PPR, the multinational holding company that is home to brands including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Brioni and Sergio Rossi, is rebranding as Kering, indicative of a transformation from French conglomerate to internationally focused sportswear (encompassing its brands including Puma, Tretorn and Volcom) and luxury-goods group. 

The new name, accompanied by an owl logo and tagline, "Empowering Imagination," is pronounced "caring." CEO Francois-Henri Pinault explains, "We are there to care for the brand and take care of the brand," the Wall Street Journal reports.

Pinault carries on his father’s legacy as founder with the new name, which a press release explains was inspired by family roots in France's Brittany region as "Ker" meaning home in Breton, with the action-associated "ing" implying "doing" and "going."

Manfredi Ricca, the managing director at Interbrand in Milan, commented to the International Herald Tribune that the new identity reflects an awareness that companies need “a strong angle on what they stand for,” both for consumers and for employees, to demonstrate their “overarching vision” and values.Continue reading...

Soccer fans in China were recently dealt a nasty blow when news came out of just how rigged the system has been there. Close to 60 Chinese soccer officials, including two former heads of the Chinese Football Association and the nation’s most-respected referee were recently banned from the sport for anywhere from five years to life for fixing games.

In addition to the corruption scandal, Chinese football has also just lost two of its biggest stars—the Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba and France’s Nicolas Anelka—long before soccer fans in the country expected them to leave.

What’s the most-populated nation in the world to do? Hire the world’s most well-known soccer player under the age of 40 to help shift its image, of course. The 37-year-old David Beckham, who is now on the roster of Paris Saint-Germain Football Club in France’s Ligue 1, has signed on to be the brand ambassador for Chinese football, the BBC reports.Continue reading...

Lacoste is celebrating its upcoming 80th anniversary — since founder Rene Lacoste unveiled the L.12.12 (get the timing?) — with a public invitation to help invent the Polo of the Future.

Fans can go to a bespoke website launching today and submit their vision of a futuristic polo shirt on the brand's Facebook page, with the most creative to be rendered by an artist and featured online. 

As more inspiration, its new commercial shows one vision of the Polo of the Future — a shirt that changes color with the swipe of a hand.Continue reading...

French automaker Peugeot Citroen has had a rough time financially in recent years and isn’t expecting to turn a profit again till 2015, according to German newspaper Wlt am Sonntag. Meanwhile, the French government promised assistance to the company last month and “the car maker has also agreed to withhold dividend payouts, as well as postpone share buybacks and performance bonuses to top executives,” according to Fox Business. 

What may help the automaker get back into the black is a partnership with General Motors that Peugeot’s head, Maxim Picat, says is still moving forward with the Opel brand: "Our cooperation is going as planned," he said, according to a translation by Fox Business. "As we said, we will build cars together using four shared platforms."

One thing Peugeot should pay extra attention to when it designs its next round of cars: how much exhaust it puts out. The New York Times reports that Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe has “angered vintage car owners and motorist groups and raised concerns among those who say they cannot afford new cars” by asking to ban vehicles made before 1997 to help reduce air pollution. The plan could affect 367,000 automobiles, including France's "landmark" Citroën DS, named "the most beautiful car ever" by car designers in 2009.Continue reading...

As global economic bellwethers go, McDonald's sales results probably rank right up there with oil prices and consumer-confidence measures. So its shareholders, analysts and executives aren't exactly lovin' it when the company reports lackluster results, as it did for the third quarter.

The fast-food leader reported weaker-than-expected earnings for the period as it battled a weak global economy and accommodated more budget-minded consumers from Europe to China. Both sales and profits fell during the quarter, a rarity for McDonald's.

Of course, McDonald's results aren't directly synonymous with the status of the world's appetite for quick fare. The stronger dollar hurt international sales too. Also, competitors in many markets have been upping their game lately, including both Burger King and Wendy's in the United States, and the new strains from rivals also are reflected in McDonald's results.Continue reading...

The Chanel Spring/Summer 2013 women's ready to wear runway show at the Grand Palais in Paris on Tuesday raised a few eyebrows, and not just for the new outfits from designer Karl Lagerfeld but for the design of the sets the 68 models strutted on, or the celeb wattage of Kanye West, Jennifer Lopez and her bedazzled four-year-old daughter in the front row.

It was hard to miss the 13 towering wind turbines that dominated the stage, and the solar panels that graced the stage and inspired the tiles on the catwalk. Green, it seems, must be the new black. What’s sexier than a few turbines? "Energy is the most important thing in life," Lagerfeld, who's known for his grand pronouncements, stated. "If I had to build a house, I would put (wind turbines) in the garden.”Continue reading...

Chanel has released a trailer and the first chapter (below) for "Inside Chanel," the first time it's telling its brand story online with an interactive timeline and iconic advertising images such as Marilyn Monroe and Andy Warhol's No. 5 bottle.Continue reading...

There is a moment in time when preadolescent boys come across ads for X-ray and they are convinced that their late-night dreams have come true: An easy way to see through the clothing of any nearby woman has become available to them.

Of course, the whole thing is a sham, but the idea of being able to see through walls and clothes and everything else is fun to try on for a while. And now, of course, like everything else, there is an app for that.

The good folks at Wonderbra are happy to help the citizens of the United Kingdom see just what’s underneath what one particular woman is wearing, and she just happens to be Brazilian supermodel Adriana Cernanova.

Wonderbra's UK advertising (watch below) and French campaign is featuring a QR code so viewers can download an app and use their “Wonderbra Decoder” to see on their phones just what she’s got on underneath. Surprise! It’s all made by Wonderbra.

“We are showing Adriana in her clothes, including simple jeans and t-shirt, and through our new and unique app, consumers can reveal the Wonderbra behind the look,” said Martina Alexander, marketing manager for Wonderbra, according to Mobile Entertainment. “It’s really female-friendly and links to the outfit, which was important to us.”Continue reading...