Venice Film Festival Expected To Serve Big Fashion Moments
From the new movies by Tim Burton, Pedro Almodóvar and Luca Guadagnino to A-list names including Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Daniel Craig, expectations run high for the upcoming red carpet event.
MILAN — Recharge your energies and have a relaxing summer holiday because the cinematographic back-to-school and return to red carpet events is shaping up to be intense.
As organizers of the 81st Venice International Film Festival unveiled the event's program on Tuesday, both movie fans and fashion lovers were left with high expectations for the upcoming edition, which will run Aug. 28 to Sept. 7.
Leading directors ranging from Tim Burton and Pedro Almodóvar to Todd Phillips and Luca Guadagnino are all slated to touch base at Venice's landmark Lido flanked by the respective star-packed casts and more, which include major names such as Lady Gaga, Joaquin Phoenix, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, Michael Keaton and Monica Bellucci, to cite a few.
As revealed earlier this week, the event will open with the world premiere of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the long-awaited sequel to one of Burton's most renowned works. Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara will reprise their original roles and be joined by new cast members, including Burton's current partner
Bellucci; Justin Theroux; Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe. Incidentally, Dafoe will become more and more a regular in Venice, as the actor was recently named the new artistic director of the theater department of the Venice Biennale for the 2025-26 term.
Burton's new movie, which will be presented out of competition in Venice and will hit theaters in North America on Sept. 6, also counts Pitt among its executive producers. The American actor also might land in Venice for his key role in the out-ofcompetition movie “Wolfs” by the “SpiderMan” saga director Jon Watts, in which Pitt costars with longtime pal Clooney.
Meanwhile, Pitt's former wife Jolie is expected to attend the premiere of “Maria,” the biopic about Maria Callas directed by Pablo Larraín in which she interprets the iconic opera singer in her final years spent in Paris.
The film will be among the 21 titles competing at the festival, running against other major motion pictures. These include “Joker: Folie À Deux,” the muchawaited psychological thriller directed by Todd Phillips that will see Phoenix reprise the titular role that earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor in
2020. For this sequel, Phoenix will be joined by Lady Gaga, who will interpret his character's love interest Harley Quinn. The actress is likely to serve up one of the event's biggest fashion moments, following in the footsteps of her Venice Film Festival attendance in 2018, when she arrived at the premiere of “A Star is Born” in a showstopping organza Valentino haute couture gown covered in pink feathers.
While is yet to be known which designer she will pick for her return to the Venice red carpet, she is set to face some serious competition fashion-wise from Swinton and Moore. The actresses lead the cast of another major movie competing at the festival, “The Room Next Door,” which will mark Almodóvar's English-language fulllength debut.
While Chanel and Bottega Veneta looks might pop up in the fashion crystal ball, as Swinton and Moore have proved their affection for these brands, respectively, it is highly likely that a Loewe outfit will also appear somewhere on the red carpet. To be sure, Daniel Craig, who earlier this month was revealed as the star of the viral Loewe fall 2024 men's advertising campaign, is the lead actor in “Queer,” the new movie directed by Guadagnino — also a friend of Loewe creative director Jonathan Anderson's.
Based on the 1985 novel by William S. Burroughs, the historical romance drama set in 1940s Mexico City is billed as one of Guadagnino's most intimate projects.
It is expected to shed new light on Craig's acting prowess, as he will move past his longtime role as British secret service agent James Bond to interpret an outcast American expat who becomes infatuated with a younger man, played by Drew Starkey. Incidentally, during the festival, Guadagnino will have double duties as he will also curate the artistic direction of the Homo Faber artisan exhibition running in Venice from Sept. 1 to 30, as reported.
Other names expected in Venice will include Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult, who costar in the movie “The Order” by Justin Kurzel, as well as the cast of “The
Brutalist,” featuring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn and Guy Pearce.
These will add to the stars of out-ofcompetition series “Disclaimer” directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who include Venice Film Festival regular Cate Blanchett flanked by Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron
Cohen, Indira Varma, Louis Partridge and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
French actress Isabelle Huppert is also awaited at the Lido, as she will chair the international jury that will select and hand out the awards at the closing ceremony, including the Golden Lion for best film that last year went to “Poor Things” by Yorgos Lanthimos. Revealed earlier this month, this edition's jury will be comprised of eight other international personalities, including directors James Gray, Andrew Haigh and Giuseppe Tornatore, as well as Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.
Side fashion events are expected to add to the busy agendas of movie stars and directors. Miu Miu usually stages conversations with actors to flank the screening of the latest installment of its Women's Tales project of short films, while the likes of the festival's long-time sponsor Armani Beauty and Chanel have set a tradition for hosting glamourous gatherings after dusk.
Representation from the music world won't be lacking either. As reported, Grammy Award-winning singer Kelly Rowland is headed to the lagoon to perform at the annual Venice amfAR gala, to be held at the Hangar Nicelli venue on Sept 1.
increases, and also faces higher rent and salary costs in Japan, meaning that its margins have taken a hit, he explained.
The discount-hunting by Chinese tourists is also having a deflationary effect in mainland China, Guiony said.
Despite this, LVMH continues to see good business with Chinese nationals overall in its key fashion and leather goods, or FLG, division, where sales to this cohort are up in the high-single digits for the year to date, he reported. Business in watches and jewelry is down.
Overall, brands that spend less on marketing in China have been penalized, underscoring the need to continue investing in the market despite the current slump, Guiony said.
LVMH's share price has fallen by more than 20 percent from its intra-year peak of 872.80 euros on March 14 as inflation has curbed discretionary spending.
Traffic in Chinese luxury shopping malls is down in the single digits year-to-date, while luxury sales are posting double-digit declines, Bernstein said in a recent report.
Revenues Down 1 Percent
Reporting results after the market close, LVMH said group revenues fell 1 percent year-on-year in the second quarter to
20.98 billion euros, below a Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 21.48 billion euros.
Stripping out the impact of currency fluctuations, sales in the three months to June 30 were up 1 percent year-on-year, indicating a slowdown from the first quarter, when organic revenues increased 3 percent.
The FLG division posted sales of 10.28 billion euros in the second quarter, up 1 percent on a like-for-like basis versus the same period last year, below the Visible Alpha forecast for a 2 percent increase. The division saw profit from recurring operations fall 6 percent in the first half.
Its operating profit margin eased to 38.8 percent from 40.5 percent in the corresponding period last year, but margins for the segment remain historically high, especially for star brands like Louis Vuitton and Dior, the group said.
Guiony said there were no huge variations in performance between brands, though he noted the lower end of the group's portfolio did less well than the middle or upper part, with ready-to-wear outperforming leather goods.
Dior Strong in U.S.
Dior did better than Vuitton in the U.S., while the opposite was true in China. The executive confirmed media reports that Vuitton increased its prices by 2 to 3 percent in early July, marking its first global price increase since February 2023.
Guiony said that while the division's spending on advertising and promotions, or A&P, is now higher as a percentage of sales than it was in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic, the scope for cutting costs is limited.
“At the end of the day, the gas we put in the engine is to a large extent — at least in the short term — A&P, so we can lower A&P; we have done it and we'll do it further, but this has to be handled with care,” he said.
For example, the cost of runway shows has increased, but they now reach a much wider audience, with 300 million to 500 million qualified viewers tuning in online, Guiony said.
Then there are the unexpected expenses. Dior will require further investment as a result of an Italian investigation into illegal practices at some of its suppliers. Guiony said that while the fashion house took full responsibility for the irregularities detected, it was not aware of the conditions at companies subcontracted by its official manufacturers.
In addition to stepping up the pace of audits, Dior now plans to speed up the vertical integration of its production process, he added.
Meanwhile, LVMH has eased up a little on huge real estate deals, after going on a buying spree last year. But it continues to refresh its store network.
Tiffany Hits Jewelry Division
In the watches and jewelry division, revenues were dragged down by the ongoing repositioning of Tiffany & Co. to focus on its iconic collections, such as the Tiffany T and Lock lines. “We know this is the right strategy and we will carry on,” Guiony said.
The U.S. jeweler completed nearly 30 store renovations in the first half, with nearly one quarter of its network of boutiques now converted to the new store concept.
“We made the strategic decision to maintain the pace of store renovations and relocations at Tiffany. We've told you that consistency and long-term thinking are of the essence in this business and we are walking the talk,” Guiony said.
He confirmed that watch brand Tag Heuer has been in discussions to take over from Rolex next season as the official timekeeper for Formula 1, but emphasized that nothing is decided at this stage.
Organic sales of watches and jewelry were down 4 percent in the second quarter, while wines and spirits posted a 5 percent decrease. Perfumes and cosmetics were up 4 percent, and selective retailing rose 5 percent.
“The results for the first half of the year reflect LVMH's remarkable resilience, backed by the strength of its maisons and the responsiveness of its teams in a climate of economic and geopolitical uncertainty,” Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH, said in a statement.
“While remaining vigilant in the current context, the group approaches the second half of the year with confidence, and will count on the agility and talent of its teams to further strengthen its global leadership position in luxury goods in 2024,” he added.
Guiony hedged his bets, saying that although the group faces easier comparables in the second half, the outlook is unclear. “I'm neither more optimistic nor more pessimistic and visibility is limited,” he said.
The LVMH results come on the heels of figures from Compagnie Financière Richemont showing sales at constant exchange rates rose 1 percent in the Aprilto-June period, weighed down by a 27 percent decline in China, Hong Kong and Macao combined.
Meanwhile, Burberry reported a 20 percent decline in retail revenue at constant exchange rates and warned of an operating loss in the first half, while Swatch Group said revenue for the first six months of the year was down 10.7 percent in organic terms as the absence of Chinese tourists also impacted Southeast Asia.
French group Kering is due to unveil its second-quarter results on Wednesday, followed by Hermès International on Thursday.