Jeremy Scott exits Moschino after a decade of cheeky, pop culture fashion

CNN.com - Top Stories / 2023-03-20 20:18

Written by Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

Moschino creative director Jeremy Scott is stepping down from his role at the Italian luxury fashion house after a decade of irreverent, pop culture-infused collections, according to a statement from the label released Monday.

"These past ten years at Moschino have been a wonderful celebration of creativity and imagination," Scott said in the news release. "I am so proud of the legacy I am leaving behind."


Moschino sends puppets down the runway for Milan Fashion Week

During his tenure, Scott was known for theatrical productions, over-the-top styling and a playful take on the zeitgeist presented on the runway, through looks such as Marie Antoinette-inspired mini pannier skirts, paper doll motifs and evening gowns incorporating inflatable pool toys. He also partnered with H&M for a collaboration that prompted massive lines and eye-watering resale prices, with Mattel on a highly sought-after Barbie capsule collection and with The Sims to create a line of virtual clothes.

After Moschino's show last fall, Scott told CNN: "There's so much negativity that we have to process, but we must hold space for joy." Credit: Victor Boyko/Getty Images

Scott was the third designer to lead Moschino, carrying on the legacy of Franco Moschino, who founded the label in 1983 with pop art, camp and playful irony influencing his ready-to-wear collections. After his death in 1994, the label's reins went to Rossella Jardini, who helmed the fashion house for some two decades — updating Moschino's eccentric style for the 2000s and dressing pop icons including Madonna and Lady Gaga — before Scott joined in 2013.


Scott walking the runway following his final presentation with Moschino in Feburary. Credit: Estrop/Getty Images

Scott's splashy debut for Moschino in 2014 focused on American consumerism, weaving the branding of McDonald's, Hershey's and Budweiser, along with the face of Spongebob Squarepants, into pieces shown on the runway. From this and other early collections, Scott's reimaginings of Moschino accessories as everyday branded items — from Happy Meal handbags to cleaning spray bottle phone cases — were a particular hit.

His final Moschino collection, shown at Milan Fashion Week in February, was more subdued than past seasons, however, with models wearing skirt suits, knits, chunky gold jewelry and sky-high mohawks.

Moschino's themed shows included a paper doll motif for the spring 2017 season. Credit: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

Though Scott has dressed a number of A-List celebrities while leading Moschino, his designs were particularly unmatched where high drama was needed, for occasions like the Super Bowl half-time show (for which he produced looks for Katy Perry in 2015) or the Met Gala red carpet. For the latter event, Scott dressed Cardi B in an ethereal pearl-encrusted dress and headpiece in 2018, dressed Perry as a chandelier in 2019 and sent Megan Thee Stallion in a mythological-themed feather-and-armor gown in 2022.
Earlier this month, he dressed Angela Bassett and Tessa Thompson, among other stars, for the Oscars and Vanity Fair after-party.

A visual history of space-age fashion

When pandemic restrictions kept designers off of runways in recent years, Moschino led the charge in creative workarounds, devising high-production short films instead. One featured a tiny marionette show with real (scaled-down) spring-summer 2021 looks — as well as puppet attendees such as Anna Wintour — and another featured vignettes acted out on a rotating set by stars such as Dita von Teese, Precious Lee and Hailey Bieber.
An exclusive look behind the scenes of a star-studded fashion film

The films felt fitting for Scott, who already treated Moschino's runways like a stage or cinema set — and once even built smoke machines into his gowns.

"When I'm doing a show I'm really creating a character, so I really want to put (the models) in that mood, like I think a director would an actress," Scott told CNN in 2016. "It's really important for me to speak to them and talk to them about it, and that's why the models do look so different in my shows.
Scott led Moschino alongside his own eponymous label, though he has not presented new collections independently since 2019. Scott has yet to announce his next steps — including whether he'll take his label off the backburner — but his aesthetic is sure to remain unmistakeable.

"I think it's important that people have fun when they come to my shows," he told CNN in 2016. "It's what people expect from me."

Enviado de Outlook para Android

"This Is It!" - Von Greyerz Warns "The Financial System Is Terminally Broken"
por Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2023-03-20 11:51407
"This Is It!" - Von Greyerz Warns "The Financial System Is Terminally Broken"
Authored by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com,

The financial system is terminally broken, toast, kaput!
Anyone who doesn't see what it happening will soon lose a major part of their assets either through bank failure, currency debasement or the collapse of all bubble assets like stocks, property and bonds by 75-100%. Many bonds will become worthless.

Wealth preservation in physical gold is now absolutely critical. Obviously it must be stored outside a broken financial system. More later in this article.

The solidity of the banking system is based on confidence. With the fractal banking system, highly leveraged banks only have a fraction of the money available if all depositors ask for their money back. So when confidence evaporates, so do the balance sheets of the banks and depositors realise that the whole system is just a black hole.


And this is exactly what is about to happen. 

For anyone who believes that this is just a problem with a few smaller US banks and one big one (Credit Suisse), they must think again.

RE CREDIT SUISSE SEE 'STOP PRESS' AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE.
THE BANKS ARE FALLING LIKE DOMINOS, INCLUDING CREDIT SUISSE TONIGHT
Yes, Silicon Valley Bank (16th biggest US bank) is gone after an idiotic and irresponsible  policy to invest short term customer deposits in long term US Treasuries at the bottom of the interest rate cycle. Even worse, they then valued the bonds at maturity rather than market, to avoid taking a loss. Clearly a management that didn't have a clue about risk. SVB's demise is the second biggest failure of a US bank. 

Yes, Signature Bank (29th biggest) is gone due to a run on deposits. 

And yes, First Republic Bank had to be supported by US lenders and the Fed by a $30 billion loan due to a run on deposits. But this won't stop the rot as depositors attack the next bank and the next one and the next one……….

And yes, the Swiss second largest bank Credit Suisse (CS) is terminally ill after a number of poor investments over the years combined with poor management that has come and gone virtually every year.. I wrote an important article about the coming demise of CS 2 years ago here: "ARCHEGOS & CREDIT SUISSE – TIP OF THE ICEBERG."

The situation at CS is so dire that a solution needs to be found before Monday's (March 20) opening. The bank cannot survive in its present form. [ZH: a 'solution' was found... for now]

A failure for Credit Suisse would not just rock the Swiss financial system but have severe global repercussions. A merger with UBS is one solution. But UBS had to be bailed out in 2008 and doesn't want to be weakened again by Credit Suisse without state guarantees and support from the Swiss National Bank (SNB). The SNB injected CHF50 billion into CS last week but the share price still went to a new low.



No one should believe that a state subsidised takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS will solve the problem. No, it will just be rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic and making the problem bigger rather than smaller. So rather than a lifebuoy, UBS will have a massive lead weight to carry which will guarantee its demise as the banking system collapses. And the Swiss government will take on assets which will be unrealisable. 

Still, it is likely that by the end of the present weekend a deal will be announced with UBS being offered a deal they can't refuse by taking over the good assets and the SNB/Government nurturing the bad assets of Credit Suisse in a rescue vehicle.

The SNB is of course in a mess itself, having lost $143 billion in 2022. The SNB balance sheet is bigger than Swiss GDP and consists of currency speculation and US tech stocks. This central bank is the world's biggest hedge fund and the least successful. 

Just to put a balanced view on Switzerland. It has the best political system in the world with direct democracy. It also has low Federal debt and normally no budget deficits. It is also the safest country in the world.

SWISS BANKING SYSTEM TOO BIG TO SAVE
But the Swiss banking system is very unsound, just like the rest of the world's. A central bank which is bigger than the country's GDP is extremely unsound. And a banking system which is 5x Swiss GDP makes it too big to save. 

Although the Fed and ECB are much smaller in relation to their countries' GDP than the SNB, these two central banks will soon discover that their assets of around $8 trillion each are grossly overvalued. 

With a global banking system on the verge of a systemic failure, Central Bankers and bankers have been working around the clock this weekend to temporarily avoid the inevitable collapse of the bankrupt financial system. 

BIGGEST MONEY PRINTING IN HISTORY COMING
As I pointed out above, the main Central Banks would also be bankrupt if they valued their assets honestly. But they have a wonderful source of money that they will tap to save the system. 

Yes, I am of course talking about money printing. 

We will in coming months and years see the most massive avalanche of money printing that has ever hit the world.

For anyone who believes that we are just seeing another bank run that will quickly evaporate, they will need to take a shower in ice cold Alpine water. 

What we are witnessing is not just a temporary drama that will be sorted out by "the all powerful and resourceful" central banks. 

THE DEATH OF MONEY
No, instead what we are seeing is the end phase of this financial era which started with the formation of the Fed in 1913 and in the next few years, or much sooner, will end with the death of money.

But the Death of Money doesn't just mean that the dollar (and most currencies) will make their final move to ZERO, having already declined 98% since 1971. 

Currency debasement is not the cause but the effect of the banking Cabal taking control of the money for their own benefit. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild said in the late 1700s: "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws".

Sadly, as this Cassandra (me) has written about since the beginning of the century, the Death of Money is not just all currencies going to ZERO as they have throughout history. 

No, the Death of Money means a total and final collapse of this financial system. 

Cassandra was a priestess in Greek mythology who was given the gift of predicting major events accurately but also given the curse that no one would  believe her predictions. 

No depositor must believe that the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp) in the US or similar vehicles in other countries will save their deposits. All these organisations are massively undercapitalised and in the end it will be the governments in all countries which step in. 

We know of course, that the government has no money. They just print whatever they need. That leaves ordinary people taking the final burden of all this money printing. 

But ordinary people will have no money either. Yes a few rich people will be taxed heavily to cover bank deficits and losses. Still, that will be a drop in the ocean. Instead ordinary people will be impoverished with little income, no government handouts, no pension and money which is worthless. 

The above is sadly the cycle that all economic eras go through. The issue this time is that the problem is global and of a magnitude never seen before in history. 

Regrettably a rotten and bankrupt financial system needs to go through a cleansing period which the world will now experience. There cannot be sound growth and sound values until the current corrupt and debt infested system implodes. Only then can the world grow soundly again. 

The transition will sadly be dramatic with a lot of suffering for most people. But there is no other way. We won't just see poverty, famine but also many human tragedies. The risk of social unrest or civil war is very high plus the risk of a global war.

Central banks had of course hoped that their Digital Currencies (CBDC) would be ready to save them (but not the world) from the present debacle by totally controlling people's spending. But in my view they will be to late. And since CBDCs are just another form of Fiat money, it would just exacerbate the problem with an even more severe outcome at the end. Still, it won't prevent them from trying.

MARKET VALUE OF US BANKING ASSETS $2 TRILLION LOWER THAN BOOK VALUE
A paper issued by 4 US academics in finance, illustrates the $2 trillion black hole in the US banking system: 

"Monetary Tightening and U.S. Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs?"

March 13, 2023 

Erica Jiang, Gregor Matvos, Tomasz Piskorski, and Amit Seru 

CONCLUSION

"We provide a simple analysis of U.S. banks' asset exposure to a recent rise in the interest rates with implications for financial stability. The U.S. banking system's market value of assets is $2 trillion lower than suggested by their book value of assets. We show that these losses, combined with a large share of uninsured deposits at some U.S. banks can impair their stability. Even if only half of uninsured depositors decide to withdraw, almost 190 banks are at a potential risk of impairment to even insured depositors, with potentially $300 billion of insured deposits at risk. If uninsured deposit withdrawals cause even small fire sales, substantially more banks are at risk. Overall, these calculations suggest that recent declines in bank asset values significantly increased the fragility of the US banking system to uninsured depositors runs." 

What is crucial to understand is that the $2 trillion "loss" is only due to higher interest rates. When the US economy comes under pressure, the loan books of the banks will deteriorate dramatically and bad debts increase exponentially. With total assets of US commercial banks at $23 trillion, I would be surprised if 50% is repaid or recoverable in the coming crisis. 

The above risks are just for the US financial system. The global system will be no better with the EU under massive pressure partly due to US led sanctions of Russia. Virtually every major economy in the world is in a dire position. 

Lets just look at the debt pyramid which I have discussed in many articles LINK

In 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window, global debt was $4 trillion. With gold backing no currency, this became a free for all to print unlimited amounts of money. And thus by 2000 debt had grown 25x to $100t. In 2006, when the Great Financial Crisis started, global debt was $120 trillion. By 2021 it had grown 75x from 1971 to $300 trillion. 



The red column shows global debt at $3 quadrillion sometime between 2025 and 2030. 

This assumes that the shadow banking system plus outstanding derivatives of currently probably around $2 quadrillion will need to be saved by central banks in a money printing bonanza. This will obviously lead to hyperinflation and thereafter to a depressionary implosion.

I know this sounds sensational but still a very likely scenario at the end of the biggest credit bubble in history. 

GOLD – CRITICAL WEALTH PRESERVATION 
I have been standing on a soapbox for over 20 years, warning the world about the coming financial crisis and the importance of physical gold for wealth preservation purposes. In 2002 we invested important funds into physical gold with the purpose of holding it for the foreseeable future.

Between 2002 and 2011 gold went from $300 to $1,900. Since then gold corrected and then went sideways as stocks and the asset markets surged backed by massive credit expansion. 

With gold currently around $1990, there is not much gain since 2011. Still since 2002 gold is up 7x. Due to the temporarily stronger dollar, gold's gains measured in dollars are much smaller than in Euros, Pounds or Yen. But that will soon change. 

In the final section of the article "WILL NUCLEAR WAR, DEBT COLLAPSE OR ENERGY DEPLETION FINISH THE WORLD?", I outlined the importance of owning physical gold to store it in a safe jurisdiction away from kleptocratic governments.

"2023 is likely to be the year of gold. Both fundamentally and technically gold looks like it will make major up moves this year." 

And at the end of this article, I explain the importance of how and where gold should be held:"PREPARE FOR 10 YEARS OF GLOBAL DESTRUCTION."

"So my own preference would be to own physical gold and silver that only I have direct control of and can withdraw or sell with very short notice. 

It is also important to deal with a company that can move your metals at very short notice if the security or geopolitical situation would necessitate it."

In February 2019 I wrote about what I called the Gold Maginot Line which had held for 6 years below $1,350. This is typical for gold. Having gone from $250 in 1999 to $1,900 in 2011, it then spent 8 years in a correction. At the time I forecast that the Maginot Line would soon break which it did and swiftly moved to $2,000 by August 2020. We have now had another period of consolidation since then and the next move above $2,000 and towards $3,000 is imminent. 



Just to remind ourselves what happens to your money and gold during a hyperinflationary period, here is a photo from China's hyperinflation in 1949 as people try to get their 40 grammes (just over one ounce) that they were allocated by the government. At some point in the next few years, there will be a panic in the West to buy gold at any price. 



So as I have been urging investors for over 20 years, please get your gold NOW while it is still available. 

STOP PRESS
Intense discussions are right now going on here in Switzerland between UBS, Credit Suisse, the regulator FINMA, the Swiss National Bank – SNB – and the Swiss Government. The Fed, the bank of England and the ECB are also involved. 

The latest rumour is that UBS will buy Credit Suisse for CHF900 million ($1 billion). The shares of CS closed at a market cap of CHF8 billion on Friday. The deal would clearly involve backing from the SNB and the Swiss government which would have to take on major liabilities. 

The December 2022 book value of CS was CHF42 billion, as with all banks massively overstated. 

The deal isn't done at this point, 5.30pm Swiss time, but the whole banking world knows that without a deal, there will be global contagion starting tomorrow Monday the 20th. 

Even if a provisional deal will be done by Monday's open, the financial system has now been permanently injured with an open wound which won't heal. 

The problem will just move on to the next bank, and the next and the next….

Hold on to your seats but buy gold first.
Tyler Durden Mon, 03/20/2023 - 07:20

Enviado do meu Galaxy

Failed Signature Bank Finds a Buyer
por Ellen Chang

The Street: Stock Market / 2023-03-20 12:416
The 40 branches of Signature Bank were acquired by a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp on March 19.

Signature Bank in New York, the third bank to fail in March, was acquired by Flagstar Bank, the FDIC said on Sunday.

The New York bank was taken over by a federal regulator on March 12 after the New York State Department of Financial Services closed the bank, only two days after Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by the FDIC.

DONT MISS: UBS-Credit Suisse Merger May Lead to Massive Layoffs

Flagstar, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp  (NYCB) - Get Free Report, acquired the former 40 branches of Signature Bank. 

The acquisition includes the purchase of $38.4 billion of Signature Bridge Bank, N.A.'s assets, including loans of $12.9 billion purchased at a discount of $2.7 billion. 

The bridge bank's $60 billion in loans will remain in the receivership for disposition by the FDIC at a later date.

The deal did not include approximately $4 billion of deposits related to the former Signature Bank's digital banking business, the FDIC said.

The deposits from the digital banking business will be provided "directly to customers whose accounts are associated with the digital banking business," the FDIC said.

Investigations
The former former Signature Bank had total deposits of $88.6 billion and total assets of $110.4 billion as of December 31, 2022.

The FDIC received common stock of New York Community Bancorp that has a "potential value of up to $300 million."

The failure of Signature Bank to its Deposit Insurance Fund is approximately $2.5 billion, the FDIC estimates. The exact cost will be determined when the FDIC terminates the receivership. 

The FDIC had named Greg D. Carmichael as CEO of Signature Bridge Bank, N.A. He recently served as president and CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp.

Signature Bank branched out into the cryptocurrency industry unlike other banks who stayed away from the virtual currencies.

The bank's involvement with its customers in the crypto industry was being investigated by prosecutors in the U.S. before it was shut down by regulators, sources told Bloomberg.

The investigators in Washington and Manhattan from the Justice Department were looking into whether Signature Bank had looked into if its clients were conducting money laundering, the article said.

Banks are required to follow steps to determine if they know their customers, such as examining who an account holder is. They are also required to look into the types of transactions made by customers and if they resemble any kind of criminal wrongdoing.

Sources told Bloomberg that the Securities and Exchange Commission was also investigating Signature Bank. 

The collapse of Signature Bank followed the failure of Silicon Valley Bank. 

SVB's parent company, SVB Financial, filing for bankruptcy protection on March 17. The bank's assets were not included in the filing. The Chapter 11 filing is the largest bankruptcy for a bank since Washington Mutual filed in 2008.

SVB was the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history and has shaken many investors. It was the result of a bank run, caused by the firm's announcement that it failed to raise the additional capital to increase liquidity.

The bank made investments into long-dated government securities, including Treasury securities. When depositors demanded their funds, the bank sold the securities, taking a $1.8 billion loss. The Santa Clara, Calif., bank then attempted to raise $2.25 billion in capital by issuing new common and convertible preferred shares to cover the shortfall.

Depositors made a run on the bank, withdrawing their cash and transferring it into other banks.

Enviado do meu Galaxy

Swiss regulators broke the rules of the game
por Peter Garnry

Saxo News & Research - Articles, Videos and Trade Views / 2023-03-20 13:28

The takeover design of Credit Suisse over the weekend broke the rules of the game sending shock waves through bank bonds this morning. There could be lasting damage to European banks from this.
Credit Suisse takeover design sends shock waves through AT1 bonds

The Swiss government's shotgun wedding of UBS and Credit Suisse with shareholders of Credit Suisse receiving one share in UBS for 22.48 shares in Credit Suisse valuing the bank at roughly $2.8bn. While shareholders were left with something on the table the additional tier 1 (AT1) capital holders were wiped out on their outstanding notional value of CHF 16bn breaking with precedence in prior bailouts. The move also goes against the capital structure order as AT1 capital sits above equity which means that it should always be shareholders that absorb all losses before they flow to AT1 capital holders.

Markets did not like the takeover design sending AT1 bonds down as much as 17.5% at their intraday lows. In order to stem further confidence loss, EU banking regulators reiterated that common equity tier 1 (CET1) capital still takes losses before AT1 capital holders. This announcement has calmed the market with AT1 bonds rallying 8% off their lows.

The two biggest ETFs tracking CoCos (a part of the tier 1 capital structure) and all AT1 bonds

Source: Bloomberg

As we still do not know the longer term consequences of the SVB bailout, which included the full guarantee of uninsured deposits, we also do not know the longer term consequences of the Credit Suisse bailout. Last night's event could create lasting damage to the AT1 capital market and thus long-term funding and cost of capital for European banks. In any case, the risk blow to banks the past two weeks will mean that risk-taking in the system will go down and thus cost of capital will go up for the economy.

What is AT1 capital?

The AT1 bonds framework was created after the Great Financial Crisis under the new Basel III rules as a new layer of capital to function as shock absorbers in case of banking stress and failures. The figure below shows a simplified capital structure of a financial institution and here it can be seen that AT1 bonds have the highest risk after the common equity tier 1 capital holders (shareholders).

One of the key criteria for an AT1 bond is that it is a perpetual, meaning that the bond does not expire, to ensure that it is permanent capital. Some of these AT1 bonds come with equity conversion in the case a bank's leverage ratio dips below a certain threshold. These AT1 bonds are called contingent convertible bonds, or 'CoCos', and correspond to around 40% of the outstanding AT1 bonds. The AT1 market size is around $254bn with most bonds denominated with banks representing 97% of the issues and European banks representing 80% of the AT1 universe.


Source: VanEck


Source: Lazard Asset Management

One of the reasons why European banks have been the main issuer of AT1 bonds is that the return profile on common equity has been so disastrous that it has not been a viable capital source unless a bank has been willing to issue capital at a high cost of capital. AT1 bonds have functioned as a bridge and vehicle to create tier 1 capital. Investors have been keen on investing in AT1 bonds, and especially in global systemically important banks because there has been this implicit idea that governments would only allow shareholders to loss everything. The risk-reward ratio has thus been seen as quite good for AT1 bondholders. As the return chart from Lazard Asset Management shows is that the capital structure return profile has been distorted. Bank equity, as the most risky part of the capital structure, should have yielded a higher return than AT1 bonds but it did not, indicating that the European banking system is structurally unsound from an investor point of view.

For those that want to educate themselves even more on AT1 capital we can recommend these two short notes from Lazard Asset management:

Focus on the AT1 Market – Part 1

Focus on the AT1 Market – Part 2

It should be noted, that in May 2022, Fitch Ratings wrote a note about the existential crisis in Europe over AT1 bonds as European supervisors are leading discussions about a capital stack redesign with a focus on common equity tier 1 capital. In other words, the EU regulators are acknowledging that the current system is not optimal. But how to get increase the emphasis on common equity tier 1 capital when European banks' return on equity is so low relative to the cost of equity?

European banks have the highest risk

Under the Basel III framework banks' leverage ratio is defined as the capital measure (tier 1 capital) over exposure measure (risk-weighted assets). The total regulatory capital includes tier 1 (CET1 + AT1) and tier 2 capital and most be minimum 8% implying a maximum leverage of 12x, but this is under assumption of course that the risk-weighting framework is set correctly and work linearly across all risk scenarios; we would argue that it is not the case and thus the system has an implicit hidden risk.


Source: Bank for International Settlements

The whole Basel III framework is built on the layered regulatory capital and then a risk-weighted approach to the assets on the balance sheet. Government bonds have the lowest risk weighting under the current framework and it makes sense. But when you add an interest rate shock and held-to-maturity accounting, which only works under the assumption of stable liabilities, then regulators add a highly non-linear risk to the system. Because as we saw with SVB and other banks, the risk-weighting was clearly too low relative to a situation with unstable liabilities. This is the key risk in the banking system. If the wider population finds the utility value of deposits too low to other alternatives such as short-term government bonds, gold, Bitcoin, equities etc. then the banking system could easily extend its decline in aggregate deposits which will deplete banks of its cheapest funding source and potentially increase the pressure on forced asset sale.

We have updated our banking monitor with Canadian banks and also added the AT1 capital so our clients can see which banks have the most outstanding notional of AT1 capital. In addition we computed the lower bound on leverage by dividend the tier 1 capital with the total assets. This is naturally the most conservative risk measure on banks as it sets all assets to the same risk. Under this assumption it becomes quite clear that US banks are better capitalised than European and Canadian banks.



Peter Garnry
Head of Equity Strategy
Saxo Bank
Topics: Equities Central Banks Financials Credit Suisse Group Europe European Union (EU) Switzerland

Enviado do meu Galaxy