CAVALLI 90210: After four years of searching, Italian designer Roberto Cavalli has completed the lease for his Beverly Hills store at 362 North Rodeo Drive, formerly occupied by Bernini Sport. Cavalli has been negotiating terms since February, said Chuck Dembo, a partner at Beverly Hills real estate firm Dembo & Associates, who brokered the deal.
Construction on the 4,000-square-foot space is to begin in about 30 days, with an opening date of October, a Cavalli spokesman said. The project will be spearheaded by the New York firm Barteluce Architects & Associates. The store, projected to take in first-year sales of $3 million, will carry the designer’s full collection of products, including home, and will have a VIP room on the mezzanine level. This is Cavalli’s third location in the western region after Las Vegas and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif. There are 35 Roberto Cavalli stores worldwide. — Kristin Young
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VALLI-BOY: Designer Giambattista Valli’s visit to Los Angeles last week, his second in a year, proved a boon to both the Emanuel Ungaro ready-to-wear fall orders and Barneys New York in Beverly Hills, which cohosted a brunch along with Lucy Liu, Colleen Bell and screenwriter Heather Thomas Brittenham.
It rated among the retailer’s best trunk shows at the Wilshire Boulevard door, said Barneys spokeswoman Dawn Brown. During Valli’s three-hour personal appearance April 14, sales staff wrote two-thirds of the $300,000 in total orders. Among the top sellers: 15 short tweed jackets with chiffon bows, retailing at $2,390; six butterfly-printed jersey dresses at $1,645, and seven long leopard-printed fur coats spot-colored in rosy blush at $9,775 a pop.
“L.A. women have a very different way of buying,” Valli said as fans Jamie Tisch, Amanda Goldberg, Shiva Rose McDermott, Jacqui Getty and Julia Sorkin tried the fall samples. “In Europe and New York, it is more studied; here’s it’s more impulsive.” Vanessa Bryant, wife of Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant, also dropped a few bucks during her private appointment with the designer. — Rose Apodaca Jones
GOING DUTCH: United States District Court Judge Christine A. Snyder refused to dismiss a preliminary injunction preventing a former owner of Von Dutch Originals from using the company’s trademark. Defendant Michael Cassel bought the rights to the Von Dutch name — a nickname of celebrated Los Angeles artist Kenny Howard — from Howard’s daughters four years after his death in 1996. Cassel created Von Dutch Originals in 1999. He had asked the court to lift the preliminary injunction issued against him in February. Von Dutch counsel Michael Adele of Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Albert, Weiland & Golden, said Cassel has tried to authorize sales of products in England, Canada and Asia, and to sell Von Dutch hats on the Internet. Robert Ring, a lawyer for Cassel, didn’t return a call seeking comment. Trial is set to begin Aug. 17. — Nola Sarkisian-Miller
TNA RAMPS UP: Los Angeles-based TNA swimwear designer Lisa Lozano has partnered with apparel veterans Ivan Arnold and Hard Candy founder Pooneh Mohajer to more than double her $2 million business in the next year and expand into sportswear. “I’ve received lots of offers, but nobody passed all my tests,” said Lozano, a former Elite model who founded her contemporary swim company in 1997.
Arnold and Mohajer, a husband-and-wife team who create e-commerce business for leading local apparel companies Paris Blues, Hot Kiss, Bisou Bisou and, most recently, A.B.S., plan to do the same with TNA, though their priority is overseeing infrastructure logistics so Lozano can focus on design. Her Cruise 2005 collection, debuting at the Miami Swim Show July 17, already has grown by about 20 stockkeeping units to 50 swimsuit styles, and she’ll introduce a collection of pants, sarongs, sundresses, T-shirts and tank tops in brightly colored, lightweight cottons.
Lozano said her job will remain behind the seams, while Mohajer, who founded the cosmetics line Hard Candy with her sister, Dineh, in 1995 (and sold it to LVMH in 1999), has influenced Lozano on the front end as well: The new collection also includes lip balm. — Marcy Medina