The St. Regis Room then. Photo from National Post
The Room now
The Room's First Campaign with Daria Werbowy
New York and London are well know for the support of fashion designers with awards like the CFDA and BFC respectively to promote young designers and reward established ones. Over the last little while there has been a lot of talk in fashion circles about the fact that unlike New York and London there are no new names coming out of the capital of fashion. The recent documentary Habillées by the amazing Mademoiselle Agnès took a look at this problem by focusing on the search of the new design talent in France catching some endearing moments on film. This is all about to change in a big way as Paris Vogue's Carine Roitfeld will be the chairman of the jury of this year's Andam (The French National Association for the development of the Fashion Arts) award with the significantly larger prize award of 220 000€. And why does this all matter to Canada? Because the Hudson's Bay Company is one of the 2 new award partners along with Renzo Rosso's group Only The Brave (Diesel, Maison Martin Margiela, Viktor & Rolf...). The panel of jurors this year includes Jefferson Hack, Hilary Alexander, Humberto Leon, Delphine Arnault,Alber Elbaz, amongst important French names. The influential international jury means that we will be hearing and reading a lot from the French award in the next little while. With that said it is safe to say that the HBC is quickly positioning itself in an international playing field. Take note of things like Canadian supermodel Daria Werbowy being the campaign face of the recently revamped The Room and the successful HBC Vancouver Winter Olympics collection. The revitalizing of The Bay by president and CEO Bonnie Brooks, one of the most respected names in the business after heading Lane Crawford for many years, is working.
The first trading company in North America is obviously set for a major comeback.
