Ultrasuede naturally returned one to Saturday

to Tag Heuer watches -- is pitting members of his own family against one another. Arnault, who controls 46.5 percent of the voting rights in LVMH, has said he expects a relative to replace him. Huge EndorsementLanciaux said of Antoine, who became Vuitton’s director of communications in Hermes Paris bags2006, the same year he was named to LVMH’s board. His print ad campaign for Vuitton featuring Mikhail Gorbachev, Catherine Deneuve, Steffi Graff and Andre Agassi, won a Cannes Lion advertising award in 2008. Since becoming chairman of Berluti, Antoine has hired a high-profile designer and acquired a Parisian tailor in a bid to make the shoemaker a menswear rival to Ermenegildo Zegna SpA and Brioni. He’s also spent heavily on marketing and opened stores from Miami to Shanghai. Arnault in January said he expects his eldest son to lift Berluti revenue to “several hundred million euros,” though he set no deadline.

 The brand, which is unprofitable, had sales of about 90 million euros in 2012, Berenberg estimates. Five Children Antoine played an important role in LVMH’s 2 billion-euro acquisition of cashmere clothier Loro Piana SpA in July, according to a person familiar with the situation. He may soon start helping to manage the Italian company, the person said. The billionaire turned down an interview request via a spokesman. LVMH shares have climbed 5.2 percent this year, trailing the Bloomberg European Fashion Index’s Hermes Picotin Bags14 percent gain. Delphine, 38, is shaping up as the more likely successor of the two, according to Luca Solca, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas. While Berluti is important, it’s less so than Vuitton, which accounts for more than half of LVMH’s 5.9 billion euros of profit, Solca said. get out of him. But here were jersey tunics and draped dresses sliced into and then braided or piped, so that they resembled dreadlocks.

 The buckskin-colored Ultrasuede naturally returned one to Saturday morning westerns; Mr. Watanabe had cut slim Ultrasuede coats, loose ponchos (over faded jeans) and skirts that morphed into trousers. The hems fluttered with fringe. You couldn’t help but smile and think that anyone with a bit of imagination and patience could have made these clothes. For a number of outfits, Mr. Watanabe inset the front section of a pair of jeans Hermes Shopping Baginto a dark, full skirt, worn with a puffy white cotton shirt. Because of the way the denim pieces were framed and distressed, with barely a trace of blue, they looked a little like sepia prints of a western sky. Her appointment at the handbag maker, which stages its women’s fashion show this week, is “a huge endorsement” for the top job, the analyst said. Others are betting on Antoine. Delphine’s job at Vuitton has more to do with signaling to investors Arnault’s commitment to reviving the fading brand, according to Mario Ortelli, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. Antoine, 36, is more likely to replace his father because he has better people management skills, the analyst said.