The Shophound

COLLABORATION ANTICIPATION: Opening Ceremony Sets A Rihanna "RIHtrospective" Next Week To Launch Her Exclusive Collection

Tons of people love her. A few people hate her, and plenty of people are just damned bewildered with her creepy love life, but there's no question that superstar singer (and actress if you count Battleship) Rihanna can capture attention. She upstaged London Fashion Week with a preview of the fashion collection she has collaborated on with UK chain River Island, which, for all the publicity it has generated, will not be sold anywhere in the U.S. —except for one store.

Opening Ceremony will not only launch the collection on Tuesday (preview the full collection HERE) , but has borrowed seven of the singer's most well-known performance and red-carpet outfits to display in its Howard Street flagship for three weeks as a fashion "RIHtrospective" of her career. Apparently, the number seven has some significance for Rihanna who has seven grammys, releases seven albums in seven years, appeared on the cover of Complex seven times and staged an infamous 777 tour last year with a corps of increasingly disgruntled reporters in tow to launch her most recent album, Unapologetic. Let's hope this venture goes better than that misbegotten plane tour. The retailer worked with Rihanna's stylist and the singer herself to choose the looks for the exhibition. The River Island collection, the reason behind all this fuss, will be sold in all of Opening Ceremony's stores and online, and ranges in price from $45 and $350. For its part, Opening Ceremony has a good track record with bringing other retailers' otherwise unavailable exclusive lines to the U.S. including selling many of Topshop's designer collaborations long before that chain had any U.S. locations. We have never heard of River Island before all the hype around Rihanna's collection, but if all goes well, we might see more of this chain on our shores.

Opening Ceremony to Stock Rihanna's River Island Collection (WWD)
RIHANNA for River Island (Official Site)

COLLABORATION ANTICIPATION: Opening Ceremony Takes DKNY Back To the '90s

Have you been longing for the styles of the early 1990s? No, we haven't either, but the folks at Opening Ceremony are not to have their judgement questioned. Their exclusive collaborations can range from intriguing to charmingly bewildering (Yes, Yoko Ono, we mean you), and they are collaborating with DKNY to reissue 15 pieces from the early days of Donna Karan's diffusion line, 1991 to 1993. Though the brand has evolved into a major, wide ranging contemporary apparel resource, the capsule collection reminds us of the days when it mostly offered easy, clean lined casualwear. Most of the items feature variations on the label's original bold logo including the iconic versions featuring the New York skyline or designs based on subway tokens (remember them?).

The collection will be available at all Opening Ceremony boutiques as well as online starting tomorrow, February 1st. If you are feeling wistful about the last years of the pre-digital age, when you had to call people on telephones that connected to a wall, and mail was always something that needed a stamp, get ready, but be warned, the collection ranges in price from $145 to $665, so it's '90s styles at very 2013 prices.

See some of the re-issued looks in the gallery below.

Opening Ceremony (Official Site)

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REVOLVING DOOR: Opening Ceremony Team To Take On Kenzo

LVMH has announced som surprising changes at Kenzo, the designer label it has owned since 1993. Italian designer Antonio Marras is out as creative director and widely admired American retailers Humberto Leon and Carol Lim (pictured at right) of Opening Ceremony are in. The team will be tasked with taking Kenzo back to its youthful, contemporary roots. According to WWD, one of the team's goals will be to return the label to the U.S. market which it exited in 2003, only a few years after its namesake, designer Kenzo Takada, left in 1999.

While it seems unusual to see a famous Paris-based fashion label's creative direction taken over by American retailers, Lim and Leon have been successfully wholesaling an original Opening Ceremony labeled collection in about 300 independent stores which now includes separate collaboration lines with Rodarte and the actress Chloë Sevigny. Considering that, it's not such a surprising choice.

Pierre-Yves Roussel, chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH’s fashion division tells WWD, “It’s great to bring this young, contemporary generation into Kenzo. They’re really embracing what was the origin of Kenzo — that Jungle spirit,” referencing the designer's 1970s Paris boutique, Jungle Jap.

Under Marras, the label had reflected Takada's aesthetic, but its offerings had become more expensive and elaborate, and lost ground in markets like the U.S. and Europe where it had once thrived. Lim and Leon are expected to brighten the line and return it to a younger market to compete with labels with similar heritage like Cacharel and the successfully repositioned Carven. Their first collection for the label will be shown in October for Spring 2011 in Paris, and at the very least, Kenzo's owners can count on it being sold in Opening Ceremony's popular and influential boutiques in New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo.

New Creative Lead at Kenzo (WWD)