Daily LInks
1. Why the pre-owned luxury watch market is thriving. “Prices are increasing — especially when you look at prices in the primary market, and the price level of the primary market is one of the key driving forces of the prices of the secondary market. We expect in the long term the secondary prices to remain stable — and go up again.” – Read More on CNN
2. Consumer interest in luxury goods rising. 15% of Americans purchased luxury goods in the last 12 months, up from 9% in 2021, according to YouGov’s report, “The US Luxury Boom 2024.” – Read More on Chain Store Age
3. Chanel CEO Says Price Hikes Driven by Inflation, Craftsmanship. The fashion label, known for its haute couture designs and fragrances, takes account of inflation and its high standards for materials and craftsmanship in setting prices. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Drake threatened with lawsuit over diss track featuring AI Tupac. Tupac’s legal team is ready to take Drake to court over the release of “Taylor Made,” Drake’s recently released song featuring the AI-generated voices of Shakur and Snoop Dogg. – Read More on the Verge
5. RELATED READ: With the Rise of GenAI, a Federal Right of Publicity is Taking Center Stage. As deepfakes, fake-swapping apps, and AI-powered avatars start to become more prominent, one recurring issue centers on how individuals can protect their likenesses from being used without their authorization. – Read More on TFL
6. Hermes quarterly sales jump 17% on strong China demand. “Our more well-off clients continued to visit our stores [in China],” said du Halgouet. Globally, the leather goods division, the company’s largest, grew by 20% in the quarter, driven by new models such as the Constance Elan bag. – Read More on Yahoo
1. Why People Really Buy Upcycled Products. Our findings revealed that comments on upcycled items more frequently mentioned aspects related to creativity and sustainability than those on non-upcycled items. – Read More on HBR
2. Designer brands owed millions after Matchesfashion collapse. Designer brands including Gucci and Anya Hindmarch have been left millions of pounds out of pocket and some customers will not get refunds after online fashion site Matchesfashion collapsed owing more than £210m last month. – Read More on the Guardian
3. RELATED READ: A Fashion & Retail Bankruptcy Tracker. A running look at some of the most recent fashion and retail-related bankruptcy filings. – Read More on TFL
4. Prada Posts Higher Revenue Despite Luxury Slowdown. “While the industry is experiencing new dynamics, we retain our ambition to deliver solid, sustainable and above market growth,” Chief Executive Andrea Guerra said. – Read More on the WSJ
5. Etsy crochet buyers say AI-made images are being used to sell disappointing patterns. Etsy broadly allows AI-generated content, to the dismay of some sellers. However, Etsy requires sellers to accurately depict their products in listing photos. – Read More on NBC
6. Tuscany’s luxury suppliers feel chill from China and changing trends. Waning Chinese demand for luxury goods has compounded the problems of Tuscany’s traditional leather companies as the big fashion houses they supply reshape their strategies, leading to painful layoffs that could be just the start. – Read More on Reuters
1. Gucci Owner Kering Expects Sharp Drop in Operating Profit After China Weighs on Sales. Kering expects sharply lower operating profit in the first half after sales slumped in the first three months as the company grapples with sluggish demand, particularly in China. – Read More on the WSJ
2. Kering could pursue “incremental M&A,” says CFO. French luxury group Kering has a healthy balance sheet that would allow for “incremental” mergers and acquisitions, Chief Financial Officer Armelle Poulou told analysts on Tuesday. – Read More on Reuters
3. Is Generative AI built on theft? The companies behind this wonder of tech are facing allegations of using copyrighted material to build their large language models. But will the courts consider it fair use? – Hear More on the Economist
4. RELATED READ: OpenAI Argues Fair Use in Bid to Trim Authors’ Copyright Lawsuits. Shedding light on how it views its use of others’ works, OpenAI cites the 2021 decision in Google v. Oracle. – Read More on TFL
5. Four innovations helping the fashion industry embrace the circular economy. Global pre-owned clothing sales reached $211 billion in 2023, a 19% increase on the previous year, with a report by GlobalData for secondhand clothing resale site ThredUp predicting the market could reach $350bn by 2027. – Read More on WEForum
6. The Rise and Fall of ESG. Interest in ESG peaked in 2023 and its sharp decline seemed to have begun. A recent Wall Street Journal news story was entitled, “The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG.” – Read More on Forbes
1. Retail has a new solution to the returns problem: returnless refunds. Behind the policy is “a formula of everything you buy and the projected net profit that the retailer is going to make, or gross margin, on that particular customer.” – Read More on the FT
2. TikTok Shop expands its secondhand luxury fashion offering to the UK. Since launching TikTok Shop in 2022, the platform has sold around $1 billion or more worth of products. – Read More on TechCrunch
3. How green are your trainers? Unveiling Team Japan’s official wear, Asics said the jackets, trousers and other items athletes will wear on the podium and at press conferences would have the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during production stamped on them, in a nod to the green goals put forth by the host city. – Read More on Reuters
4. Sustainable Fashion Has Lost Its Meaning. Greenwashing has made it so that small changes by a brand, like switching to recycled polyester or organic cotton, supersede the fact that the amount of clothing produced is still growing, the amount of textile waste is increasing, and workers’ wages and conditions are worsening. – Read More on Yahoo
5. RELATED READ: Fashion’s Buzzy Tech Initiatives, Alone, Won’t Solve its Sustainability Issues. A small – but heavily advertised – recycled capsule collection from a fast fashion titan, here or certified circular series of items from a multi-billion-dollar company, there, is mathematically immaterial. – Read More on TFL
6. Armani ‘Doesn’t Rule Out’ Merger or IPO in Succession Plan. After fighting for years to keep Giorgio Armani SpA independent amid the mergers and acquisitions that reshaped the luxury sector, Armani now says he won’t rule out his firm someday combining with a bigger rival or listing on an exchange. – Read More on Bloomberg
1. LVMH accounts for bigger share of French exports than agricultural sector. The €23.5B value of its goods heading abroad last year beat the 3.2 percent contribution of the entire agricultural sector, reinforcing the importance of the luxury sector to France’s trade balance. – Read More on the FT
2. Superfakes: The illicit world of luxury counterfeits. A dive into the complex network of high-end replica handbags and delves into the billion-dollar industry of counterfeit luxury goods. – See More on ABC News
3. Newsweek is making generative AI a fixture in its newsroom. “Newsweek believes that AI tools can help journalists work faster, smarter and more creatively,” reads the updated standards page.” – Read More on Nieman Lab
4. Mytheresa Sees Sales Gains in Struggling World of Luxury E-commerce. “The results underscore that Mytheresa is not just a luxury e-commerce platform. We build a community for luxury enthusiasts and create desirability through digital and physical experiences.” – Read More on Yahoo
5. Boards Still Have an ESG Expertise Gap — But They’re Improving. Recent developments show a positive shift, with the percentage of Fortune 100 board members possessing relevant ESG credentials rising from 29% to 43%. – Read More on HBR
6. World Retail Congress tackles climate change and AI. Retailers not adapting to the challenges of climate change will only increase their cost of doing business, Carrefour CEO Alexandre Bompard said. – Read More on Axios
1. How One Author Pushed the Limits of AI Copyright. “We’re seeing the Copyright Office struggling with where to draw the line” when it comes to granting registrations for works involving AI. – Read More on Wired
2. Luxury brands have a new headache in China: Stingy shoppers are returning their goods, erasing up to 75% of their sales value. “I can imagine there are plenty of people in the luxury category taking out and showing off a luxury item for an evening, earning the status, and then returning it at no cost.” – Read More on Fortune
3. China on Track to Become World’s Largest Luxury Market. After fluctuating significantly during the pandemic, China’s personal luxury market is believed to have rebounded to $69B last year, due largely to a recovery in international travel, PwC said in the report. – Read More on Caixin Global
4. The AI hype bubble is deflating. Now comes the hard part. The road to widespread adoption and business success is still looking long, twisty and full of roadblocks, say tech executives, technologists and financial analysts. – Read More on the Washington Post
5. Spanish Beauty Group Puig Targets Close to $15 Billion Valuation in IPO. The company aims to raise up to €3B, with the controlling shareholder, which is in turn controlled by the holding company of the Puig family, offering €1.36B and €1.25B being raised via new shares. – Read More on the WSJ
6. Three policy changes that need to happen to make fashion more sustainable. We should be eliminating sales tax on secondhand items, providing tax credits for adopting circular business models, and spurring sustainable innovation with government grants. – Read More on Fast Co.
1. Ralph Lauren’s ‘cluster approach’ to growing its business in China. China is a key market for Ralph Lauren, and its signature products – polo shirts emblazoned with the company’s iconic logo, cable-knit sweaters, and blazers – are now a hit with Chinese customers amid changing consumer tastes and turbulence in the luxury sector. – Read More on SCMP
2. Louis Vuitton and Dior Are Still Wardrobe Staples. Investors have seized on LVMH’s performance as a sign of stability for the luxury industry. But it will probably be among the best. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. What’s driving China’s unstoppable secondhand luxury market? China’s secondhand luxury market is tipped to grow to $30 billion (217 billion RMB) in 2025 from $8 billion (58 billion RMB) in 2020 thanks to celebrities, young consumers, and tech advances. – Read More on Jing Daily
4. RELATED READ: From Gucci to Rolex Certified, Luxury Brands Continue to Test Resale. While luxury brands have traditionally been able to exercise almost complete control over the marketing and distribution of their offerings, the rise – and robustness – of luxury resale has chipped away at that. – Read More on TFL
5. “Pablo Escobar” cannot be registered as a trademark, EU court rules. The EU General Court determined that the trademark would be perceived as being against the “fundamental values and moral standards” that prevail in Spain, an EU member state. – Read More on the FT
6. Alfa Romeo changes name of new ‘Milano’ model to ease tensions with Italy. “Although we think the ‘Milano’ name met all legal requirements, we took the decision to change it to ease relations with the Italian government,” Alfa Romeo’s CEO Jean-Philippe Imparato said in a press conference. – Read More on Reuters
1. Temu likely to face tougher online content rules as EU users soar. Under the European Union’s Digital Services Act, companies with more than 45M users are labelled very large online platforms and are required to do more to fight illegal and harmful content as well as counterfeit products on their platforms. – Read More on Reuters
2. RELATED READ: Digital Services Act Could Prompt Penalties of 6% of Brands’ Annual Revenue. The Digital Services Act will counter the sale of illegal products and services on online marketplaces and aims to combat illegal and harmful content on online platforms, such as social media. – Read More on TFL
3. How a Supply Chain Startup Is Making Recycling in the Apparel Industry Scalable. “We’ve diverted more than two million textiles from landfills to date. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what this could be.” – Read More on Inc.
4. LVMH Sales Growth Slows Along With Demand for Handbags. Organic revenue at the luxury group’s fashion and leather goods unit (its biggest division) rose 2% in the first quarter, Paris-based LVMH said. That compares with 18% growth a year earlier at the unit. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. Timberland loses US court bid to trademark boot-design features. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision that features of the boots including its sole color, eyelets and stitching were not distinctive enough to identify the boots as Timberland products. – Read More on Reuters
1. Hermes Can Surpass Vuitton as Luxury’s Biggest Brand, Citi Says. The Birkin bag maker’s sales are set to hit the “symbolic” €20 billion level by 2027 or before, Thomas Chauvet wrote in a note dated April 12 – a milestone that the Louis Vuitton fashion label reached in 2022. Hermes generated group revenue of €13.4 billion in 2023. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. AI-generated models could bring more diversity to the fashion industry — or leave it with less. Modeling agencies and companies may be taking advantage of models by using their photos to train AI systems without their consent or compensation. – Read More on the AP
3. Apple denies violating US court order in Epic Games lawsuit. The Apple filing criticized what it called an attempt by Epic to make Apple’s “tools and technologies available to developers for free.” Epic, it said, wanted the court “to micromanage Apple’s business operations in a way that would increase Epic’s profitability.” – Read More on Reuters
4. Retail sales rose sharply in the first quarter — and could boost U.S. GDP. Sales at retailers rose a robust 0.7% in March and outlays in the prior month were also stronger than previously reported, indicating the economy got a boost from consumer spending in the first quarter. – Read More on MarketWatch
5. Investors are growing increasingly wary of AI. Both private investment — that is, investments in startups from VCs — and corporate investment — mergers and acquisitions — in the AI industry were on the downswing in 2023 versus the year prior. – Read More on TechCrunch
6. RELATED READ: A Running List of AI Funding and M&A. Not limited to having an impact in Silicon Valley, alone, generative AI is bringing with it the potential “to change how everything from the written word to art is created.” – Read More on TFL
1. How the U.S. government is regulating AI. The Senate Task Force on AI, established in 2019, has passed at least 15 bills into law that focus on research and risk assessment. But when compared with measures passed by the EU in 2024, the U.S. regulatory environment appears to be relatively relaxed. – Read More on CNBC
2. How Express went from being a top apparel retailer to on the brink of bankruptcy. Companies like Express are dealing with mounting pressure from e-commerce giants, many of whom are international companies but are stepping up marketing in the U.S. – Read More on Modern Retail
3. Spanish Beauty Group Puig Targets $15B Valuation in IPO. At $15 billion, Puig would be worth more than some beauty heavyweights such as Coty or Shiseido. But it would remain a relatively small player compared to industry giants such as Estée Lauder. – Read More on the WSJ
4. Europe stands firm against US-driven ESG backlash. Steady investor demand in Europe for environmental and socially responsible investments and wide-ranging regulation are helping Europe’s finance industry withstand political pressures that have pushed some U.S. peers to backtrack on their green agendas. – Read More on Reuters
5. Founder of Eponymous Luxury Fashion Empire Cavalli Dies at Age of 83. Italian designer Roberto Cavalli, known for his slinky leopard-print dresses and other flamboyant garments, has died at aged 83. – Read More on Bloomberg