logo
Kiko Milano Names Drew Elliott Chief Brand Officer

Kiko Milano Names Drew Elliott Chief Brand Officer

Drew Elliot, the former global creative director of MAC Cosmetics, will assume the role of chief brand officer at Kiko Milano from Sept. 1, the company announced on Wednesday.
Elliot's move to the Italian cosmetics company comes as the brand is looking to deepen its presence in the US market. While well-known in Europe, where its bright, buzzy stores are ubiquitous throughout the continent, it has a smaller footprint in the US. In April 2024, the private equity firm L Catterton took a controlling stake in the company, with a mandate to help it grow its global presence. In 2024, net sales reached over $1 billion; the company operates more than 1,250 stores across the globe.
Kiko Milano is well-known for its affordable cosmetics, such as the 3D Hydra Lip Gloss, and its collaborations with celebrities including the actress Emma Roberts and the model Sara Sampaio. The brand began a premiumisation strategy in 2022, and is now present in department storeslike El Corte Inglés in Spain and Galeries Lafayette in France, and has introduced some higher-priced products.
Before joining MAC Cosmetics, Elliot worked in a variety of creative leadership roles at the likes of Paper Magazine's parent company ENTTech Media Group. In a statement, Simone Dominici, chief executive of Kiko Milano said that Elliot's appointment would 'unlock the full creative potential' of the brand and that Elliot was selected in part for his brand-building abilities.
Elliot said in a statement the brand's authentic Italian heritage and quality products give it a strong foundation for global success.
'This is more than a beauty brand; it's a platform for self-expression and cultural connection,' he said.
Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your must-read source for the day's most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.
Learn more:
LVMH-Backed L Catterton Agrees to Buy Majority Stake in Kiko
The private equity fund has entered into a definitive deal with the Percassi family, which will retain a 'significant stake' in the business.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Sailing Into Culture: Casa Sanlorenzo Anchors In Venice
Sailing Into Culture: Casa Sanlorenzo Anchors In Venice

Forbes

time17 minutes ago

  • Forbes

Sailing Into Culture: Casa Sanlorenzo Anchors In Venice

Casa Sanlorenzo Saloon Sanlorenzo Arts–a creative hub dedicated to the artistic and cultural initiatives of luxury yacht pioneers Sanlorenzo–has been unveiled in Venice during the inaugural Venice Climate Week (3-8 June, 2025), as the lagoon city presents la Biennale di Architettura. Venice Climate Week is a new Italian event celebrating World Environment Day and World Oceans Day, conceived and directed by Riccardo Luna in collaboration with the Future Food Institute as a week dedicated to climate change, sustainability, and restarting dialogue and exchange among institutions, citizens, businesses, activists, scientists, and artists. In the heart of Venice—where whispers of history echo along watery corridors, and the light dances off facades steeped in time—a new addition to the city's cultural tapestry has arrived: Casa Sanlorenzo–a new cultural cub conceived by acclaimed Italian yachting company Sanlorenzo–has opened its doors with a subtle launch that respects the city's legacy while gesturing boldly towards a more philanthropic and sustainable future. Casa Sanlorenzo Exterior Unveiled during the inaugural Venice Climate Week, with the Biennale di Architettura as its backdrop, Casa Sanlorenzo is not simply a building—it is a philosophy sculpted in stone, glass, and vision. It rises across from the majestic Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, as if in quiet dialogue with the Baroque architectural masterpiece, promising not to compete but to converse. Sanlorenzo, long revered for crafting luxury yachts that glide elegantly across the water, now extends its creative ambitions onto land. With the opening of the new Casa Sanlorenzo cultural centre, Sanlorenzo pivots from producing exquisite vessels to becoming a vessel itself, one that carries culture, ideas, and transformation. At the Casa's inauguration, Massimo Perotti, Sanlorenzo's Executive Chairman, gave a welcome speech to guests beneath a pale Venetian sky. Above, a curious duel unfolded: a seagull clashing mid-air with a hovering drone. The spectacle, unintended yet symbolic, brought a moment of reflection—a metaphor for the uneasy embrace between nature and technology. In a city wrestling with the weight of cruise ships and rising tides, one must ask: can innovation coexist with fragility? And yet, it is precisely this tension that Casa Sanlorenzo seeks to explore, through a Salon-style space where thought, design and art intersect. Casa Sanlorenzo is designed as a visionary arts center and is an extension of the Sanlorenzo Arts project–a creative incubator where nautical production is juxtaposed with art, design and culture in a sustainable framework. Casa Sanlorenzo Exteriors Housed within a restored 1940s villa, reimagined by visionary architect Piero Lissoni, Casa Sanlorenzo is both contemporary and eternal. Lissoni–with his studio Lissoni & Partners–updated the space that spans almost 11,000 square feet with a generously sized garden, as well as a private apartment. The garden and gallery space will host exhibitions, shows and talks throughout the year to coincide with major cultural events in Venice such as the art and architecture Biennales. The Casa is designed to create a living dialogue between eras, aesthetics, and ideas. Here, white walls serve as breath between thoughts, showcasing Sanlorenzo's contemporary art collection, which bridges the radical transformations of post-1965 to the daring expressions of today. Casa Sanlorenzo Exteriors Lissoni has not erased the building's soul but coaxed it gently into the present. Brick facades glow with renewed dignity and modernity takes shape in glass staircases and concrete expanses, paired with Portoro marble and Palladian stone. In this fusion, past and future clasp hands. Outside the Casa Sanlorenzo, a contemplative Venetian Garden offers space for contemplation. Extending from the Casa like a whisper across the lagoon, is an architecturally daring new bridge designed by Piero Lissoni in a contemporary style yet with respect for Venetian heritage. A rarity in Venice where historic Renaissance design is King–the new bridge is a contemporary reinterpretation of a Venetian Ponte, constructed from prefabricated metal with a path of Istrian stone. Piero Lissoni comments: 'This bridge is not simply architecture. It's a symbol. A cultural connector. Indeed, one does not merely walk across—it passes through you, inviting reflection on what it means to move forward while holding memory.' As part of Venice Climate Week, Casa Sanlorenzo hosts the 'Sanlorenzo Talks', a series of candid conversations about sustainability, design and the ecological imperative of our age. During the talks leading voices from science, industry and the arts gather to explore how creativity can become an engine of change. The message is clear: beauty alone is no longer enough—it must be paired with ethics. That ethos extends to the jewel of Sanlorenzo's nautical artistry: the newly revealed Almax, a 50-meter superyacht that glides with the conscience of a new era. Sleek and sculptural, Almax's interiors are designed by Lissoni with exteriors by Zuccon International Project. Sanlorenzo's commitment to environmentally friendly yachting is reflected in the Reformer Fuel Cell, powered by green methanol-derived hydrogen to ensure zero emissions during onboard operations. Inside, Almax evokes a serene New York penthouse adrift at sea: pale wood floors, glass walls, bespoke furnishings, and an almost meditative atmosphere. The Almax exemplifies Sanlorenzo's embrace of art, architecture and design–a philosophy which is mirrored in Casa Sanlorenzo—a celebration of restraint, intention, and aesthetic harmony. Highlights of Casa Sanlorenzo's art collection include commanding works on the upper floor including a vast map by Arte Povera artist Alighiero Boetti and a slashed red canvas by Lucio Fontana–giants of contemporary Italian art–while the ground floor galleries offer a monochrome meditation by photographer Marco Palmieri, who is taking part in the inaugural Sanlorenzo Talks. Works by German painter Emil Michael Klein are also featured. Marco Palmieri exhbition at Casa Sanlorenzo, Venezia © Lee Sharrock In all of this—the yacht, the bridge, the gallery—there is a consistent throughline: a belief that design is not decoration but direction. That architecture can be activism. That art is not passive, but participatory. Massimo Perotti, Executive Chairman Sanlorenzo said at the launch: 'Our aim with Casa Sanlorenzo is to offer a reference point for initiatives linked to the world of Sanlorenzo Arts, an entity conceived with the goal of celebrating and supporting the union between art, design and culture, where innovation and creativity can flourish without limits. Casa Sanlorenzo becomes a place where one enters to stop, reflect and share. A space of research, where art does not simply adorn, but rather interrogates. Where design does not impress, but guides. Where beauty is never for its own sake, but the bearer of ethics. In an increasingly virtual world, we wanted to invest in presence, in meaningful encounters, and in shared experiences. Because we believe that authenticity requires substance, time, and human connection. And Venice is the perfect place for this project.' Casa Sanlorenzo Founded in 1958, the Sanlorenzo shipyard has traveled far from its humble beginnings in Limite sull'Arno. Over decades it has grown and now has six shipyards across Italy. Through its Fondazione Sanlorenzo–founded in 2021–the company extends its hand to Italy's forgotten islands and communities, working to uplift, educate, and connect. Through Sanlorenzo Arts, it fosters the convergence of craftsmanship, culture and technology. And now, with Casa Sanlorenzo, this commitment takes architectural form. A place where yacht design steps ashore and becomes philosophy. Venice has long been a city of arrivals and departures, a threshold between lands and dreams. Now, with Casa Sanlorenzo, it welcomes a new kind of voyager—not a traveler seeking escape, but one seeking an anchor. Casa Sanlorenzo is a living organism, one that breathes through its spaces and speaks through its exhibitions. It also feels like Sanlorenzo's version of a love letter to Venice and declaration of its wish to be a custodian of culture by providing a permanent arts space where art, architecture, design, education and sustainability can converge. Find more information here on the Casa Sanlorenzo talks during Venice Climate Week. Casa Sanlorenzo Garden

How a filmmaker couple's adoption story inspired the bloody dark comedy ‘I Don't Understand You'
How a filmmaker couple's adoption story inspired the bloody dark comedy ‘I Don't Understand You'

Los Angeles Times

time26 minutes ago

  • Los Angeles Times

How a filmmaker couple's adoption story inspired the bloody dark comedy ‘I Don't Understand You'

A bloody horror-comedy isn't the genre that springs to mind as a 'love letter' to one's 5-year-old, but for Brian Crano and David Joseph Craig, it's the perfect way to express their devotion to their child. The married filmmakers started penning the semi-autobiographical screenplay as a therapeutic exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after adopting their son. 'With the tiredness of having a newborn, it was kind of our mutual catharsis during that time,' Craig said. But a deeply serious, emotional script about their difficult road to fatherhood didn't interest them. Instead, the final product begins as a lighthearted comedy then turns dark — complete with a few dead bodies. 'I Don't Understand You,' which hit theaters Friday, stars Nick Kroll and Andrew Rannells as characters loosely based on Crano and Craig, who also co-directed the movie. The beginning of the story faithfully follows the real-life couple's journey to become fathers, including a heartbreaking experience with adoption fraud. They had been trying to adopt a child for nearly three years and felt weighed down by the challenges. In a twist of fate, they were matched with a birth mother just as they were traveling to Italy to celebrate their 10th anniversary. That trip was essentially a comedy of errors. Their car got stuck in a ditch during a relentless rainstorm and the couple was rescued by an old Italian woman and her family, whom they couldn't understand at all. When they told their friend — and the movie's eventual producer — actor and filmmaker Joel Edgerton about the travel nightmare, he encouraged them to get writing. But how did Crano and Craig go from crafting characters loosely based on themselves to making them (mostly accidental) murderers? By adapting their real-life coping mechanism to the film. 'We processed our own trauma around what happened to us personally through really dark comedy to each other,' Craig said. 'It just felt like that was the story we were prepared to tell.' 'Doing a polemical, flag-wavy, tear-jerky adoption movie felt like really the wrong vibe for us,' Crano added. As the couple described the process of making the film, they frequently finished each other's sentences. They were in sync despite being on a Zoom call from different coasts, with Craig in New York ahead of the film's premiere and Crano in L.A. Their overlapping responses seem to mirror their writing process — each is attuned to his partner's strengths and how his mind works, and they're both 'obsessed' with iteration, as Crano said, hoping to find the perfect turn of phrase or one-liner through repeated conversations. 'Not to interrupt, Brian,' Craig interjected at one point, 'but I think this is where you were going.' Kroll and Rannells' Dom and Cole, like Crano and Craig, learn the happy news of a match after adoption struggles, get their car stuck in a ditch on their anniversary trip and find refuge in an old Italian woman's home. Then the plot departs from reality and descends into macabre humor, with Cole accidentally pushing the old lady down the stairs, killing her. The duo didn't have much of the plot drawn out ahead of time. Crano said they just wanted to explore the question: 'What's the worst thing that they could do next?' For Kroll and Rannells, playing characters inspired by their directors enabled them to tap into the emotional heart of the story in an authentic way. Both actors, speaking to The Times via Zoom, said the directors were transparent about their adoption experience. 'It would be so funny if we had been like, 'Hey, what was it like when you found out that you weren't gonna get the baby?' and they were like, 'How dare you?'' Kroll quipped. 'But it was super helpful to have them as references and resources, but also at the same time, their willingness to let us make choices that may not have been exactly what they would have said or how they would have said it. David and Brian had a really clear vision for it, but also were quite open to things organically taking shape that was new to the film.' Rannells, who was working with a directing team for the first time, commended the duo's ability to run the ship collaboratively. 'They were very much always on the same page, which was great,' he said. 'That was maybe a little bit of a fear of going into it. I was like, 'How is this really going to work?' Like, 'Who are we listening to and how?' But they did it really seamlessly and it never felt overwhelming.' Much of the comedy Kroll and Rannells deliver is rooted in cultural misunderstandings. Dom's Duolingo streak proves insufficient in helping the couple communicate in Italy, and they often mistake the locals' remarks or actions as homophobic. Craig said the characters' frequent misinterpretations took on the role of the 'monster,' since this is a horror movie without a true boogeyman. Their ignorance leads them to believe they're in danger. 'Our monster is their own perception of hostility,' he said. 'There's such a deep desire to be comfortable that they would almost rather do violence than be uncomfortable,' Crano added. Craig chimed in, 'And have to talk about it with somebody they can't communicate with.' Although they have committed American tourist faux pas like their characters, Crano and Craig said the adoption story is the most true-to-life aspect of the movie. The couple's beloved dog Axel — who died just a few months after they wrapped shooting — is Dom and Cole's pet in the film and their young son, Washington, nicknamed 'Washy,' plays Dom and Cole's child in a brief scene. After seeing himself on the big screen at the film's debut at South by Southwest last year, Craig said the 5-year-old thinks he's a movie star. His one demand, they said, was to wear a cowboy costume for his scene, which they obliged. Crano and Craig said Washy will likely be allowed to watch 'I Don't Understand You' at a younger age than he should. 'The thing we really hope he gets out of it is the true message of the movie: 'What would you do for your child?'' Craig said. 'And we hope he really understands that we would do anything for him.' 'It is a love letter to him,' Crano said. 'In a purely strange way,' Craig added, finishing his husband's thoughts once more.

Germany updates: Migrants have 'imported' antisemitism, says Merz
Germany updates: Migrants have 'imported' antisemitism, says Merz

Yahoo

time44 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Germany updates: Migrants have 'imported' antisemitism, says Merz

Friedrich Merz ended his trip to Washington by speaking to US media where he made comments about rising incidents of antisemitism in Germany Lufthansa is set to restart flights to Tel Aviv later this month Read about developments and news from Germany on Friday, June 6, 2025: Lufthansa said Friday it would restart flights to and from Tel Aviv on June 23. The German airline group said the resumption would affect Lufthansa, Austrian, SWISS, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, ITA and Lufthansa Cargo but that "for operational reasons" the individual airlines would resume services "gradually." "The decision is based on an extensive security analysis and in coordination with the relevant authorities," Lufthansa said in a statement. The Lufthansa group suspended its flights to Tel Aviv in the wake of a May 4 rocket attack launched by Yemen's Houthi rebel group, an Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militia that has fought a civil war in Yemen since 2014. The missile landed near a car park at Ben Gurion International Airport, wounding six people. Germany will remain dependent on the United States, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday. "Whether we like it or not, we will remain dependent on the United States, on America, for a long time to come," Merz said. Merz made the comments just hours after returning from his inaugural visit to Washington, where he met with US President Donald Trump. Chancellor Friedrich Merz has told US media that migration is a factor behind the rise in antisemitism in Germany. In an interview with Fox News, Merz was asked what he was doing to combat antisemitism in Germany and he said: "This is, especially for Germany, a terrible challenge that we are faced with such an amount of cases of antisemitism in Germany." "We are doing everything we can to bring these numbers down," Merz continued. "We are prosecuting those who are against the law. And frankly, we have a sort of imported antisemitism with the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years, and we have to tackle this and we have to resolve this problem." "I would like to make it very clear, that the German government, and the vast majority of the German parliament, is strictly against antisemitism and against these people and we are doing everything we can to bring these numbers down." Merz's comments come on the back of data which earlier this week showed the rising numbers in antisemitic incidents in Germany. In 2024, 8,627 antisemitic incidents occurred — 77% more than in 2023. The data published by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) showed that of the cases documented, 5,857 were classified as "antisemitism related to Israel." A total of 544 cases were attributed to right-wing extremist views. Here, you can read the main headlines, analyses, multimedia content, and DW on-the-ground reporting on everything to do with Germany. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is rounding off his trip to Washington and has been speaking to US media. Elsewhere, Lufthansa said Friday it would restart flights to and from Tel Aviv on June 23, having halted them at the beginning of May amid the ongoing regional conflict.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store