The investor group that purchased Halston in 2007 will launch two men’s lines of suits and sportswear this fall. The company will also offer a secondary line, called Heritage, which will be more fashion- and sportswear-driven at lower prices.
 
The brand has been out of men’s wear since the early 1990's when it was primarily a licensed tailored clothing business. Halston’s 1970's aesthetic played out in the most recent women’s collection for fall 2010 with a muted palette, minimalist silhouettes and an ode to the 1978 set design of Eyes of Laura Mars with Faye Dunaway. Women’s is carried in Neiman Marcus, Harrods, Selfridges, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman.Continue reading...

Last night, The University of North Carolina – Michael Jordan’s alma mater – donned its basketball team in special silver jerseys to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Nike's Air Jordan brand. Later this week, the university teams for California and Georgetown will also commemorate the occasion by wearing similar silver uniforms.

The anniversary is being celebrated to mark the journey of a brand and a man that were almost never brought together.

When Jordan was a rookie in the mid-1980s, he was more interested in signing with Adidas or Converse. In fact, when Jordan saw the first pair of now iconic red-and-black Air Jordans he said, "I can't wear that shoe, those are Devil colors."Continue reading...

Fully free from that old-media dinosaur Time Inc. since December, America Online has been taking a number of steps aimed at re-establishing itself on the cutting edge of online media. Remember 15 years ago when AOL was the online media?

One of AOL’s latest moves has been to hire a number of brand-name journalists, ranging from Jay Marioti, the well known Chicago sports commentator and sometime guest on ESPN, to Gene Marcial, a sage of business journalism who is best known for his long stint at BusinessWeek.

AOL also hired Marty Steinberg, the former supervising editor of the Associated Press, and has named him its executive news editor at AOL News.Continue reading...

Saab always seemed less like a child to GM than a Swedish foreign-exchange student who never returned home. For 20 years, this wasn’t much of a problem, but GM’s bankruptcy has forced the automaker to kick some kids out of the house.

GM planned to simply dump Saab along with Pontiac and Saturn unless it received an acceptable offer, and it appears a deal with Dutch luxury automaker Spyker has finally been reached.

Unless you’re Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One chief who almost nabbed Saab for a buck two weeks ago, the agreement looks like a win-win-win-win deal.Continue reading...

SPAM, a product known for outliving societal turmoil and apocalyptic events, is looking to change its image with a new campaign.

Hormel Foods, its parent company, has launched a new website that allows fans of the salty pork-based product to exchange recipes. The overall hope of the site, called Dish This!, is to help SPAM garner a wider audience. It also gives consumers an array of new ways that the food can be prepared, centered around three ingredients: eggs, mac 'n cheese, and bread.

Dan Goldman, the brand's senior product manager, explains, "[It's about giving consumers] something new [to add to] their palate."Continue reading...

When is an independent film festival no longer independent?

When it becomes the Sundance Film Festival, apparently.

The evolution of any independent art form -- from music and film to art and literature -- into the mainstream is often a slow and barely discernable process. What started as an underground venture somehow ends up attracting celebrities sporting Oakley’s lip balm and Lia Sopia jewelry.

The Sundance Film Festival, even according to the most forgiving definition of the term “independent,” is hardly that – at least anymore. And this reality is a problem for both the festival’s name, and its brand.Continue reading...

Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar, which just opened its 2,000th restaurant, will experience a brand makeover in the upcoming months. Following in the footsteps of competitor, Ruby Tuesday’s, Applebee’s plans to upgrade experience operations, marketing endeavors, and food. Customers can expect updated exteriors, more inviting interiors, and less “flair.” Although Applebee’s remodel comes at a time when major restaurant lenders are reluctant to make loans, falling costs for materials and labor have proven to be an opportunity.

Applebee's is currently testing several models in this current phase of its revitalization. Its 100 additional overseas stores will be included in the upgrade. Aside from the addition of lower-calorie meal options, visitors can expect new paint and carpeting, artwork evoking the neighborhood rather than local team photos, and more localized fare. But don't expect the signature red apple logo to change or it neighborhood-focused brand message.Continue reading...

In recent years, Sears and its corporate sibling Kmart have been the ailing cousins to the virile Target and Wal-Mart, but some aggressive marketing and Web 2.0 thinking might keep those brands from joining A&S and Kaufmann’s in department store heaven.

Sears and Kmart are operated by Sears Holding Corporation, whose chairman is the billionaire Edward S. Lampert. The mercurial Lampert tends to run Sears the way George Steinbrenner ran the Yankees (constant executive turnover, pound-foolish penny-pinching), but just like “The Boss,” Lampert has opened his wallet for the players on the field, in this case apps and websites in the league of online retail, the Wall Street Journal reports.Continue reading...

Fashionistas wept when eLuxury closed earlier this year, but they will be pleased to learn that the online boutique has been turned into a web magazine called Nowness.

According to luxury firm LVMH, a shift in the market -- and not in sales -- lead to eLuxury’s closure. The past year has seen many design brands concentrate on custom e-commerce sites, crowding the category and spreading thin demand. Nowness will feature a more comprehensive scope, and focus on a variety of creative fields including fashion, art, design, entertainment, travel, food and wine, and beauty.Continue reading...

Successful food brands often hesitate to mess around with what's working. Maybe they remember one of the most notorious mishaps in branding history: When Coca-Cola introduced the new taste of  "New Coke" in 1985, public outcry forced the company to reinstate the original formula.

Apparently, Domino's Pizza isn't worried about a similar backlash -- the company is about to change its long-time pizza recipe. The move, says Domino's Chief Marketing Officer, Russell Weiner, reflects "what consumers are looking for. We're not talking about a slightly-altered version of our previous pizza. It's a completely new pizza reinvented from the crust up, and we are proud of it. ... We spent the last 18 months reinventing the brand in anticipation of our 50th anniversary."Continue reading...

For its 30th birthday, Wet n Wild is giving itself a makeover involving a sleek new look and three new product lines.

In January, 2010, the brand will introduce 70 eye, face, lip, and nail products with updated packaging, advanced formulas, and a new tagline: "Glamorous everyday. Fabulous everyway."

Wet n Wild hopes to appeal to a broader range of women while still keeping their signature low prices, which sounds eerily similar to the path carved by some Chinese beauty companies.Continue reading...

It appears the body is still warm. Woolworths’ owners want to revive the brand's place on the high street.

After entering administration last year, Woolworths is ready for a return to brick and mortar operations. Bought by brothers Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay of Shop Direct, the owners believe the store can now extend beyond its online-only offerings. Of course, they are hoping someone else will do the grunt work, and are looking for franchisees.Continue reading...

Goyard was once a family-owned luggage-maker that, since its establishment in 1853, catered to the international traveling set. Now, collector-turned-owner Jean-Michel Signoles is working to revive the brand and restore its former glory with "organic" global expansion, while giving pet owners something stylish in which to carry their little friends.

For the past 11 years, Mr. Signoles' goal has been to maintain the look and quality that has been so frequently counterfeited. He set up a new workshop in his hometown of Carcassonne in southwestern France, and introduced new shapes and vibrant colors to the classic leather and coated-fabric material bearing the signature chevron pattern.Continue reading...

Forbes magazine's 2009 list of top-earning dead celebrities surprised some, since Michael Jackson didn't top the list. But Jackson, whose spending and legal troubles ate up income substantially reduced by his troubles and tarnished brand, was sure to be worth more dead than alive, thanks in part to the success of the rehearsal documentary This Is It.

Now, CNNMoney.com reports, Bob Marley, who died almost three decades ago, is poised to eclipse all other dead celebrities in earning power, even including Jackson, whose estate has earned $90 million since his June passing. Marley -- the legendary Jamaican reggae artist who inspired people with spiritual, socially-conscious songs -- has given rise to a market for pirated merchandise, thought to have generated as much as $600 million in illegal sales.

But as we reported this month, the Marley estate is moving aggressively to protect his brand from dilution via knockoffs, and to reap the rewards from aggressive merchandising. Estimates are that earnings associated with Marley will top $1 billion in the next three years as a result of a new licensing deal between the Marley estate and Hilco Consumer Capital, a private-equity management firm.Continue reading...

In the latest case of brand enforcement, U.K.-based InterContinental Hotels Group, owner of the Holiday Inn brand, has told its franchisees if they don't "contemporize" by the end of 2010, they will lose the right to use the brand name.

InterContinental started a program to refurbish all Holiday Inns in 2007 in a move to update the hotel brand and make it more contemporary (read that as competitive).

The program included a mandate to meet the company's "minimum quality specifications" by the end of 2010, including better exterior lighting, redecorated lobbies, new bedding, and new signs with the updated Holiday Inn logo. Franchisees are expected to pay for the overhaul – at a cost of $150,000 to $250,000 for each hotel.Continue reading...