Welcome in, today is Friday, September eighteenth, and we begin with Armani handing a creative director role outside the family for the first time, per Luxury Daily. Luxury Daily reports Armani has named Dario Vitale creative director of Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani Accessories. Vitale comes from Versace, where he held the creative director post, and that account describes him as the first person outside the family to hold the role. It is the first concrete signal of how the house is handling creative succession after Giorgio Armani. Industry reaction leans skeptical on timing: some in the trade read the hire against the stake sale set out in the founder's will, arguing an incoming shareholder typically wants a say in creative direction, so a pre-sale appointment risks being revisited, with the house paying for a reset twice. Others question the aesthetic fit of a designer moving from a maximalist house to one built on restraint, and frame the real test as which Armani codes must stay fixed for any evolution to read as authentic rather than a break. Also today, the old LVMH and Hermès rift has reopened. Modaes, citing a Reuters exclusive, reports that documents reviewed by the agency show LVMH and Éric Freymond, wealth manager to Hermès heir Nicolas Puech, signed an agreement as early as two thousand two to buy shares from Puech and other heirs. LVMH, per that reporting, says the deal was never executed because Freymond lacked Puech's authorization, and in June court filings denied any intention of acquiring the stake against his will. The same documents, per that account, show LVMH and the Arnault holding paid Freymond's firm at least twenty million dollars in fees between two thousand one and two thousand nine. Puech, per Modaes, maintains his six percent stake, valued at ten billion dollars, vanished, that he discovered its absence only in twenty twenty-two, and he is seeking fourteen billion euros in damages in France. The stakes reach beyond one heir: some in the trade read the dispute as a governance lesson for family-controlled houses, where adviser oversight and voting architecture, not heritage, protect a maison. Separately, Next is tempering its growth outlook. Chief executive Lord Simon Wolfson said it feels 'sensible to moderate our expectations' for the retailer's growth, per Drapers, a read that carries weight in a market that benchmarks off Next's guidance. In the same remarks, per that report, Wolfson discussed the race for Harvey Nichols and said Primark's home delivery initiative has the potential to 'hurt'. Some market commentators read the moderated outlook less as a demand call and more as a warning shot to government on tax and employment costs, pointing to earlier cautions on employer national insurance rises that went unheeded. Now to results. LuxExperience, the Mytheresa parent, posted fourth quarter net sales of six hundred sixty-three point eight million euros, up eighteen point seven percent reported, according to the earnings call transcript published by The Motley Fool. Group adjusted EBITDA was thirteen point six million euros, a two point one percent margin and the third straight positive quarter, per that transcript, fifteen months after the YNAP acquisition. Mytheresa grew ten point two percent at constant currency, with the U.S. up thirty-nine point three percent. Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter grew five point six percent and posted their first positive quarterly EBITDA since the deal. YOOX grew six point six percent on a negative ten point five percent margin, with break-even guided for fiscal twenty twenty-eight. Management called Greater China's summer 'disappointing' and flagged shipping backlogs at Net-a-Porter. Fiscal twenty twenty-seven guidance is mid to high single digit sales growth and a two to three percent adjusted EBITDA margin, alongside a fifty million dollar ADR buyback. The number the trade will watch is whether that margin holds as growth re-accelerates. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Givenchy begins selling directly on Farfetch from September twenty-first, launching with its fall/winter twenty twenty-six collection under Sarah Burton, per Luxury Daily. Marks and Spencer shows at London Fashion Week for the first time today, marking one hundred years of fashion at the retailer, Drapers reports. WWD reports H&M's London show went ahead through repeated PETA disruptions, debuting a Nick Knight collaboration built on historical romance, cinematic menswear and AI-enabled visuals. One last headline: Drapers' latest shopper survey examines AI-assisted shopping and fragmented customer journeys ahead of peak, and what brands and retailers must do to keep pace.