carriage trade

Season after season, she makes clothes suitable for the clientele of a brand that started in 1837 as a saddlery and remains a purveyor of goods for a traditional carriage trade.

“All the hotels in L.A. are just a little tired,” said the New Yorker, who was once described by Architectural Digest as “a leading architect for the carriage trade, and the architect for fashion brands.”

In 1973, two years before it went out of business forever, Arnold Constable, a carriage trade establishment on 40th Street and Fifth Avenue, offered working women lunchtime exercise classes.

“The Olympic was conceived for the carriage trade,” she said.

In Mr. Cucinelli’s idiosyncratic and yet disciplined approach to business, analysts see a model for other major carriage trade labels that appear to have lost their way.