Author: Diana Pearl

Kendra Scott is the queen of #RushTok.Though she herself is decades out of college, her Austin, Texas-based jewellery brand’s multi-coloured pendant necklaces and earrings are omnipresent in aspiring sorority girls’ outfit videos. Some are “Gems” – participants in the brand’s campus ambassador programme. It rolled out game-day accessories in team colours — Texas burnt orange and Alabama crimson — and brought a coffee truck in Scott’s signature yellow to tour campuses across the South.Winning over college girls, Scott said, is just the start.“They influence the younger generation, they influence their moms,” she said. “We have people coming in that have…

Kendra Scott is the queen of #RushTok.Though she herself is decades out of college, her Austin, Texas-based jewellery brand’s multi-coloured pendant necklaces and earrings are omnipresent in aspiring sorority girls’ outfit videos. Some are “Gems” – participants in the brand’s campus ambassador programme. It rolled out game-day accessories in team colours — Texas burnt orange and Alabama crimson — and brought a coffee truck in Scott’s signature yellow to tour campuses across the South.Winning over college girls, Scott said, is just the start.“They influence the younger generation, they influence their moms,” she said. “We have people coming in that have…

On Tuesday, London-based lab-grown diamond brand Astrea named Sarah Jessica Parker as its global creative director. The “Sex and the City” star has also invested in the brand. In the role, Parker will work with Astrea’s design team to create pieces for the brand — the first include a pair of chandelier earrings, a moi-and-toi ring featuring pear and emerald stones and a long diamond necklace. She will serve as a joint spokesperson alongside Nathalie Morrison, Astrea’s founder and chief executive. As part of the partnership, Parker has also become a shareholder in the company, holding an undisclosed stake. In…

Condé Nast said Wednesday it will launch a platform to host online storefronts for influencers, the publisher’s biggest effort yet to capture a piece of the booming creator economy. Called Vette, the platform will allow creators to operate independent e-commerce websites, stocked with products of their choosing, which they can then promote across their other channels. Unlike affiliate marketing, where an influencer — or publication — gets a cut of sales if a reader clicks over to a brand’s website and makes a purchase, Vette will handle the transaction itself. Brands will then fulfil the order. It is expected to…

If you’re over the age of 30, you may not have recognised many of the faces in the front row at Coach’s latest runway. The celebrities who attended the brand’s Monday show at Pier 36 were something of a who’s who of Gen-Z A-listers, including the actors Elle Fanning, Charles Melton, Yasmin Finney and Avantika; musicians Girl in Red and GloRilla and basketball players Aneesah Morrow and Jayson Tatum. It was a fitting lineup for a brand that’s mounted a successful turnaround with a laser focus on appealing to that very demographic. “I believe the next generation is really pushing…

If it seems like a new handbag line is launching almost daily, it’s not your imagination. In the past month alone, ready-to-wear label Nili Lotan; influencer-founded accessories company Aureum Collective; Los Angeles-based designers Jamie Haller and Janessa Leone and Guizio, which is best known for its sequined micro mini skirts, have all announced new bag lines. Big, mainstream brands are getting in on the action too: Old Navy recently released a line all priced under $50, while Alo Yoga made headlines with leather bags costing up to $3,600.Consumers weren’t exactly hurting for choice when it comes to handbags. But many…

After a showy presentation in the Hamptons last September that included a one-night-only recreation of his Manhattan restaurant, The Polo Bar, Ralph Lauren went for a decidedly less splashy show this season.Staged at his design studio, stripped down and lined with white linen couches, it was a pared-back, intimate runway focused exclusively on womenswear, which chief executive Patrice Louvet said the brand sees as a “significant growth opportunity.” Currently, 56 percent of its shoppers are women, but womenswear only makes up just shy of a third of the business.“We really want to make sure we showcase the different parts of…

It’s never been easier to buy a diamond. For the companies selling them, that’s increasingly a problem. Lab-grown diamonds have flooded a marketplace once tightly controlled by a handful of big producers, capturing more than half of the market just a decade after they were first introduced. Their prices have plunged by 85 percent over the same period. Prices for natural diamonds are sinking as well, down about one-third since 2022. For most goods, lower prices and greater availability are guaranteed ways to bring in new customers. For diamonds, it’s often the opposite: After being sold for a century as…