-71, they'll all appear with the same “ultra-stripped-down” look in the exclusive publication.
While Lindbergh picked scenic locations for the 44th edition of the calendar (Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York and Le Touquet in France), it is the natural beauty of the model the veteran photographer hopes will define the forthcoming release.
The 2017 Pirelli Calendar will be “a love song to the women I really know and really like, and there’s no exception,” says Lindbergh.
Though ravaged by drought and other vagaries last year, there's still plenty to bay about over in the grassy expanse of Serge Island Dairy farms.
The brand, beneficiary of a robust J$200million investment in new wells and irrigation systems, and a USD3.5million factory push, is on something of a bull run, with several new products introduced or ready for market.
SEPROD CEO Richard Pandohie, in a no-nonsense address to the annual shareholders' meeting at Kingston's Knutsford Court, spoke of the new Evaporated milk, Condensed milk and also Lactose-free milk lines.
The lactose-free will hit retail shelves in about 2 weeks, but members at the meeting got a taste of the other products, plus the revamped packaging for traditional products.
The CEO says its an exciting time for SEPROD and the overall aesthetics bear out that statement, the local dairy industry may yet be a while from greener pastures, but for now, it looks as if SEPROD's dairy space is ....well, overflowing.
In March, Under Armour won a minor skirmish in the war for sportswear dominance when it became the first to sell a performance shoe with a 3D-printed midsole. The shoe, the UA Architech, sold out online in 19 minutes. Sure, there were only 96 pairs available, but, as Chief Executive Officer Kevin Plank says one recent afternoon, “Everyone was trying to do it. No one thought that we’d get there first.” Plank is sporting a pair of the $300 Architechs as he tours the Lighthouse, the new home of Under Armour’s innovation division, which is set to open on June 28 in an industrial tract off the Middle Branch of Baltimore’s Patapsco River. Plank’s attitude seems to exist on a narrow spectrum between pumped and superpumped, but the shoes are particularly enthusiasm-inducing. “They’re like two clouds of awesomeness I’m walking on right now,” he says. “I stole that from my 9-year-old, actually. My kids have been watching a lot of My Little Pony, and it’s rubbing off on me.”
The shoes’ most notable feature is a lipstick-red midsole that resembles a whalebone corset. It’s something you squint at and wonder: How exactly did they make that? The short answer involves polymers and a partnership with DuPont. The long answer includes Plank’s plans to reinvent his company’s supply chain, transform the city of Baltimore, and maybe even outmaneuver Nike in the process.
It’s difficult to talk about athletics companies without resorting to sports metaphors. In Under Armour’s case, they’re particularly hard to resist, in part because sportiness is so essential to its corporate culture. Employees call one another “teammates”; 70 percent of them played high school sports. The current headquarters, in south Baltimore’s Locust Point neighborhood, includes a 35,000-square-foot gym and a basketball court that used to be open 24/7, until all the dribbling during work hours proved too distracting. The walls are covered with photos of Stephen Curry and Misty Copeland so large that their beads of sweat are several inches wide. Plank himself, a high-energy 43-year-old with gently graying hair, is fond of inspirational analogies involving fires and races and winning. His employees—sorry, teammates—speak of him in the reverent tones usually reserved for coaches.
The UA Architech with a 3D-printed sole.
Photographer: Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg Businessweek
The phrase “aggressive, young, fearless” is plastered all over the walls. It’s a quote from golfer Jordan Spieth describing himself and the brand, but it could just as easily apply to Plank, whose grit and enthusiasm propelled him from walk-on to special-teams captain of the University of Maryland football program. During his senior year, in 1995, the mid-Atlantic was seized by a record-setting heat wave, and practicing in a sweat-soaked cotton T-shirt felt more oppressive than usual. The year after he graduated, Plank developed a moisture-wicking shirt made from synthetic fabric and began calling up former teammates. In Under Armour’s first year, when the company was still operating out of his grandmother’s basement in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, Plank put more than 100,000 miles on his Ford Explorer driving up and down the East Coast and trying to parlay those friendships with former teammates into orders. “I graduated from college and realized, I know 60 people playing in the NFL who have careers that are going to be somewhere between three and five years,” Plank says. “So the window is about this big. And I either take advantage of it now or lose it forever. I’m thinking, Is there a way for me to give them a gift that would also help me? And it’s that virtuous cycle that really got us going.” It worked better than even he expected. A combination of innovative technology and Plank’s fervor for his own product contributed to Under Armour’s vertical rise, from $17,000 in sales that first year, to $400 million in 2006, to a projection of almost $5 billion in 2016.
An underdog ethic is still baked into company lore, even though last year Under Armour overtook Adidas to become the second-biggest sportswear brand in the U.S. In May, the company signed the largest sponsorship deal in the history of college sports, paying $280 million for a 15-year contract with UCLA. The company has invested more than $700 million in fitness apps and activity-tracking technology, and it hired the designer Tim Coppens, a ready-to-wear rising star, to help snag a portion of the lucrative “athleisure” market.
These days, Under Armour looks like an underdog only when held up against Nike, a company that Plank and other executives refuse to even name. “Five years ago, our largest competitor was 12 times our size,” Plank says. “Then it was 11 times, then 10 times. Today, they’re roughly six times our size. But the fact is, they’re still six times our size. So we have a lot of work to do.” He clearly relishes the idea of the world’s biggest sportswear company feeling Under Armour breathing down its neck. This spring’s NBA finals were the most recent proxy battle, between Nike’s LeBron James and Under Armour’s Curry, the MVP hero to underdogs everywhere. Curry defected from Nike to Under Armour in 2013. It happened after Nike officials mispronounced his name (“Steh-fawn”—twice!) during a recycled PowerPoint presentation that accidentally included Kevin Durant’s name instead of his own, according to ESPN. James won the recent championship, but sales of Curry-branded shoes outpace those of every other current NBA player. Under Armour’s revenue in the category is up 350 percent from last year—a potential “tipping point,” one Morgan Stanley analyst wrote, “signaling the end of Nike’s basketball dominance.”
Plank’s appreciation for the overlooked and underestimated—he’s the youngest of five brothers—is manifest in his affection for Baltimore. On the surface, there may not seem to be much linking the edgy, gritty city of John Waters and The Wire with Under Armour’s performance-bro aesthetic. But Plank sees an affinity between Baltimore’s hardworking, blue-collar past and his company’s relentless striving to be the best sportswear company out there. When pressed further, he just shrugs and quotes Drake: “ ‘All I care about is money and the city that I’m from.’ Maybe that’s human nature—not the money part, but the desire to see the place where you live succeed.”
Under Armour apparel, still in the works and under wraps.
Photographer: Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg Businessweek
Although Plank isn’t technically from Baltimore proper—he grew up in a middle-class family in Kensington, Md., a commuter suburb of Washington—he has adopted the city as his own. Under Armour moved there in 1998, and his personal investments have one criterion: They have to benefit the company, Baltimore, or preferably both. He’s invested millions in supporting Maryland traditions such as horse racing and rye whiskey. In 2007 he purchased a 530-acre horse farm once owned by the Vanderbilt family. “Blowing people’s minds is one of my favorite things to do,” he says. “I bought the farm—literally—because horse racing is an organic part of the culture of Baltimore and because I wanted to bring people here and show them a Baltimore that blows their mind. People like Tom Brady and Colin Powell come up for the weekend and are like, ‘I had a different image of what Baltimore would be.’ And it’s only 17 miles north of the city.”
By 2013, Under Armour was growing at such a fast clip that it was clear the company needed to expand its footprint in Baltimore. There was never really any question of leaving the city or of relocating to the suburbs, Plank says. Instead, he set his sights on a seven-acre parcel adjacent to the current headquarters. But after protracted wrangling with the city, Under Armour was turned down. When he got the news, Plank was in Dubai drinking whiskey with his chief of staff, who saw a silver lining.
“That land you were looking at?” the chief of staff said. “It felt … tight.”
“I just looked up at the skyline of Dubai, and all I could think to myself was that 15 years ago, that skyline didn’t exist,” Plank says. “Until someone with a vision, Sheikh Mohammed, said, ‘I’m going to take this old fishing town and turn it into the economic capital of the Middle East.’ Out of desert and a fishing town. That’s vision. And I’m looking out at it and thinking, Well, what could we do?”
Lasts used to form-fit footwear.
Photographer: Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg Businessweek
By then, Plank owned a five-acre parcel in an industrial part of Baltimore, where he planned to build a whiskey distillery. The land was in a former brownfield site known as Port Covington. That the area was largely uninhabited was part of its appeal, he says. “We wouldn’t be kicking out little old ladies with 30 cats.” Over the next few years, he spent more than $100 million of his own money buying up real estate in the area, ultimately acquiring 266 acres under the umbrella of his real estate investment arm, Sagamore Development.
In April 2015, when Baltimoreans took to the streets to protest police brutality after the death of Freddie Gray, Plank was troubled by national news coverage that made it seem as if the entire city was erupting in violence, when much of it was unscathed. He understood that as a fast-growing company, Under Armour would undoubtedly play a role in shaping the city’s future. But he was also becoming increasingly aware that as an individual with a billion-dollar net worth, he too could have a significant impact. “We don’t have a lot of people doing stuff here [in Baltimore],” Plank says. “I can use the heat and momentum [of Under Armour] and, frankly, my balance sheet, to get things started and keep things moving. Someone’s got to be the first stone in the stone soup. Then someone else will bring the carrots and the poultry. But we’re that first stone.”
“Why is that a bad thing? I love Disneyland. The purpose of Disneyland is to make people smile”
In January, Sagamore announced its plans for Port Covington, which included a 4 million-square-foot headquarters for Under Armour and much, much more. Over the next 20 years, Sagamore intends to essentially build a neighborhood from scratch. Comprising almost 50 city blocks, Port Covington will be larger than Baltimore’s best-known tourist attraction, the Inner Harbor, and one of the biggest urban renewal projects under way in the U.S. If all goes according to plan, Port Covington will be home to 7,500 housing units, a hotel, shopping, two light-rail stops, and a stable for the city’s police horses.
“There aren’t many CEOs who would take their personal capital and deploy it like this,” says Tom Geddes, CEO of Plank Industries, the privately held company that serves as Plank’s personal investment arm. “The one example we look at a lot is Dan Gilbert,” the chairman of Quicken Loans, who has spent more than $1.5 billion buying up downtown property in Detroit since 2010. “He’s someone else who looked at his big company and said, This thing is an engine. If I invest around it and pull together a critical mass, I can really make a significant difference.”
In cities struggling with postindustrial disinvestment and high rates of unemployment and poverty, such investors are often treated as saviors. “I would like to also extend a sense of deep appreciation and true excitement on the part of the city for what we see presented here,” Baltimore’s city planning director, Tom Stosur, said after Sagamore revealed the Port Covington master plan.
Plank’s ideas for Port Covington have also faced criticism that cuts against the savior narrative, particularly after Sagamore announced this spring that the arrangement would seek $1.1 billion in support from local, state, and federal governments, including $535 million in tax increment financing, or TIF, from the city of Baltimore. The TIF money would go toward infrastructure improvements and come from municipal bonds issued by the city, to be repaid by new property taxes eventually generated by the project. MuniCap, a Maryland consulting firm that analyzed the project, estimates it won’t create enough tax revenue to repay the TIF until 2038. More worrying, perhaps, is that the TIF request is so substantial, it would limit the city’s ability to issue other bonds without hurting its credit rating. “Baltimore is a deeply segregated city and has been for the past century,” says Lawrence Brown, a professor of community health and policy at Morgan State University. “A project like Port Covington, where there’s no fair-housing mandate and no promise for living wages, is really a missed opportunity. It’s reifying and intensifying the ‘two Baltimores’ problem we have now.” In its sweeping vision and unprecedented costs, Port Covington is an example of the increasing influence corporations are having on city planning.
Others are concerned about earmarking so much money for a new development company with no experience working at this scale. During a recent meeting, members of the city’s Urban Design and Architectural Review Board pointed out that preliminary designs for Port Covington looked something like a millennial daydream, one that included a whiskey distillery and makerspace, but no post office or fire station or library or school. (A subsequent plan corrected those omissions.) Asked if he is worried about criticism that he’s essentially building a synthetic, Disneyland version of Baltimore—all crab boils and racehorses—Plank says, “Why is that a bad thing? I love Disneyland. The purpose of Disneyland is to make people smile.”
A new Under Armour injection mold technique.
Photographer: Ryan Lowry for Bloomberg Businessweek
The Disney vibe is hard to ignore during the June tour of the Lighthouse, the first part of Under Armour’s headquarters to open in Port Covington. The rest of the area is still largely undeveloped, but the Lighthouse offers an early idea of the scale of Plank’s vision for both his company and this part of Baltimore. Plank is an avowed fan of the “wow” factor, which is presumably why entering the Lighthouse has been engineered to feel a little bit like stepping into a theme park exhibition. Visitors walk into a darkened chamber, where they watch a jump-cut-heavy video that spells out the ambitious idea behind the facility: namely, that as other industries have capitalized on technology, garment manufacturing is stuck in the past. When the video ends, black glass doors slide open to reveal a gleaming, 133,000-square-foot facility full of humming machines and technicians wearing white lab coats emblazoned with the red Lighthouse logo. It’s at once theatrical and inspiring.
This is Plank’s first visit to the Lighthouse with most of the machinery operational, though some massive 3D printers won’t be delivered until later in the week. Plank seems jazzed to see the place up and running. The Lighthouse is not just a new facility but also a proving ground for what Plank calls “local for local” production, Under Armour’s goal of manufacturing its products in the same place it sells them. “Even in a very advanced footwear manufacturing facility, you still have 150 or 200 people touching every pair of shoes that moves down the line,” says Kevin Haley, Under Armour’s president for product and innovation. “It’s basically a highly optimized version of a Middle Ages cobbler’s bench crossed with a Ford Model T production line. It’s crazy.” In contrast, the Lighthouse will allow the company to test streamlined, nimble, tech-centered production lines that may require only a dozen workers and can be set up close to the point of sale.
“Vision” is another big word for Plank. When he speaks about Port Covington, the Lighthouse, Baltimore, local-for-local manufacturing, it’s clear that he sees all his plans feeding into one another. Startups using equipment at the Foundery, a Plank-funded makerspace that’s next to the Lighthouse, will come up with ideas that Lighthouse engineers will incorporate into Under Armour products. Other cutting-edge companies will relocate to Baltimore, wanting to tap all this new energy. Their employees will move to Port Covington and spend, providing the tax base the city so desperately needs. Local-for-local may even bring manufacturing back to the city.
Whether that all proves to be vision or mirage is yet to be seen. In any case, when Plank sits down with Haley and Randy Harward, senior vice president of advanced materials and manufacturing, for an update on the Lighthouse, with a reporter watching, he seems eager to show that he is focused on details. “Five years from today, how long is our lead time on the supply chain?” Plank asks.
“You’ll still have some things taking 12 to 14 months, but you’ll have 30 to 50 percent of your product made within three weeks,” Harward says. “I hate to use the term Lego—but, well, think of Lego blocks. We’re trying to think how [the manufacturing process] can be iterated in small blocks, rather than where the industry has been going with these massive, massive, massive machines. So, not using a huge $5 million machine, but this $9,000 printer that we have right out there.”
Plank leans back in his chair. “But we need to get beyond novelty,” he says. “People say they’ll pay more for something made in the U.S., but they won’t actually do it.”
“They won’t be buying it because it’s a novelty,” Harward says. “They’ll be buying it because we have the right size and the right color and the right design when they want it.”
Under Armour is hardly the only company exploring how to use automation and technology to streamline supply chains and move production onshore. In 2015, Nike said its plans to increase domestic production could create as many as 10,000 engineering and manufacturing jobs over the next decade. Under Armour executives say they’re better positioned to take advantage of a rapidly evolving industry. “Under Armour is at that perfect size where we’ve got enough scale to invest the millions of dollars it requires to take on something like this,” Haley says. “But we’re also small enough that we don’t have a $30 billion supply chain staring back at us, saying, How are you possibly going to turn this battleship around?”
“It’s basically a highly optimized version of a Middle Ages cobbler’s bench crossed with a Ford Model T production line”
For Plank, the revitalization project extends beyond Under Armour. “We have 250,000 people making Under Armour something at any given moment,” he says. “In the next three years, we’ll add another 200,000-plus. And zero of them are pegged to come back to the U.S., because we’re all chasing cheap labor all over Malaysia and the far corners of the earth. It’s a crime. We couldn’t find a way to get 1,000 jobs back here? Or 5,000 jobs? Or 10,000 jobs? When you look at what’s happening in Ferguson, what’s happening in Baltimore—it’s jobs, we need jobs, and we’re shedding all our jobs to other places. The ability for us to bring that back, that’s the big idea.”
It’s a long way to even 1,000 jobs. By the end of the year, the Lighthouse will have just 100 full-time employees, half of them engaged in manufacturing. This fall, Under Armour plans to offer a version of its 3D-printed shoe to the wider retail market; it will be manufactured in a New Hampshire facility that employs only about a dozen people.
Meanwhile, Plank will continue his agitations, small and large, to support the entwined futures of Under Armour and the city of Baltimore. “It is really hard work, it’s really dangerous investing, it’s really costly, and it’s a really big deal—but I think it’s the right thing to do,” he says. “What I really want to do in life is to build the baddest brand on the planet. I would love to do that at the same time as anchoring it in a city that could really use a hug. It seems like such a waste for us not to take advantage of the momentum that Under Armour has right now.”
Recently, Plank was watching the morning news and noticed that the national stations showed the weather forecast for Washington and Philadelphia and New York, but not Baltimore. So he asked the Under Armour public-relations team to call up the networks to ask them to include Charm City, too. “It’s about making sure Baltimore isn’t forgotten about,” he says. “Getting us front of mind, putting us in that conversation. Everything we do is about elevating that brand.”
Q: I’ve heard that the prices of Swiss mechanical watches are falling. Is now a good time to buy?
A: You’ve got excellent intel. Prices for Swiss watches are, indeed, slipping, which makes it easier to contemplate a big-ticket purchase. It is happening for a reason: Sales are down.
According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 2015 was the first year since 2009 that exports dropped. More recently the Federation reported that in April of this year, “the trend of Swiss watch exports remained sharply negative.” Exports were down 11.1% in value compared with April 2015, and “over the first four months of this year, the downturn stands at 9.5%.”
What’s behind the drop? The strong Swiss franc has kept prices high, while anemic economic growth in Europe has kept demand lower than expected. Meanwhile, the low price of oil has corresponded to decreased spending in Russia and the Middle East. InAsia, the weak Chinese yuan, coupled with an official crackdown on corruption and a shift in tastes away from conspicuous luxury, has depressed sales in China and Hong Kong.
As a result, inventories are bulging and some brands are quietly cutting prices by 5% to 7%. (Believe me, in Switzerland nobody shouts about these things.) That sounds like good news for buyers—and it is. But is a $15,000 watch that now costs roughly $1,000 less really a bargain?
Some watch brands are quietly cutting prices by 5% to 7%—but discounting won’t last.ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL SLOAN
The industry realizes that discounting may not be enough of an impetus to buy a luxury watch these days. So some brands have managed to generate interest by adding traditionally pricey features to unusually “affordable” watches, thanks to cost-saving production innovations. What to look for:
Chronograph/Tourbillons
The most controversial watch introduced this year is the TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer-02T, which boasts a chronograph (stopwatch function) and a tourbillon (a device that improves accuracy) in a 45-mm titanium case. Prices for similar watches often start at $40,000 to $50,000; the 02T (this is the controversial part) costs $15,950.
Other executives accused TAG Heuer of horological treason for selling a chronograph/tourbillon at so low a price. At Baselworld, Thierry Stern, president of Patek Philippe, commented on the 02T to Bloomberg Pursuits: “If they’re willing to try to kill the quality of the Swiss product, they’re on a very good track.”
Jean-Claude Biver, TAG Heuer CEO and president of the LVMH Watch Division, explained the motivation: “When sales drop, there is a crisis, but you make the crisis your friend.” The brand simplified the production for the 02T, greatly reducing costs.
Perpetual Calendars
People who obsess about timepieces appreciate perpetual calendar watches, which display the day, date, month, year and phases of the moon, making adjustments for leap years. This spring, Geneva-based Frédérique Constant (acquired last month by Japan’s Citizen Watch Company) introduced a Manufacture Perpetual Calendar watch with an easy-to-read dial and a 42-mm stainless steel case. Peter Stas, CEO of Frédérique Constant, touted his brand’s “lean manufacturing processes,” which kept the price to $8,995, well below the $13,000 to $500,000 similar models fetch.
Complications
Watch lovers know that a complication (any function or design flourish beyond a simple time display) can drive costs up. So in January, when Cartier unveiled the Drive de Cartier, I was surprised by its price—$8,750, so much less than the $20,000 figure I had guesstimated.
An elegant asymmetry rules on this watch, which has a date window at 12, a second time zone dial at 10, a day/night indicator at half-past 3 and a small seconds dial at 6. The dial also has delicate engraved patterns called guilloché. All that Cartier chic is in a 40-mm stainless steel case.
These three watches arguably offer excellent value for the money. But with most watch executives predicting the present doldrums will last two more years, the quandary for consumers is: Do we buy now or wait in the hope that prices will drop even further?
Already the Official Timekeeper for the German Bundesliga, MLS (Major Soccer League) in the USA, the 2016 Copa America which will take place in the USA in June, the Chinese Football Association Super League, and the Australian National Football team, TAG Heuer is now also the partner of The Premier League, which is one of the most popular competitions in global sport.
Yesterday, the new partnership between the Premier League and TAG Heuer was being jointly unveiled in simultaneous announcements taking place in London (picture above) and Hong Kong.
Twenty teams, all their matches, and the most followed football league in the world, will now be running on TAG Heuer time, both on English pitches and on broadcasts across the globe in 185 countries.
On the field, the fourth official's boards will now be shaped like a TAG Heuer Carrera watch, and will bear the name of the Swiss watch brand. The referees will be sporting the TAG Heuer Connected smartwatch. Finally, the TAG Heuer logo will appear during Premier League match broadcasts to 730 million homes in 185 countries across the world. Of course, TAG Heuer branding and its brand motto, #DontCrackUnderPressure, will also feature across all of the Premier League’s digital platforms, including its website and social media.
The above is a paraphrase of a statement that is actually the subject of some debate as to who first said it and what exactly was said. More on that later.
In the interim, Dr Dhiru Tanna, Chairman of the Blue Power Group of companies, may wish to add retail to the hard side, especially in the case of the company's soaps division.
At the Blue Power Group's most recent Annual General Meeting, held at the Liguanea headquarters of board member and security magnate Kenny Benjamin (of Guardsman and many others), Dr Tanna shared - in addition to the company's numbers - a few lessons from the ongoing retail campaign (dare we use the "W" word?) through which the company has been seeking greater and more widespread acceptance of its admittedly excellent line of bath soaps (we've tried them), as well as the flagship laundry standby, the blue soap that partially informs the company name.
Perhaps straight out of Paco Underhill (this guy: http://pacounderhill.com/), Blue Power's presence in vaunted retail outlets like Mega Mart has imparted some remarkable, if not altogether surprising truths: Firstly, customers respond more readily to colours and to a variety of colours together. hardly a newsflash. But, in the social context of class-divided Jamaica, the conventional wisdom held that the "triple" or "quad" pack of soaps with different colours bundled together, which has sold well (very) to the so-called lower income sector, might not appear so kosher or pleasing to the (so-called) upper-income customers, who may be focused more on the esoterics rather than the straight "scream" of the colours.
Wrong.
Having its soap lines displayed prominently (at significant cost, mind you) in the aforementioned stores, the customers, of all economic backgrounds and persuasions, are being drawn by the colour combo, and are choosing the soap bundle over more elaborately packaged counterparts.
Likely, this tidbit may also inform the ongoing media ad campaign, as the Blue Power execs seek to expand the soaps line to other fine retailers and also other mass outlets. Exports are also looking up, as there is strong interest in the soaps from Guyana, and steps have also been taken to secure and widen distribution in the US.
aside from dispatches from the "retail wars" the Group's results offer nothing in the way of "excitement". Gross turnover- incorporating the Hardware division - continue to hover just above the J$1billion mark, with after-tax profits reflecting margins of around 30%
Not spectacular, but nowhere near unhealthy, and good enough for the Directors to decide on replicating last year's dividend payment of 15c per stock unit. Again, not a payout that might give you overnight riches (its not supposed to, anyway; a dividend is NOT a pension) and, in this recessionary, pre-election, post-IMF times, more than welcome.
SO, to our opening quote: the line is generally attributed to Edmund Kean (1787-1833) a noted Shakesparean actor, alleged to have uttered them on his deathbed. But other sources have stated that this is a paraphrase of the famous actor's last words.
Blue Power Group hopes to leave no such confusion in respect to the choice for consumers, but it certainly won't be easy.
" wearing Gucci and Armani, feeling rich like Wesley Snipes"
In the dancehall world, image might not be everything, but alongside the sound, its arguably the ONLY thing
And in their pursuit of the right image, dancehall's finest have name-checked some of the foremost luxury brands (if not the most exclusive, so no Vertu or Aston-Martin). Here's a quick look at the dancehall top shelf
Gucci
Guccio Gucci was the grand-grand daddy of high fashion. His monogram(and the interlocking "Gs" logo) has adored scores of items and been knocked off thousands more. Everything from the now iconic handbags and jeans to caps, watches and even a special anniversary edition of the Fiat 500.
Armani
The dean of Italian menswear started his eponymous company in 1975, nd has turned it into a one-name empire encompassing various types of couture and ready-to-ear brands as well as fine dining and now accommodations. Credited as one of the pioneers of "red carpet fashion" Armani is lionized by dancehall artists in too many songs to mention.
Prada
The company was started in 1913 by Mario Prada and his brother Martino as a leathergoods shop – Fratelli Prada (English:Prada Brothers) – in Milan, Italy. Initially, the shop sold leather goods and imported English steamer trunks and handbags. Despite her father's belief that women should have no role in business, daughter Luisa took over the reins in the mid-1950s, and her daughter Miuccia would come in as of 1978 and transformed it into a global brand
Burberry
Plaid (Tartan, to be exact) can be cool. Who'dathunkit? Dating back to 1856, Burberry is actually most famous for its trench coat (not exactly tropical wear), which was designed by founder Thomas Burberry. The company has branded stores and franchises around the world and also sells through concessions in third-party stores. Queen Elizabeth II and the Prince of Wales have granted the company Royal Warrants, which have been maintained despite Burberry's closure of its factory in Wales.
Dolce & Gabbana
Perhaps the most famous pair in fashion, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana met whilst working at another fashion house, starting their own business in 1985. the 'D&G" logo is among the world's most recognized, and the appeal of their T-shirts is yet to wane.
Hugo Boss
the only German makes on this list, and one whose founder had the dubious distinction of being a member of the Nazis. The company he founded was banned after WWII, but resucitated and run by his sons and associates. Boss made its name initially with fragrance, before adding suits and then branching out globally, growing to revenues of 2,4 billion Euro (2013).
Moschino
Despite Beenie Man's famous criticism of its founder, Moschino remained a much-loved fashion brand among dancehall exponents and their followers and, like The brand was originally created in 1983 by the late Franco Moschino (1950–1994). Moschino and his fashion label became famous for his innovative, colorful – sometimes eccentric – designs, for his criticisms of the fashion industry and for his social awareness campaigns in the early 1990s. After Moschino's untimely death, Rossella Jardini, his former assistant, became creative director. The brand has been part of the Aeffe fashion group since 1999
Versace
He may have used the Medusa head as his logo, but Gianni Versace, known as 'Vuhsawshi" in dancehall parlance, set a standard for looking good and letting everyone know it. This sense of theatre helped propel the Versace brand to global status and thus when the founder was gunned down at his Miami home in 1997, there were shockwaves throughout the fashion and entertainment worlds.
Ed Hardy
The recently departed (10 July) creator of the Ed Hardy brand, Christian Audigier (born Ginutti) lived long enough to see his brand achieve a level of ubiquity that few before him or since have managed in such a short space of time. Suddenly, it seemed sequined skulls and garlanded rogues were the only things to wear
Hennessy
its position atop the "baller's drink pyramid may perhaps never be successfully challenged, so deeply integrated is this three centuries -plus cognac brand, which was in fact founded by an Irishman, Richard Hennessy by name. Today, Hennessy moves about 50 million bottles annually worldwide, with no telling how many of that is downed by dancehall artistes, their hip-hop cohorts and their supporters and wanna-bes
