Daily LInks
1. As Covid-19 Disrupts Global Supply Chains, Will Companies Turn to India? “While U.S. companies are looking for alternatives to China, India becomes a natural destination. You have an English speaking workforce, highly skilled, the cost of labor is cheap and more important it is a growing market of 1.3 billion people whose disposable income is growing.” – Read More on HBR
2. Four trends in luxury accelerated by the pandemic: As status-seeking consumers feel the financial effects of the outbreak, we can see they are beginning to turn to more affordable luxury alternatives and payment plans. Globally, three in 10 consumers who have delayed buying luxury items because of COVID-19 say they will look for flexible payment options in the financial aftermath of the outbreak – being 54 percent more likely to say this than the average. – Read More on American Marketer
3. Are clothes about to get more expensive? Within the current system, brands tend to put items on sale when they’re still very much in demand, in order to make room for the next season’s products. (Many winter coats go on sale before winter weather is actually over.) This has trained consumers to wait for sales and expect to buy products at cheap, discounted prices. As a result, clothing prices have consistently decreased over the last few decades. – Read More on Fast Co.
4. Digitalization the way forward for global apparel makers in post-coronavirus era as bankruptcies reshape industry: Manufacturers that survive the downturn will turn to technology to streamline production processes and become nimble. – Read More on SCMP
5. The future of fashion: Will it ever be the same after lockdown? There will be many losses in the coming months. Some of those tumbling over the edge will be household names, and that’s deeply unsettling because of all the jobs lost, but also because they’re part of our national identity. – Read More on the Telegraph
1. European Luxury Is More Chinese Than Ever: Amid all the uncertainty about how the Covid crisis will change business, it is probably safe to say that designer brands will be more reliant than ever on sales to Chinese shoppers—and on Chinese turf. – Read More on WSJ
2. How Will the Pandemic Change the Fashion Industry? Even before the coronavirus pandemic the fashion industry suffered from overproduction and overstock, according to Stephanie Phair, chair at the British Fashion Council. The global lockdown and its impact on retail presents “an opportunity to think about slowing down, focusing on creativity, quality and sustainability,” Phair says. – See More on Bloomberg
3. Europe’s luxury goods capitals reopen to new reality: Now brands such as Chanel, Gucci and Louis Vuitton will have to cater more to their local clientele while also seeking to understand just how deeply the public health emergency has altered customers’ desires and shopping preferences. – Read More on the FT
4. Shopping habits of generation Z could spell end of fast fashion: “Young, values-oriented [shoppers] are looking for more responsible ways to consume. The pandemic has amplified this. More and more consumers will be comfortable with variety in their consumption choices – from buying new to circular options including rental and resale. A ‘divided wardrobe’ is inevitable.” – Read More on the Guardian
5. Things keep getting worse for fashion rental platforms: “As the retail sector emerges from the Covid-19-induced shutdown, customers’ appetite for rental apparel may diminish. High unemployment and massive discounts on clothing not sold in March and April will reduce the value proposition for rentals.” – Read More on Glossy
1. The 3D artists helping fashion through Covid-19: How can you put on a fashion show without models? Or create a product line with no real materials? Those are the questions facing fashion brands and design companies as the world adjusts to the realities brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. – See More on BBC
2. Rebuilding the Nigerian Fashion Industry After Coronavirus: While the style capital of Africa remains shuttered, Nigerian fashion insiders have an ambitious plan to forge an independent path in a post-COVID world. “A lot of designers that depended on China, for example, are beginning to rethink their production cycle, resource access, and processes of creating.” – Read More on Okay Africa
3. Why Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada and other luxury brands were playing to win China’s 520 game: Luxury brands often create localized campaigns catering to Chinese customers – think Lunar New Year and Singles’ Day offers – this year’s 520 activities seem even more competitive than usual as luxury brands are eager to capture every possible opportunity to entice customers out of quarantine and make up for the loss in the first quarter of the year. – Read More on SCMP
4. Luxury Trendspotting Isn’t Easy in the Covid-19 Age: Masks have sparked a huge debate in the luxury industry as to whether to cash in. The danger is that luxury groups would be seen as profiteering from a health-care emergency. What’s more, according to consultants at McKinsey & Co., consumers shift to more subtle “silent luxury,” rather than in-your-face bling, after a large-scale crisis with a heavy emotional toll. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. Crocs Are Back In Style. And Not Just Because of Coronavirus: Crocs was the only footwear brand among the top 30 tracked by researchers at NPD Group to record sales growth in March, a 14% increase compared with the same month in 2019. It was also one of the two companies, along with sheepskin boot-maker Ugg, to log growth in April—a month when many stores were closed. – Read More on WSJ
1. The pandemic is changing every aspect of shopping: From store layouts to how jeans are folded. Retailers that spent years trying to get customers to linger are reimagining their stores for a grab-and-go future to make shopping faster, easier and safer amid long-term shifts in consumer expectations and habits. – Read More on the Washington Post
2. How Crocs turned a widely-mocked clog into a billion-dollar brand: People who love to hate Crocs had cause to celebrate in 2008, when investors were writing the company off as a passing fad. Crocs lost over $185 million that year. The stock plunged to just over $1 a share. But over the next decade, Crocs sold 700 million pairs of shoes. The clogs have been strutting down runways at fashion shows. Limited edition Crocs are selling for $1,000 on the resale market. – See More on CNBC
3. “Fashion Must Stand for More Than Simply Selling a Product.” Top luxury designers on why they’re collaborating with artists like never before. ““I think bigger brands have a duty to support emerging creatives now more than ever. The current situation favors the bigger brands, or brands that have more funding. So, I am leveraging the teams and resources that we are lucky enough to have access to, to help.” – Read More on Artnet
4. RETRO READ: Fashion Houses Continue to Embrace Art, Helping to Boost Culture and Potentially, Their Own Price Tags. Luxury fashion brands know that they need a point– or better yet, points – of differentiation if they want to enhance their images of exclusivity and charge higher prices for their products, and studies have suggested that an association with art allows commercial brands to be perceived as more luxurious. – Read More on TFL
5. Canceled orders, delayed payments: How supplier collaboration could reverse apparel’s nose dive. How apparel retailers and brands react to the falling demand will directly affect the amount and variety of manufacturing capacity available in major apparel producing countries when demand returns, and therefore the future of fashion sourcing. – Read More on Supply Chain Dive
1. Department stores are dying. Could this shopping app replace them? The app, created by the former COO of StitchFix, offers recommendations that are tailored to your preferences. You start by taking a quick survey about your style, then the algorithm uses AI and machine learning to identify your aesthetic preferences, from your favorite colors to your profound hatred of off-the-shoulder dresses. – Read More on Fast Co.
2. The Fashion Industry’s Reset: An Important Message from the British Fashion Council and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. “The COVID-19 pandemic is hitting the fashion industry from every angle and severely impacting all of the global fashion capitals, and while there is no immediate end in sight, there is an opportunity to rethink and reset the way in which we all work and show our collections.” – Read More on the BFC
3. How Betsey Johnson Built a Fashion Empire and Lost Her Name: After the 2008 crash—and, according to “Betsey,” creative clashes with the new owners—the Johnson brand found itself $48.8 million in debt … In August, 2010, the shoe entrepreneur Steve Madden scooped up Johnson’s debt—and, eventually, control over her name—for an undisclosed sum. – Read More on the New Yorker
4. RETRO READ: The Dangers and Hurdles that Come With Fashion’s Penchant for the Eponymous Label. Given the enduring success of so many of the brands’ that are named after their founders, it is easy to forgive new designers for thinking that their own name is the most optimal one to put on their brand. However, when put into practice, the eponymous label often leads to legal issues, and in at least a few cases, serves more as an example of what not to do than a roadmap for success. – Read More on TFL
5. Fashion is Facing Mountains of Unsold Inventory—Is the Pre-Order Model a Viable Fix? An estimated 100 billion items of clothing are made each year for a global population of 7.8 billion people. Around 20 percent goes unsold, and cast-offs may be incinerated or landfilled. – Read More on Vogue
6. Victoria’s Secret is closing a quarter of its stores: Victoria’s Secret is permanently closing a quarter of its stores in the United States and Canada over the next few months. It’s another blow to the beleaguered retailer just weeks after its $525 million dollar acquisition deal with Sycamore Partners was scrapped. – Read More on CNN
1. North American Shoppers Slowly Return to Stores After Lockdowns: Visits to U.S. and Canadian retailers have risen for two straight weeks. For the week ended May 15, foot traffic to shops was 92 percent below the same period a year ago, compared with a 95 percent falloff in the previous seven days. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Fashion Week Isn’t Cancelled — It’s Happening on Animal Crossing: Right now, fashion’s most powerful global platform is a video game. Nintendo’s real-time life simulation game (launched on 20 March) enables fashion designers to virtually showcase new or existing collections in the form of downloadable outfits, designed within the game. – Read More on British Vogue
3. RETRO READ: With the Video Game Market on Track to Reach $300 Billion, Luxury Brands Want to Make Real Money from Virtual Clothes. The market for video games, as a whole, is a big one. As of 2018, it was worth $43.8 billion, according to comScore data, which is greater than the estimated $28.8 billion figure tied to television and film streaming services. – Read More on TFL
4. Iris van Herpen Imagines a Fashion Future in Which Clothes Are Only Made on Demand: Sustainability has become such an important factor within every industry, and fashion has to catch up by … using the knowledge of other industries and start partnering with them to improve fashion’s footprint and to change the way the whole system is working. Ultimately we have to look at a system where mass production isn’t the way to make things.” – Read More on Vogue
5. What will be the future success of fashion retail in the digital age: “The technical work of combining data with inspired marketing should not be underestimated in today’s fashion market. There is a complex task to create and drive a new consumer conversation in the twenty-first century.” – Read More on Forbes
1. How luxury brands can earn the loyalty of younger customers: It has become much easier to quickly move affordable, high-quality goods from design to market, effectively shifting the very definition of luxury. A personalized touch enhances a customer’s emotional connection to a luxury brand and speaks to the “why” behind the relationship. – Read More on American Marketer
2. ‘The response has been mind-blowing’: How one corner of the fashion industry turned a crisis into a boom. Against the odds, small, independent businesses have seen sales boom since the lockdown, as customers actively seek to champion smaller brands. Is how we shop changing for good? – Read More on the Telegraph
3. Coronavirus crushes Asia’s garment industry: Since the 1960s, Asia has grown into the world’s garment factory, sending about $670 billion worth of clothes, shoes and bags a year to Europe, the United States and richer Asian countries, according to the International Labour Organization. – Read More on Reuters
4. Albanian garment industry unravels amid coronavirus pandemic: “Some might survive, but makers of shirts, fashion and shoes have stopped. I see the last one expiring in end-June and even if they work day and night we cannot resume before September.” – Read More on Reuters
5.Beauty experts weigh in on the future of selfcare: The future for the beauty industry is extremely uncertain since most of the work is super high-touch, which might mean that people are nervous to get back to the salon even when they’re able to do so. – Read More on CNBC
1. Can fast fashion’s $2.5 trillion supply chain be stitched back together? Supply chains will be different in the future. Clients are already trying to shorten the time it takes for an ordered shirt to arrive in shops, boosting their flexibility in the face of demand shocks. “The last couple of weeks have shown the vulnerability of the supply chain . . . and accelerated the realization that you need to be closer to the source.” – Read More on the FT
2. Fate of Luxury Depends on China, But Continued Success There is Not Guaranteed: In 2019 Chinese consumers alone accounted for 90% of the growth in the personal luxury goods market or some €19 billion ($21 billion) in sales. They also generated 35 percent of global luxury spending. – Read More on Forbes
3. This breakdown of retail sales data shows why Amazon is leading the stock market: “In typical Internet fashion, a winner-take-most model played out with Amazon now accounting for 40 percent of US [gross merchandise volume].” In the first quarter, Amazon’s net sales jumped 26 percent year over year to $75.5 billion. Meanwhile, on April 23 Target said digital sales were up 275 percent month-to-date. – Read More on CNBC
4. Jessica Simpson, Heelys Brand Owner Casts ‘Going Concern’ Doubts: Sequential said it has enough cash to cover its operating expenses for at least a year, but can’t determine the full impact of the pandemic as retail sales in the U.S. plunge to record lows. Many retailers that carry Sequential’s brands were closed in March, April and May, denting revenues for the licensing company. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. RETRO READ: How Jessica Simpson Quietly Built a Billion-Dollar Fashion Brand. The market for celebrity fashion brands has proven a crowded one over the years, with most collections tied to famous figures fizzling out with the same frequency as they appear. How exactly did Simpson manage it? One branding expert says it has to do with the star’s ability to connect with real consumers on a real level. – Read More on TFL
6. Gucci and Louis Vuitton Reopen, but Their Best Customers Are Stuck at Home: With Chinese shoppers forced to stay at home, luxury spending inside China has surged. But luxury companies say that overall spending by Chinese customers is down when compared with their pre-pandemic shopping inside and outside the country. – Read More on the WSJ
1. Fashion’s digital transformation: Some apparel, fashion, and luxury companies won’t survive the current crisis; others will emerge better positioned for the future. Much will depend on their digital and analytics capabilities. – Read More on McKinsey
2. Luxury Reseller Raises $15 Million During Retail Shutdown: Rebag received $15 million in fresh capital even as its stores remain closed due to the virus lockdown. This brings the startup’s total funding to $68 million. “We offer luxury goods at a significant discount. I think that point, in a recessionary environment, is going to be very important because fully priced items may become very difficult to achieve for a lot of people.” – Read More on Bloomberg
3. RETRO READ: The Most Exciting Segment in Fashion Right Now is the Resale Market. What is driving this push of venture capital and brand acquisition interest? It is an array of factors, not least of which is the ease and accessibility of luxury resale sites. In fact, many of these resale sites are actually standing in place of the slow-to-adapt luxury brands, themselves, which refuse to offer up many of their handbags for sale online. – Read More on TFL
4. Apparel faces post-pandemic decline even as stores reopen: As stores in some areas of the country move to reopen, there’s evidence of some pent-up demand. But apparel retailers must brace themselves for a post-pandemic environment with consumers wary of crowded spaces and hesitant about spending. – Read More on Retail Dive
5. ‘Revenge spending’ by the rich could drive luxury recovery: “We’re seeing people come back to the stores quite quickly. It’s not yet at the same levels yet as it was before the crisis. But revenge spending is happening — and also to some degree in Europe. The people who are coming back into the stores are strongly motivated to buy.” – Read More on CNBC
6. How Fashion Manufacturing Will Change After the Coronavirus: A growing number of industry experts believe that fast, on-demand manufacturing is an important part of the next normal for fashion. “By using an on-demand model, our customers no longer need to order hundreds of something that they may never sell. With on-demand manufacturing there is no inventory, no fabric waste, and no warehousing.” – Read More on Forbes
7. Can Indian Manufacturing Capitalize on the Flight From China? In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, can India benefit from a global effort to become less dependent on supply chains rooted in China? The geopolitical moment may look auspicious, but without overhauling its economic policies India will struggle to keep pace with nimbler rivals like Vietnam and Thailand. – Read More on WSJ
1. What Good Business Looks Like: How a CEO or company showed up in 2020 will be a new and powerful yardstick by which they are measured. Companies that demonstrate a lack of empathy, that don’t stretch themselves to serve others, that remain silent or self-serving, whose leaders refuse to share in the economic pain, risk finding their brands and reputations permanently scarred. – Read More on HBR
2.Regenerative Agriculture Can Change the Fashion Industry—and the World. But What Is It? Regenerative farming is essentially the new organic or sustainable farming, but it goes a few steps further. In addition to omitting chemicals, regenerative agriculture actually replenishes and strengthens the plants, the soil, and the nature surrounding it. And because most of our clothes started as plants, “regenerative ag” is becoming a shiny new buzzword in the sustainable fashion conversation. – Read More on Vogue
3. Covid-19 is a nightmare for independent fashion designers: Independent designers often operate on tight budgets, using sales from one collection to fund the next. Many still rely on selling wholesale to retailers for the bulk of their earnings, and may sell just a few items straight to shoppers. Either way, any delays or disruptions in their sales can interrupt their cash flow and play havoc with the whole business. – Read More on Quartz
4. How Walmart, Gap and other fashion retailers hit by lockdowns put women at risk of slavery in developing countries by not paying their bills: Some fashion retailers have committed to paying for orders in full, but others have not, causing garment factories to lay off staff, who are mostly women. – Read More on SCMP
5. RELATED READ: The Global Garment Supply Chain Faces Significant Job Uncertainty Due to Coronavirus. With so many jobs on the line, working conditions risk quickly deteriorating at the hands of unscrupulous employers, particularly as worker desperation rises. “This can result in modern slavery, including situations of forced labor,” they state, noting the already-precarious conditions that are regularly created when “purchasing practices [by large apparel companies] put extreme pressure on suppliers [by way of] extremely tight production windows, short-term contracts, last-minute or short-term orders and severe payment terms.” – Read More on TFL