Daily Links

1. Fashion faces a stark choice: Stop flogging cheap clothes or go out of style. There is a powerful business case for fashion to find its conscience: consumers increasingly demand it. Responsible production has become the hallmark of a respectable brand.  – Read More on the Guardian

2. Curelty-free alternatives to fur and animal skin enjoy more support from shoppers: Plant-based and cruelty-free – qualities consumers look for not just in their diets but the fashion and accessories they buy, and boutiques are catering to their needs. Meanwhile, the fur industry is fighting back. – Read More on SCMP

3. Brilliant Earth Says Millennials, Gen Z Key to Future Growth: Millennial and Gen Z consumers collectively represent 87% of the brand’s active customers, Brilliant Earth said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, based on the company’s digital presence and emphasis on sustainability, both of which are resonant factors for younger shoppers. – Read More on PYMNTS

4. UK fashion group ASOS ties exec pay to new environmental goals: Joining a growing list of fast-fashion companies to open up its supply chain for external scrutiny, ASOS set out targets for improving recycling rates, cutting energy usage and increasing the diversity of its corporate leaders. – Read More on Reuters

5. How Old-Style Buy Now, Pay Later Became Trendy ‘BNPL.’ Millennials and Gen Z have a cool new way to buy stuff that would look pretty familiar to their great-great-grandparents. “Buy now, pay later” is a type of consumer credit that really got going back in the 19th century. – Read More on Bloomberghttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-15/how-old-style-buy-now-pay-later-became-trendy-bnpl-quicktake

1. The future of luxury marketing, according to marketers: Social may not appear to drive many sales for high-ticket items, but it’s a crucial part of communicating your brand story during the attract and engage phase of your customer journey, which leads to long-term engagement and an affinity for your brand. – Read More on The Drum

2. Amazon is planning a beauty products event for October to hook early holiday shoppers: Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has long been trying to gain a bigger share of the global beauty market, which generates $500 billion in annual sales. The company began offering health and beauty products in 2000, but its selection was initially limited mostly to mass-market brands. – Read More on CNBC

3. Changes to UK SPAC rules open door for more listings: The U.K. capital missed out on opportunities earlier this year to list SPACs, which raise capital via an IPO and subsequently purchase a previously unidentified business, because of its tighter regulations, legal experts said. Changes brought in by the financial services regulator on Aug. 10 will bring long-term benefits for London. – Read More on S&P Global

4. Zara Owner’s Stock Has Shrunk in the Lockdown Wash: Despite Inditex’s full recovery, its share price is still 6% below where it was trading in the third week of February 2020, just before stocks plunged globally. Other high-quality European consumer stocks have bounced back. – Read More on the WSJ

5. Fast-fashion giants Zara and H&M are recovering from the pandemic at very different speeds: While their stores are often located 100 meters apart from one another, only Inditex has managed to recover from the pandemic, aided by an earlier turn toward integrating its online and brick-and-mortar stores. – Read More on Fortune

6. Fast-fashion chain Primark vows to improve environmental impact: Primark, which sells more than a billion items a year including jumpers and jeans for as little as 7 pounds ($10) each, said its task was to make sustainable fashion available for all, not just those who can afford it. – Read More on Reuters

1. U.S. Bankruptcy Tracker: Distressed Retail Debt Pile Collapses. Distressed debt tied to retail enterprises is putting on something of a vanishing act. The overall amount of tradeable troubled debt has shrunk from near $1 trillion in March of last year to less than $60 billion as of September 10. And the portion of that from the retail industry has collapsed at an even faster clip. – Read More on Bloomberg

2. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says it’s ‘hard to argue’ its retail business is a monopoly: “We compete with very large companies. These are companies like Walmart and Target and Kroger and some very successful digital companies like eBay and Etsy and Wayfair, and we don’t have the ability to raise prices in any kind of unfettered way.” – Read More on GeekWire

3. Garment workers in Los Angeles describe the “modern-day slavery” of sweatshops: “They paid us like 5 and 6 cents for a piece.” According to Marissa Nuncio, director of the advocacy group the Garment Worker Center, as a result, workers’ average hourly wage last year ranged from $5.85 to as low as $2.68. – Read More on CBS

4. RETRO READ: California Legislators Are Pushing for New Law to Protect Garment Workers From Retailers’ Loopholes. Despite findings of the DOL, which seem to clearly suggest rampant wage and labor violations, Fashion Nova’s assertions that it is operating in line with California state law very well may be true, assuming that the company can successfully position itself as a retailer of apparel and accessories, and not a manufacturer. – Read More on TFL

5. Fewer deals and shipping delays: Here are some early predictions for the holiday season. Shoppers should expect fewer discounts, longer shipping times and limited inventory at stores, thanks to supply chain woes and labor shortages, according to the firms. – Read More on CNBC

6. Gucci has an “it” bag, so does Louis Vuitton: Can Telfar become the next iconic bag brand? Labels that define modern fashion have failed to create a bag as enduring as the Fendi Baguette or Gucci’s Jackie O, but Telfar’s vegan leather tote comes close. – Read More on SCMP

1. What Brands Need to Know About Social Commerce vs. E-Commerce: Social commerce is quickly becoming the holy grail of marketing. But even as TikTok and other social platforms rapidly evolve to become shopping destinations, most retailers may still want purchases to ultimately take place on their own websites. – Read More on AdAge

2. Can fashion brands ever be taken seriously as watchmakers? Haute couture maisons have impressed at Watches and Wonders – particularly Louis Vuitton’s Tambour Carpe Diem – but is that enough to compete with Rolex and Patek Philippe? “It is a matter of perception – fashion or not fashion, it is very difficult to be a player from affordable for a few thousand francs to a couple of hundred thousand.”  – Read More on SCMP

3. Mastercard Sees Holiday Spending Reaching Record on 7.4% Growth: U.S. retail sales are poised to reach a record high this holiday season, according to a forecast from Mastercard SpendingPulse, which projects a sizable jump both from last year and from 2019 — before the pandemic upended consumer behavior. – Read More on Bloomberg

4. Cross-border Demand for High-end Products Soars 50 Percent: To capitalize, luxury brands need to focus on recreating the high-touch, hyper-personalized experience customers receive in-store, in the d-to-c channel, and deploy those experiences across borders to meet demand at its point of origin.” – Read More on Yahoo

5. H&M lags behind Zara-owner Inditex in race to regain lost sales: Analysts said Zara-owner Inditex’ recovery in the quarter probably got an extra boost from remaining best-in-class at speed and from a strong overall recovery in its core market Spain, helped also by better sales in China, where H&M has taken a hit. – Read More on Reuters

1. Consumerism & circular economy in the fashion industry: Modern culture has driven continued increases in oversupply and planned obsolescence. Fast fashion is a linear business model that focuses on a rapid supply chain, working to design, produce and distribute new items of clothing at an accelerated rate. This model works due to the low cost of labor, ever-changing fashion trends and most importantly the increase in consumer demand. – Read More on Circular Online

2. Is fashion really entering a “sustainability decade”? A new era in luxury retail is under way. Dubbed the “sustainability decade” by consultancy Bain & Company, brands and retailers are pivoting to sustainable offerings and conscious initiatives to cater to an emerging generation of affluent consumers, turning over a new leaf and shifting their consumption from an accumulation of “It” bags to purposeful buying. – Read More on SCMP

3. How fashion resale site Depop tapped into the minds of Gen Z: A sense of fluidity informs how members of Gen Z approach life: with an entrepreneurial mindset. “They are basically defining new paths to become successful …They think, ‘what are the things that I want to do or that make me feel passionate?’ That [often] means having multiple jobs.” – Read More on Fast Co.

4. Facebook’s Glasses May Sell Millions and Start New Privacy Debates: For good reason, many people will not like the fact that Facebook Inc. is literally getting closer to their faces with the new smart glasses it unveiled on Thursday. Many more will not care and buy them in droves. – Read More on Bloomberg

5. Luxury brands pivot to sustainable jewelry as consumers demand ethical diamonds and gold from big names like Tiffany: McKinsey expects that by 2025, “sustainability-influenced purchases will account for 20 to 30 per cent of all fine jewelry sales (equivalent to $70 billion to $110 billion). This would be a remarkable three- to four-times increase from 2019.” – Read More on SCMP