THE BRAND GURU SPEAKS: PETER ARNELL DIALOGUE WITH A LEGEND

Dialogue with a genius—the gurumayi of Branding—and the unparalleled pedigree and provenance of Peter Arnell. GW’s mind was frantic, apace with a million thoughts in the back of an Uber on the FDR highway, headed to the tip of the Wall Street district for a 7 a.m. breakfast with the still-reigning Swami of Advertising and Marketing and Branding.

Decade after decade, genius Peter Arnell’s been the man with the peerless plan: there is no one in the business to match his craft of branding as a tool to invent, design, create
and re-create products that shape and influence the world. As this writer was being whisked to Casa Cipriani, the gilded temple at the Southern tip of Manhattan, on the most glorious early July morning imaginable, this promised to be one unforgettable day in the life of this ink-stained wretch.

 

Suffice it to say…the next four hours, yes four hours, spent in the company of this New York City legend was like a scene out of HBO’s Succession. Not only was the Eastern Terrace of the uber-posh Casa Cipriani made to open early just for the gurumayi, but as such, we were the only ones there for two hours apart from the attending staff of five at our beck and call. As it happened–it was also National Caviar Day–so after the hugs and greetings, we sat for a breakfast spread along with an entire kilo of caviar at 8 am! The helicopter blades were whirring all morning for destinations on the East End. One minute, he’s on the phone to some exotic locale in Italy to personally thank Maggio Cipriani for the splendid morning arrangement. And the next, he’s springing a call on his best buddy Tom Brady, chilling from his billionaire bunker in Indian Creek Village, Miami Beach.

This is Peter Arnell’s world, and every once in a while, we also get a nibble. This is the man who has long conceived the plan behind many of the world’s most recognizable brands. From the creating DKNY in the seminal 1980s to shapeshifting campaigns for Reebok, Samsung, Pepsi and Gucci, to name just a few of his many blue chips. And what of the crowning glory? The just- completed, gargantuan three-year project to bring to life the Fontainebleau Las Vegas. Arnell Design has never been busier. His imagination and activity know no bounds.

Our meeting was extra poignant, considering we were to have had this moment months and months before—until the frailty of everyday life reared its ugly head. Months earlier I remember all too well heading to LAX down La Cienega after Oscar week in Los Angeles and scrolling the Instagram feed to learn that Peter Arnell was almost killed by a hit-and-run in the heart of Manhattan. We were to meet the very next week. His recovery has been incredible; once again Peter Arnell is walking on air. Calling the following badinage–over two separate occasions and hours and hours of transcriptions–totemic would be an understatement.

Without further ado, meet the gurumayi of Branding, Peter Arnell.

GW:  So here we are – Dialogue With A Legend – Peter Arnell – The Gurumayi of Iconic Branding and Marketing.

PETER ARNELL (PA): So funny; that was the same thing Muhammad Ali’s manager said to the room when I showed up for Ali’s funeral. ‘Here is the Brand Guru’ he said at the wake.
GW- Who was the manager?

 

PA: I’ll tell you his name. It was Bernie Peter. He was Ali’s promoter and manager forever. And they were best friends. Bernie asked, ‘Could you go to the Muhammad Ali funeral with me?’ June 9th, 2016, was the day of Muhammad’s funeral (pointing at a picture on his assistant’s computer). Here’s me with Dick Gregory. Right? Fabulous time. Look who’s there. Who is that? Blow that up. You don’t know that entertainer?

GW: Oh my God. I don’t know who that is.

PA- Oh, I’m not telling you if you don’t know who it is.

GW: Who? Chaka?

PA: That’s Smokey Robinson! Exactly. That’s him. Yeah. You know what he looks like now? He looks ten times better. That’s Smokey Robinson.

GW: No way?! It is Smokey Robinson. Wow. With Carl Weathers. Where was the funeral?
PA- Muhammad Ali has been so integral to my sense of purpose, George. He is the Original GOAT. I think he affected me, George, tremendously.

GW: In what sense, Peter?

PA: Creativity, humanity, everything. Permission. Permission. Explore stories and narratives. The incredible endorsement by Muhammad Ali- The Original GOAT comes, asked me to do things with him. Brand… but it wasn’t just the business aspect; just being with Ali and Lonnie, his wife, was extraordinary. It’s kind of like Magic Johnson and his wife, right? That kind of dynamic.

GW: Such a moment to visit your iconic atelier of design here on glorious Hudson Street.

PA: Hudson is amazing. This is like the street in that famous Edward Hooper painting. I love it. GW- Have you stopped by Graydon (Carter’s) AirMail shop yet? it’s around here somewhere.

PA: It’s up the block. I think the coffee’s pretty good. I love looking in. I love the ambiance. I love the people there.

GW: Oh, they have a coffee chef? LOL

PA: Oh yeah, they have a little coffee stand/bar there that makes very good coffee.

GW: I’ve been thinking about our EPIC power breakfast at Casa Cipriani at 8 a.m. this past June, when we had the entire East Terrace to ourselves. It was unforgettable, Peter. We had the entire Casa Cipriani to ourselves! The skinny hookers weren’t perched at the bar yet. It was only the break of dawn! But we gorged on a kilo of IKRAA Caviar and gossiped for four hours! I took the 1 train home and thought about our nostalgic Andre Leon Talley moments and how you keep saying you want to do something to champion his memory. You mentioned some Brutalist statue – LOL! I think what you need to do is lead the initiative for s scholarship at SCAD (Savannah College of Design). He was very key there and they loved him. Go talk to Euan Rellie, who has a kid at SCAD, and get it going. Andre never really lifted a finger to help my career, and he never willed GW one of those gargantuan Birkins…he owned like three! He could have left me one. So, Andre’s death was met with cold indifference from GW, to be quite honest. Talley was no victim. Sorry—not sorry! But you loved him. You always tell me you owe your career to Andre Leon Talley.

 

PA: Oh, I do, and I did not know that history with you and Andre. He always adored you.

GW: Really? That’s news to me.

PA: Alright, George, but I tell you what, the SCAD idea is brilliant. But we can start with something else. When we do the First Anniversary Weekend of the Fontainebleau Las Vegas this December, maybe bring along the top five fashion students at SCAD, a trip or something. Would you help me with that?

GW: Of course, gurumayi — you know GW worships at the altar of the genius of fashion branding. GW would be thrilled. And while we are talking about Generation Z this would be a good time to segue. Gen Z kids are said to be the most mental health-wracked and angst-ridden generation of all time. This is the generation that says, struggling to cope with the present. What are your thoughts and how do you pitch to Generation Z angst?

PA: This generation has an incredible identity crisis. They don’t know who they are. The social media thing has just driven a horrible mirror of abstraction, distortions and in my opinion, disruptions into the natural growth of a child and a young adult. And I think in the end, all these things, these false and highly manipulative narratives took over what could have been and what should be the most powerful tool of communication in the world. So I think we’re going to see a shift back at some point. Because it has to. The Surgeon General is going to have to step in. As a father of a 12-year-old, these things are very dangerous for growth. Communities building around fake stories or around aspirations that create insecurities and distances between children and young adults, their parents and their friends.
GW: You have written 27 books, you proudly like to brag. But for GW, the guru Peter ‘’Bible’’ is his 2010 Broadway Books, SHIFT: How To Reinvent Your Business, Your Career, And Your Personal Brand. Martha Stewart wrote the foreword. Chapter 14 is my mantra—Don’t Ask, Compel. Such great insight from a master versed in decades of branding and marketing expertise at the most elite level. If you aim to be a Brand Whisperer like the gorgon legend(s), this is one book to read- #gwsays. ‘’Don’t ask, Compel.’’ When it comes to pitching your genius notion to the client for the first time you don’t ask, you woo and compel with an undeniable presentation. Compel! That is now GW’s Gospel. And at the same time, you are one of the key pioneers in a business conjuring a lifestyle that doesn’t really exist! LOL! Oh, the irony.

PA: That is a whole thesis for our third interview!

GW: On Page 38 of SHIFT, you say something always prescient: “The success of a brand is very tenuous.’’ Hah! Tell that to the folks at Gucci…Kering. More so the LVMH folk at tired Louis Vuitton!

PA: I love you bringing up Gucci. You know that Dan (Dan Zuzunuga) and I wrote the last book on Gucci. Did you know that? Frida! Frida Giannini— the girl who took over Gucci when Tom (Ford) left. We did this fabulous coffee table book with her called — GUCCI: The Making Of.

GW: Oh! Golly, you never fail to amaze.

 

PA: The one who had the affair with the Gucci President and they both got thrown out.

GW: Say what? What?! I never knew that was the scandalous reason Frida was pushed from Gucci!

PA:  She was the one who asked me to do the book. And I also did the museum in Piazza Ria inside Florence. That old Medici building. We did the museum too.

GW: My jaw is dropping right now, people. Kering’s shares are at a seven- year-low and Q1 2025 is not looking good for Sabato at Gucci- Darling!

PA:  I’ve worked with them all— Armani, Fendi, Chanel. I mean I could go on and on.

GW: You worked with Chanel too? You’ve worked with owners Alain Wertheimer and his brother— the most enigmatic and most powerful moguls of fashion. The American owners of Chanel?!! The riddle wrapped in an enigma?

PA:  Oh yes! I worked with the Wertheimers on “Allure,” which was a huge fragrance project launch back in the day. Yeah, the merchandise shit and everything. Oh, I love it.

GW: Oh my God. Are you friends with Tom?

PA: I actually never talked to him.

GW: That’s kind of nuts.

PA:  Yeah.

GW: Wow. Really?

PA: I’ve been one of his biggest customers over the years.

GW:  Well, now we definitely have to go to Palm Beach and find Tom Ford! The Tom Ford seduction is a must for GW in 2025. By next summer he better have me in that cottage on Further Lane in Southampton. Jackie Onassis’ childhood home— he snatched that up too—and I hear he’s still single. GW will always have a special place in his heart for Tom Ford. He felt me up in the Vanity Fair bull-pen of 2004 and I loved, LOVED every minute of it. I wish he would do it again.

PA: I want to hear the entire story. This was the year Graydon put him on the Oscar Vanity Fair issue?

GW: Yes! The days he was swilling scotch on the rocks from 11 am.

PA: What do you think happened between Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful?

GW: Oh, Edwina grew too grand and glorious—and like Icarus flew too close to the sun and got burnt to a crisp by ‘’Nuclear Wintour’’ just like one of those dragons from The Game of Thrones. But don’t feel sorry for Edwina- he has a career as a fashion Brand Whisperer Emeritus just like you do.

PA: He got burnt to a crisp! And he could have lasted a long time!

GW: Edwina was growing too posh and getting awards from King Charles and running British Vogue as a cabal with Kate and Naomi and his other cronies. Dame Anna was not impressed. Vainglorious Edwina Enninful was nipped in the bud by Dame Anna. The only old timer generational old-school ‘Voguette— Anna still cherishes is Hamish Bowles. She’s excised— annulled all the rest.

PA: People don’t realize how bad she is, George.

GW: Bad? The nature of this beast is beyond legend! Bad? Wait until you read The R.O.M.E. Treatise coming on Dame Anna and the roots of R.O.M.E.—we are integral. She gave R.O.M.E. one of the first interviews on the record ever! The Anna R.O.M.E. Issue is on the Etsy bootleg market for $10,000! Emperor Si brought Anna into Conde around the same time he made sure they put GW on the payroll. She’s always shown love and support. When the Supermodel Claudia Schiffer sued R.O.M.E. for $30 Million Dollars in 1992 and catapulted my career to supernova. Anna was the #1 rock and support for GW. She was! Spring 1993- I’ll never forget ever- (Contributing Editor) Allure doing the Paris Pret Spring of 1993! Being backstage at Chanel and watching Claudia Schiffer’s face as Karl hugged and made it clear—no one was ‘blackballing’ me.

PA: I don’t really know her, to be honest. But what about the Pharrell situation at Louis Vuitton?

GW: Oooh, that’s why I love you so much, guru Peter! We could talk shop for hours! How the hell did Pharrell get this gig in the first place. He’s in way over his head. This was a disaster hire for Louis Vuitton. Well, you know LVMH is about to demolish that 1 West 57th Street LV flagship! Maybe when they do that, they will show Pharrell the door at the same time. LOL. They are demolishing that LV flagship and it will take seven years for the new LV flagship to rise in that spot. By then it will be Pharrell who? Kering too—snapping up incredible real estate. They just spent $1.3 billion Euros to snap up all of the iconic Via Montenapoleone in Milan!

PA: To reinvent Gucci! I would love another take with Gucci Inc. I will tell you, spending hours and hours and hours in the Gucci archives working on that book with Frida was just absolutely incredible. Poring over the vast pedigree of Gucci—just extraordinary. But why is it that Gucci still fails to prevail? It ebbs and flows. Gucci has to become a canvas in order to become extraordinary. Again. The Mantra is always to be groundbreaking, unique and taking an Interdisciplinary approach to graphic design from an art/industrial perspective. Gucci 2.0 project would be a truly magical experience. We would set up massive tables, like 10 times the size of this table, in the archives and tents outside and we would trove the Gucci archives for weeks at a time! Go there and spend like a month in Florence. When I worked on The Fontainebleau Las Vegas, I spent forever recreating the archives of 1954. It was really impressive what I did. But I think that’s all about me in history and homework. And I know all the answers lie in the DNA. It’s good. All the answers lie in the DNA, but this, most people just arrive today instead of doing the homework.

GW: We’re saving the best for last and we now segue to the gig of a lifetime: fontainebleaaulasvegas.com! The mega-gig of a lifetime, from concept to creation—and the indispensable role of Peter Arnell and his team in what is now the tallest building in all Nevada. You get a phone call from the Fontainebleau Development Chairman & CEO, Jeffrey Soffer, to chart and define the entire experience of this 67-floor behemoth of glamour and excess as only Las Vegas could conjure. You had to have shot the biggest wad when you got the call for this gig of all gigs three years or more ago. You had a hand in everything from the linen in the 3,644 bedrooms to the font and ink colors to the stationery and, of course, the creation of the logo for the sparkling one-year-old mecca in Vegas.
PA: My uncle, Emmanuel Abraben, was an architect in Florida when I was a child. I first arrived there at around 15 years old, and the very first thing he wanted to do was introduce me to Morris Lapidus. We visited Morris’s house, and that’s where my journey began.
GW: Love the nod to Mr. Lapidus. But I always—and still do— time now— you create a fabulous print advertising campaign for brand Fontainebleau Las Vegas—Q1-2025!. The brand needs a cheeky, sexy campaign starring Bad Bunny and riffing off the ‘’Goldfinger’’’ era of the original flagship.

PA: I never imagined I’d be part of such an extraordinary project, collaborating with incredible people. The project took a 360-degree approach to the brand, offering endless opportunities to redefine and express it. From reimagining Fontainebleau’s brand identity to transforming the customer experience, we influenced every touchpoint in the hotel, including all FF&E and worked in tandem with an exceptional in- house team, and a group of world-class creators and craftsmen to infuse the 67-story luxury resort with the Fontainebleau brand’s rich 70-year legacy through unparalleled touches of polished sophistication. With destination hotels like Fontainebleau, every detail matters. The history of the brand is woven into every detail, with icons and symbols seamlessly integrated into the design to reflect its rich heritage and authentic character. This is complemented by modern touches and elegant elements, catering to the sophisticated tastes of Fontainebleau Las Vegas’.

GW: But there would have been no such legacy benchmarks if it was not for the still-revered and pioneering marketing and branding collaboration between Peter Arnell and Donna Karan and the creation of the eponymous iconic American brand—DKNY. And she didn’t invite us to her 60th birthday soiree in October.

 

PA: As Donna Karan prepared to launch her namesake label in 1984, her ambition was to create a new brand that spoke to a generation of young, ambitious, professional women by offering them chic and versatile clothing that blurred the boundary between their professional and personal lives. Patti Cohen, who was Donna’s head of communications and public relations—and employee number one—had been introduced to my work at Bergdorf Goodman by Dawn Mello and decided to bring me in for an interview. By the end of that first interview— which spanned nearly twelve hours —the core identity of the Donna Karan brand had been set: namely, to hold up a mirror to this new generation of working women. Working with Donna was magical because Donna only wanted me to push the boundaries, destroy convention and drive toward highly innovative, unique ideas that would stimulate the market and create a new market opportunity. To bring this vision to life I roamed New York, with a point-and-shoot Contax camera, capturing images that embodied the power and strength of Donna’s vision for a new kind of woman … and I found it in the city itself: in the concrete, steel, and asphalt; in the rush of cars, and the surge of pedestrians. In one of the most memorable sites of my own childhood—a spot at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge where my grandfather had worked—I was able to capture what became one of the defining images of the Donna Karan brand: the Brooklyn Bridge, piercing the mid-winter mist rising off of the East River. Just as Lady Liberty has beckoned out to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” (as immortalized by Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus,” which appears on the statue’s pedestal), so too was DKNY conceived. The mural became a New York City landmark and immediately elevated the DKNY into one of the most recognizable brand identities in the city, the country, and, arguably, the world. The mural stayed in place for over twenty years, ultimately becoming as much a part of New York as the famous cityscape that it depicted.

GW: It’s just incredible, your peerless canon of work! I hope Short Film you a sneak-peek of the three- year-project that was your creation— the masterpiece— Fontainebleau Las Vegas. It is absolutely brilliant. This better be an entry to Oscar/s Short Film Category for 2025.