Daily LInks
1. Luxury goods sales in world’s two largest markets waning. The growth of the global luxury goods industry in recent years has relied heavily on the Chinese and N. American markets, but the recent weaker-than-expected sales data in the two markets suggest that the global luxury consumption boom is waning. – See More on China Daily
2. Senators look to tuck AI, social media into huge defense bill. “We’ll take our first steps of the year on AI legislation,” Schumer said in a floor speech this week. – Read More on the Washington Post
3. Bluebell takes Kering stake in move to push for change. Bluebell Capital has taken a stake in French luxury group Kering and is pushing for change, including looking at a tie-up with Cartier-owner Richemont, two sources close to the matter told Reuters on Wednesday. – Read More on Reuters
4. As Congress grapples with AI regulation, will California step up? With a gridlocked Congress, some lawmakers and tech experts see the much more agile California Legislature as a key player in the debate. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he’s starting to focus on the issue. – Read More on the SF Chronicle
5. Adidas and Ye’s Secret Battle Over a $100M Marketing Fund. Adidas alleges the rapper diverted $75M from the fund, while Ye claims the company copied his designs to make its own shoes. – Read More on Bloomberg
6. RELATED READ: No TRO for Adidas in Yeezy Case, Parties Drop Claims Over Frozen Funds. The case got its start in November 2022 when adidas sought an order of attachment from the court to prevent the $75 million that it provided to Ye’s companies in 2022, alone, for the purpose of marketing their now-defunct Yeezy partnership from being moved or commingled. – Read More on TFL
7. Fast Fashion Report Cards Show What’s Really in Your Clothes. Polyester makes up 64% of Shein’s materials mix, 21% at H&M. – Read More on Bloomberg
1. Why China could become the luxury industry’s next sore spot. A post-pandemic U.S. splurge had already shown signs of flagging, leaving investors to pin their hopes on Chinese shoppers to sustain the months-long spending spree that has boosted the sector’s fortunes. – Read More on Reuters
2. Brand collabs overload: Are solo launches the ultimate luxury? Luxury brands such as Dunhill are opting against pursuing growth this way because they do not deem it necessary. Furthermore, the dilution of premium luxury that high-street or lower-end brand crossovers potentially create is seen as not worth the consumer-base expansion. – Read More on Jing
3. Farfetch Seeks Tech That Enriches, Evolves the Digital Luxury Experience. Farfetch is researching and developing 3D assets and experiences, such as virtual try-on, which has been working well so far with categories such as watches and sneakers. – Read More on Yahoo
4. RELATED READ: Farfetch Sheds Light on M&A, AI Tech, Resale Ambitions in New SEC Filing. In Dec. 2021, Farfetch acquired 100 percent of Allure Systems Corp and its fully owned subsidiary, Allure Systems Research France, which uses artificial intelligence to create high-quality on-model images via 360 degrees renderings, allowing retailers and brands to scale quality imagery with automation. – Read More on TFL
5. Next Gucci CEO may have toughest job in luxury. Gucci’s revenue will grow by a meagre 1.5% in 2023, according to analysts’ estimates gathered by Visible Alpha. That’s way below the 10% and 15% rise brokers are penciling in for Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior respectively. – Read More on Reuters
6. Yuga Labs’ intensifying IP takedowns spur CryptoPunk backlash. “There’s still a lot of unanswered questions in relation to copyright: What does it mean to get an NFT? What do you get when you buy an NFT?” – Read More on Blockworks
1. Taco John’s, Taco Bell Terminate ‘Taco Tuesday’ Trademark Tussle. Restaurant chain Taco John’s said Tuesday it is giving up its fight defending its trademark of the phrase “Taco Tuesday.” Fast-food giant Taco Bell filed a petition in May with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeking to cancel the trademark. – Read More in the WSJ
2. A Blessing and a Boogeyman: Advertisers Warily Embrace A.I. Machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence that uses data and algorithms to imitate how humans learn, has quietly powered advertising for years. Madison Avenue has used it to target specific audiences, sell and buy ad space, offer user support, create logos and streamline its operations. – Read More on the New York Times
3. Artist Michael Moebius Is Suing Fast Fashion Retailer Shein in a Landmark Case for Artists Going After Multinational Companies. The German artist Michael Moebius, who was recently awarded $120M in a lawsuit against hundreds of foreign companies, is taking the Chinese retailer Shein to court in a case that could set new precedents for how such companies can be sued in the U.S. – Read More on ArtNet
4. How fast-fashion behemoth Shein became so controversial. A combination of tech savvy, controlled supply chains and tariff relief have all helped Chinese online retailer Shein become a fast-fashion behemoth. – Hear More on NPR
5. It’s Barbie’s World and Consumers Are Living in It. Quiet luxury has decamped to the Hamptons for the summer. In its place is an explosion of pink, spandex, fake tan and bleached-blonde hair. Yes, Barbiecore is stronger than ever. – Read More on Bloomberg
6. Gucci CEO Marco Bizzarri to Leave in Leadership Shuffle. “We are building a more robust organization to fully capture the growth of the global luxury market,” said Pinault. “I am confident that the changes we are announcing today will set Kering on a path to success and profitable growth over the long term.” – Read More on the WSJ
1. Luxury tests limits of its immunity to downturns. In one sense, luxury is insulated from cyclical downturns. The top 5% of wealthiest shoppers who are probably less sensitive to inflation drove around 40% of global luxury sales last year. – Read More on Reuters
2. China’s new wave of ‘live commerce’ relying less on influencers. Livestreaming, including live commerce, has become deeply entrenched in Chinese social media. The livestreaming audience topped 750M viewers in December, according to Chinese research company Wind. This represents 70% of Chinese internet users. – Read More on Nikkei Asia
3. Proposed legislation could alter e-commerce purchases of low-value items and shift competition among retailers. U.S. lawmakers have asked the same questions and proposed legislation to close a trade loophole which allows goods valued under $800 to be imported free of duties and scrutiny from restrictions on forced labor. – Read More on Reuters
4. RELATED READ: Regulating the Industry – A Running Tracker of Fashion-Focused Legislation. The U.S. is seeing a rise in fashion-centric legislation that is worth keeping an eye on. – Read More on TFL
5. Efforts to Rein in AI Tap Lesson From Social Media: Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late. Social media was more than a decade old before efforts to curb its ill effects began in earnest. With artificial intelligence, lawmakers, activists and executives aren’t waiting that long. – Read More on the WSJ
6. How judges, not politicians, could dictate America’s AI rules. The FTC could require OpenAI to pay fines or delete any data that has been illegally obtained, and to delete the algorithms that used the illegally collected data. – Read More on MIT Tech Review
1. AI learned from their work. Now they want compensation. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and image-generator Dall-E, as well as Google’s Bard and Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion, were all trained on billions of news articles, books, images, videos and blog posts scraped from the internet, much of which is copyrighted. – Read More on the Washington Post
2. ChatGPT and Deepfake-Creating Apps: A Running List of Key AI-Lawsuits. The rising adoption of AI across industries (including fashion, retail. luxury, etc.) that has come about in recent years is bringing with it no shortage of lawsuits, as parties look to navigate the budding issues that these relatively new models raise for companies and creators, alike. – Read More on TFL
3. Luxury’s China Dependency. Demand for the biggest luxury brands (such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Hermes) could outpace that of entry-level peers (Coach, Hugo Boss and Michael Kors), but the latter group should still record faster revenue gains and greater profitability than mass-market counterparts. – Watch More on Bloomberg
4. Can A.I. Invent? This is far more than a philosophical debate about human versus machine intelligence. The role, and legal status, of A.I. in invention also have implications for the future path of innovation and global competitiveness, experts say. – Read More on the New York Times
5. Italy’s luxury groups set aside rivalries to keep it local. Control of the supply chain has become increasingly important for luxury brands, ensuring products get to shops on time and avoiding reputational risks linked to sourcing of raw materials or labor conditions. – Read More on Reuters
6. How China’s reopening fueled a rebound in Swatch Group sales. Revenue reached four billion francs, ahead of analysts’ estimates. Sales in Hong Kong tripled while mainland China grew by double digits. – Read More on SCMP
1. Tom Ford and Savage X Fenty: Major brands giving ‘bare minimum’ are revealed in transparency ranking. The world’s largest fashion activism movement has ranked 250 different brands on how much information they share about their supply chain and environmental policies, practices and impacts. – Read More on EuroNews
2. Try Before You Buy: Exploring the Magic of AR Fashion Apps. With the rapid advancement of technology, AR fashion apps have emerged as a groundbreaking solution, merging the realms of fashion and virtual reality. These innovative apps harness the power of AR to create virtual dressing rooms that allow users to try on clothes virtually. – Read More on Medium
3. AAFA, IAF among campaigners for ‘clothing label modernization’. The organizations claim that there are now digital options, including QR code labels, that can reduce the amount of content that these standards mandate the business create. – Read More on Apparel Resources
4. RELATED READ: Companies Call on FTC to Revise Green Guides, Adopt Sustainability Definitions. On a tech note, the NRF says that “the use of QR codes or other references to web-based information to provide additional sustainability information for products.” – Read More on TFL
5. Ripple notches landmark win in SEC case over XRP cryptocurrency. Ripple Labs Inc did not violate federal securities law by selling its XRP token on public exchanges, a U.S. judge ruled on Thursday, delivering a landmark legal victory for the cryptocurrency industry that sent the value of XRP soaring. – Read More on Reuters
6. FTC Opens Investigation into ChatGPT Maker Over Technology’s Potential Harms. In a 20-page letter sent to the company this week, the agency said it was looking into OpenAI’s security practices, askING OpenAI dozens of questions in its letter, including how the start-up trains its A.I. models and treats personal data, and said the company should provide the agency with documents and details. – Read More on the New York Times
1. Amazon launches first U.S. challenge to EU content rules and says it would be “unfairly singled out.” The e-retailer on Tuesday filed a petition in Luxembourg’s General Court arguing it should not be designated as one of the 17 “very large online platforms,” or VLOPs, under the Digital Services Act, which imposes stricter rules around policing illegal material on their platforms. – Read More on CNBC
2. RELATED READ: Digital Services Act Could Prompt Penalties of 6% of Brands’ Annual Revenue. Broadly speaking, 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. At the same time, the Digital Services Act also broadly aims to increase transparency and fairness in online services. – Read More on TFL
3. China’s Economy Is Struggling. That’s Not Stopping the Wealthy from Spending. While the cost of groceries has grabbed plenty of headlines recently, luxury brands were early drivers of inflation, swiftly pushing up prices just weeks after pandemic lockdowns hit the U.S. – Read More on Barron’s
4. It’s getting easier for plaintiffs to pick where to sue internet retailers. The delivery of a physical product, wrote 9th Circuit Judge Susan Graber for a panel that also included Judges Richard Clifton and Morgan Christen, is conduct “expressly aimed at the forum state,” and thus sufficient to establish the forum’s jurisdiction. – Read More on Reuters
5. Music & Tech Executives Testify on Artificial Intelligence & Copyright. Music industry and tech company executives testify on AI and its impact on copyright and intellectual property before a Senate judiciary subcommittee on Wednesday. – See More on C-SPAN
6. AI Junk Is Starting to Pollute the Internet. In early May, the news site rating company NewsGuard found 49 fake news websites that were using AI to generate content. By the end of June, the tally had hit 277, according to Gordon Crovitz, the company’s co-founder. – Read More on the WSJ
1. Is Apple really a trademark bully? All things considered, concerns that Apple will corner the market for apple logos seem overblown. To the contrary, Apple’s success seems to have inspired a bumper crop of apple logos so bountiful as to defy the efforts of even the tech behemoth’s army of lawyers. – Read More on Fast Co.
2. RETRO READ: Just About Everything in an Apple Store is Protected IP, Including its Shopping Bags.“Apple is very much a believer in using a coordinated, comprehensive intellectual property protection scheme.”– Read More on TFL
3. Canada probes Nike, Dynasty Gold over alleged use of forced labor in China. Canada’s corporate ethics watchdog on Tuesday launched separate investigations into Nike Canada and Dynasty Gold to probe allegations that they used or benefited from forced Uyghur labor in their supply chains and operations in China. – Read More on Reuters
4. Retail reset: A new playbook for retail leaders. Consumers aren’t browsing like they used to and are abandoning their once-preferred brands; they’re also demanding speed and sustainability. – Read More on McKinsey
5. AI revolution puts skilled jobs at highest risk, OECD says. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the occupations at highest risk from AI-driven automation were highly skilled jobs and represented about 27% of employment across its 38 member countries, which include the UK, Japan, Germany, the US, Australia & Canada. Read – More on the Guardian
6. Amazon charts its own course on A.I., leaning on its strengths in cloud and e-commerce. The retail titan is opting to concentrate its early efforts on developers and companies using its cloud. – Read More on CNBC
1. Franchising industry holds its breath as FTC takes a closer look at regulations. The agency’s statement earlier this year on its request for information said it “would begin to unravel how the unequal bargaining power inherent in [franchise] contracts is impacting franchisees, workers, and consumers.” – Read More on CNBC
2. Knockoff luxury items no longer taboo as Gen Z shoppers embrace ‘superfake’ designer bags, shoes. Makers of ‘superfake’ luxury items are known to source leather from the same Italian suppliers as established fashion houses. – Read More on SCMP
3. Bernstein: China’s Offline Luxury Consumption Surpasses Growth Expectations. Apart from luxury retail, Bernstein noted that premium sportswear brands like Lululemon, Arc’teryx and Descente are also “doing well.” In comparison, mass-market players, such as Nike, Adidas, Anta and Fila, are seeing weak demand. – Read More on Yahoo
4. The 2023 Online Retail Report. Consistent with its pre-pandemic rate, e-commerce is estimated to capture 42% of total retail sales growth in 2023. E-commerce sales growth (year-over-year) is expected to moderate to 10% or less in the coming years, and annual online sales growth through 2025 is expected to double the rate of store-based sales growth. – Read More on FTI Consulting
5. How AI image-generators work. Today “generative AI” models put brush to virtual paper: publicly available apps, such as Midjourney and OpenAI’s dall-e, create images in seconds based on text prompts. The final products often dupe humans. – Read More on the Economist
6. Employees want ChatGPT at work. Bosses worry they’ll spill secrets. Corporate leaders are banning ChatGPT to prevent a worst-case scenario where an employee uploads proprietary computer code or sensitive board discussions into the chatbot while seeking help at work, inadvertently putting that information into a database that OpenAI could use to train its chatbot in the future. – Read More on the Washington Post
1. Stone rarities show scale of Tiffany’s newfound ambition, When LVMH bought Tiffany & Co two years ago for $15.8bn, the luxury conglomerate wasted no time digging into its deep pockets to elevate the brand’s high jewellery proposition. – Read More on the FT
2. Panera swimsuits and Rao’s purses: Fast-food fashion is in peak bloom. The internet has facilitated the kinds of communities that this food franchise merchandising thrives on. Social media encourage debates about the best french fry or the best pasta sauce, allowing online communities to coalesce around their interests as a marker of identity. – Read More on the Washington Post
3. RETRO READ: SKIMS, Hims, and the Evolving Potential for Confusion in an Uber-Branded Market. There are countless other examples, as companies continue to blur the lines between traditional offerings and those that can be expected from a modern company catering to brand-happy, community-leaning millennials. – Read More on TFL
4. Brands take their IP to Hollywood. “This level of immersion is possible due to the ownership of IP creates a big opportunity for other nostalgic brands to revitalize themselves for today’s media landscape and tell their stories in new ways, bringing new consumers into the brand’s world.” – Read More on Digiday
5. Shein Takes on Amazon in the Business of Selling Everything. Shein, now based in Singapore, is pivoting from selling just its own branded apparel to becoming a marketplace platform where other merchants can sell everything from $1,200 commercial ice makers to 50-cent safety pins directly to consumers. – Read More on the WSJ
6. Birkenstocks in the Office May Be a Step Too Far. Even though Birkenstock is an iconic brand, there are twin dangers facing it: 1) that we are past peak comfy shoe, and 2) that consumers, particularly in Asia, don’t increase spending as much as anticipated now that China has reopened post-pandemic. – Read More on Bloomberg