Barbie™ loves Benetton S/S 2006

Barbie™ and Benetton continue round the world.
Summer 2006 offers little girls new fashion scenes, presenting four original looks and special dolls. The inspirational sources are four trend-setting cities around the globe.

IBIZA
The summertime fun paradise hosts a Barbie™ loves Benetton collection in perfect harmony with its style.
A mixture of styles and colors which creates a seemingly chaotic image that conveys the neo-hippy spirit. Knitted ponchos worn over a bikini, and camouflage pants just below the knee. And the whole outfit is raised by wedged sandals.

ST. TROPEZ
Barbie™ and Benetton = B.B. = Brigitte Bardot.
It’s an automatic association, especially when we’re in St. Tropez, the French star’s adoptive town. A simple, elegant style of knee-length jeans, a cotton pink-and-white gingham blouse and a straw handbag.

OSAKA
Japan always delivers original, innovative ideas which, without fail, prompt us to indulge in fun for pure pleasure, even in fashion.
This is the look of the Barbie™ loves Benetton line set in this city of the Rising Sun. The result is a perfect harmony of what could seem rather odd matches, such as knee-length leggings under a denim miniskirt, or colored sleeves worn together with T-shirts decorated with cartoon graphics.

MELBOURNE
In the southern hemisphere, Barbie™ loves Benetton is in perfect street-and-sport style. A dynamic, colorful look that borrows outfits from open-air sports apparel. Tennis, and a jersey miniskirt; beach volley, and a stretch-cotton top; basket, and a tracksuit jacket; athletics, and sneakers. The look is rounded off with a visor to protect against the hot Australian sun!

These “fantastic” four lines will appear in United Colors of Benetton in the same way as the previous lines.
Osaka and Ibiza will open the summer season on 9 March 2006, while St. Tropez and Melbourne will complete the quartet on April 7. Plus, starting on 5 May, a special collection, Barbie™ on Holiday, will be the accompaniment for all the ideas for summer featured in United Colors of Benetton stores.

Benetton Q3 profits fall

Benetton has seen its profit for the third quarter and first nine months of 2005 decrease, but has raised its sales prediction for full-year trading.
The Italian fashion group reported a drop in profits to €27 million (£18 million), compared with €34 million last year, while revenues grew to €446 million from €392 million last year.

Net profits for the nine month period dropped to €89 million from €104 million, while sales for the period increased to €1.3 billion.

Full-year revenues are expected to reach €1.7 billion, compared with the previous prediction of €1.6 - €1.7 billion, while full-year earnings before interest and tax is expected to be about 10 percent of sale.

www.benetton.com
November 2005

Benetton Boss - No Regrets

According to the Daily Telegraph, Luciano Benetton has no regrets about the controversial advertising he approved.A billboard photo of a Catholic priest in full dress kissing a nun on the lips? "It was a joke, to show that the habit doesn't make the priest", says Benetton. It was banned in Italy after Vatican protests but won the Eurobest Award in Britain.

A newborn baby with an uncut umbilical cord? A death row inmate gazing from his Missouri cell? A dying Aids patient? The blooded shirt of a dead Croat soldier? Mating horses? None is remotely linked to anything sold by the Benetton clothing chain. "I approved them all, and I defend them all. Our photos had a fantastic effect on public opinion. We wanted to probe emotions and stir debate, and we did," he says. The common theme was the battle against prejudice.

What began as a soft play on multiracial themes and world peace, in tune with the exuberant colours of the firm's clothes, escalated into social crusades against apartheid and the HIV epidemic, ending in a scattergun blast of images with no apparent aim other than to shock. Eventually America's Sears chain pulled out of a $100m contract.

As if to prove that name recognition is not everything in fashion, Benetton's share price has languished since the family took the company public - with perfect timing - in 1986. With a capitalisation stuck at €1.3billion, it has been left far behind by Sweden's H&M (€19billion), Nike (€17billion), and Spain's brash newcomer Zara (€14billion).

To be fair, Benetton has paid a price for manufacturing loyally in Italy while rivals switched to low-wage plants in Asia. But markets are not fair. The firm started belatedly switching its European production to Croatia, Hungary and Tunisia at the end of the 1990s.

Royalty aside, Britain has not been an easy market to crack. The Anglo-Saxon world has been hard on Benetton, although Luciano learned his industrial tricks in the 1950s during a stint in Hawick, Scotland, discovering a technique of beating wool under water with a paddle to make it softer, a technique unknown in Italy.

Oliveiro Toscani has been replaced by 27-year-old British photographer, James Mollison. The crusades continue but the hard edge has gone. Today's billboards feature the mournful Simian features of "James", "Bonny", "Pumbu", and "Jackson", great apes from species facing extinction. They illustrate Dr Jane Goodall's latest book James & Other Apes.

www.benetton.com
www.telegraph.co.uk
May 2005