Daily LInks
1. Sorry, Louis Vuitton, Cartier Is the New Bling Kingmaker: Johann Rupert, chairman of Swiss group Cie Financiere Richemont SA, holds the cards to consolidating the world of high-end fashion, watches and jewelry — and the industry is watching to see what hand he’ll play. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. RELATED READ: Richemont Turned Down Kering Merger Proposal in January, Per Report. “Rumors about a possible tie-up between Richemont and Kering have been circulating for years, but have gathered steam in recent months after LVMH’s takeover of U.S. jeweler Tiffany put pressure on rivals to scale up.” – Read More on TFL
3. It’s not enough for celebrities to put their names to beauty brands – the power is in the product, too: Welcome to the era of celebrity beauty brands. From make-up to skin, hair and body care, more and more celebrities are launching their own beauty brands – and it doesn’t look like the trend is going to end any time soon, although it’s not entirely new either. – Read More on SCMP
4. Coronavirus-era bankruptcy surge heavily favors reorganizing over liquidation: Nearly 62% of U.S. corporate bankruptcy filings in 2020 sought reorganizations, the highest rate for any year going back to at least 2010, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. Companies were less likely to liquidate in 2020, a departure from 2019 and 2018 when corporate liquidations outpaced reorganizations in bankruptcy filings. – Read More on SCMP
5. Fashion retailers bet bras with wires and a splash of color will sell this spring: After a year of nesting in pastel-colored loungewear, shoppers are opting for styles with floral prints, feel-good slogans and statement jewelry to jazz up working-from-home outfits as optimism makes a comeback in spring collections. – Read More on Reuters
6. Solving fashion’s biggest issues: Overproduction and overconsumption: Reducing consumption and production is the only way fashion brands can make good on sustainability comments, say experts. Alternative business models can help. – Read More on Vogue Biz
1. Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Mired in $200 Million Retail Rent Fight: Since March 2020, struggling retailers across the U.S. have missed billions in rent payments, citing lost sales due to pandemic restrictions. While many companies have reopened stores or worked out compromises with landlords, a few giant Fifth Avenue deals remain in gridlock, signaling further roadblocks to the street’s recovery. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. RELATED READ: From Malls to Madison Avenue: Real Estate is Getting a COVID Makeover. Among the most immediate results of a COVID-induced shift in power? An adoption of turnover-based leases, ones in which a link exists between the revenue a company brings in from the space it leases and the rent it pays (a trend that has adopted with increasing frequency in recent years), as well as the adoption of COVID-19 clauses aimed at specifically addressing and mitigating new risks. – Read More on TFL
3. H&M vows to rebuild trust in China after Xinjiang backlash: Western brands are battling to strike a balance between consumers in the world’s second-largest economy and public opinion at home, which has become increasingly concerned about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang. – Read More on CNBC
4. Is China’s Luxury Future in Vintage? Brands should keep an eye on Chinese consumers’ pursuit of vintage luxury items. These consumers are looking for cost-effective luxury items with high levels of craftsmanship and design that reflect their personal style rather than seasonal products and up-to-date fashion trends. – Read More on Jing
5. Amazon faces labor backlash in Europe as worker union vote proceeds in US: As a historic vote count gets underway to determine whether Amazon.com Inc. workers in Alabama will form a union, the company is facing increasing resistance from its already unionized employees across Europe, including a recent call for a strike in Germany. – Read More on S&P Global
6. Nine emerging DTCs to watch in 2021: Brands are being held more financially accountable to achieve long-term growth. Previously, there was a notion for DTC brands to “grow at all costs.” Now, success lies in having fundamentally sound business economics related to supply chain, profitability and securing that first purchase. – Read More on Retail Dive
1. U.S. retailers welcome consumers back to stores as e-commerce growth slows: “E-commerce has been moderating for a couple quarters now; we think that continues more drastically as the vaccine is distributed and the pandemic gradually fades. It’s going to be more balanced between physical store sales and e-commerce.” – Read More on S&P Global
2. How a used-clothing site became a $184 million tech giant: Resale us booming, but over the long term, ThredUp faces challenges: stiff competition comes from many other players popping up on the market, and brands such as Patagonia are launching resale marketplaces of their own products. – Read More on Fast Co.
3. RELATED READ: Are Buyback Programs the Future of the Luxury Market? Second-hand luxury can actually be seen as “a new growth driver and another high-quality, entry-level offer, such as perfumes, bags and shoes.” And those are precisely the types of high-margin offerings that enable most luxury brands – which, with their high turnover, volume-based models, are not actually based on exclusivity at all – to generate billions in revenue. – Read More on TFL
4. BofA names the ‘must have’ global stocks set to pop on a China spending boom: “China is the most exciting opportunity in online luxury,” they wrote. The bank expects Chinese shoppers to spend 41 billion euros ($48.9 billion) buying luxury goods via e-commerce in 2025 — a four-fold increase on 2020. – Read More on CNBC
5. Citing privacy concerns, some online marketplaces move against seller transparency: Online marketplaces eBay, Etsy, Mercari, OfferUp and Poshmark on Tuesday launched “the Coalition to Protect America’s Small Sellers” or the PASS Coalition, in opposition to the newly-reintroduced INFORM Act, a federal bill aimed at curtailing sales of fake and stolen goods through online marketplaces. – Read More on Retail Dive
1. Why Have Fashion and Beauty Brands Failed to Respond to Anti-Asian Hate? “A lot of the big brands are in a position of power and resources where they could make a difference to help the AAPI community. It’s easy to put out a statement on Instagram saying you stand with the AAPI community, but then not do anything tangible.” – Read More on Daily Beast
2. How luxury luggage brand Globe-Trotter navigated the pandemic: Executive chairman Vicente Castellano, formerly the MD of Hackett London, hatched a plan to enhance Globe-Trotter’s identity as a lifestyle brand with a multi-strand structure, combining its “old-world” glamour with an exciting sense of “newness” that encapsulates the uniting cultural and emotional experience of travel. – Read More on the Week
3. Digitizing Isn’t the Same as Digital Transformation: Covid-19 accelerated the pace of many companies’ digital initiatives — and yet many executives are expressing concern that they’re actually falling behind on making the important choices that lead to differentiation. To win in the post-Covid world, leaders must re-imagine not just how your company works, but also what you do to create value in the digital era. – Read More on HBR
4. What’s next for Bangladesh’s garment industry, after a decade of growth: Pandemic pressure and shifts in global markets have brought stiff challenges to the garment industry in Bangladesh. The sector will need to innovate, upgrade, and diversify, investing in flexibility, sustainability, worker welfare, and infrastructure. – Read More on McKinsey
5. Buy Now, Pay Later Startup Sezzle Becomes Certified B Corp: Sezzle says its mission is to financially empower the next generation, and to go beyond finance by supporting empowerment across many facets of users’ lives, creating a better world for the next generation through ethical initiatives. – Read More on Forbes
6. Nordstrom’s Brush With Junk Proved a Turning Point: As its ratings fell, Nordstrom was forced to pledge inventory as collateral on its credit line and meet strict financial metrics that limited its flexibility. Additional covenants restricted Nordstrom’s options for financing future payments to vendors and precluded share repurchases and dividend payments until the ratings improved. – Read More on Bloomberg
1. The Future of Retail is Already Here: Whether “normalcy” is really on its way back (or will ever return) is still an open question. But even if how we consume has changed forever, we’ll always need more stuff. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Why Retail is at a Crossroads: Despite the fact that most shoppers are still averse to “go shopping,” it is likely they will go out and spend some money. Certainly, the government hopes they will do that in order to jumpstart the economy. Those easy comparisons will be true for the next two quarters. – Read More on Forbes
3. Federal appeals court rules for France in ‘France.com’ trademark dispute: The French government didn’t engage in commercial activity that would negate its sovereign immunity when it won the rights to the domain name in French court from France.com Inc., the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. – Read More on Reuters
4. Where Pent-Up Demand Is Strongest (and Weakest) in a Post-Pandemic Economy: Millennials – and, to some extent, Gen Z adults – will bolster the post-pandemic economy. Millennials are the most eager to return to everyday activities, including going to the movies and sporting events, traveling abroad, going back to the gym and even traveling for work. – Read More on Morning Consult
5. What brands can learn about pricing luxury goods beyond all expectations from Beeple’s $69 million NFT art sale: What luxury brands need to do is estimate the added luxury value their brand delivers. And this value does not depend on the product or the competition, it depends on the perceived value the story creates. – Read More on SCMP
6. What Happens to Luxury if China Stalls? One potential risk at play: A confidence crisis in the Chinese leadership or a new policy like [China’s] anti-corruption policy from 2012 could stem the tide of luxury spending. – Read More on Jing Daily
1. Retailers and Landlords Clash Over What Counts as a Sale: Landlords are increasingly offering deals in which retailers pay a percentage of their monthly sales in rent, rather than a fixed amount. But there is a sticking point. Some landlords want to include a portion of online sales in the new leases, arguing that physical stores play an important role in many of these transactions. – Read More on the WSJ
2. Blockchain’s Promising Future in Battling Counterfeit Luxury Goods: With counterfeits are on the rise, leading luxury retailers are now turning to blockchain technologies in an effort to douse the flames. – Read More on Law.com
3. RELATED READ: NFTs can authenticate ownership of a token itself, as well as the unique history of how such token was developed and linked to a creative work. However, a simple NFT by itself cannot help with matching the creator or owner of an NFT to a real person in the physical world, nor does it validate that the creator of the NFT has the underlying rights to tie that NFT to any specific creative work. – Read More on TFL
4. How the Pandemic has Affected Garment Workers Around the World: “A lot of brands simply don’t consider the people who make their products as their workers. The pandemic has exacerbated a lot of glaring problems that exist in the fashion system—this needs to be a turning point.” – Read More on Vogue
5. Boohoo Cuts U.K. Suppliers as Part of Labor Cleanup Efforts: Boohoo Group Plc, the online fashion retailer, is cutting more than 400 companies from its supplier network following a critical report last year on labor practices at some of those businesses. The action follows the termination of at least 64 factories that couldn’t meet new enhanced labor standards, the consolidation of some suppliers and the elimination of subcontracting. – Read More on Bloomberg
6. Amazon calls on India not to alter e-commerce investment rules: New Delhi has been considering revising e-commerce foreign investment rules for weeks. The last time they were changed, in 2018, it forced Amazon and Flipkart to rework their business structures and soured trade relations between India and the U.S. – Read More on Reuters
1. The Beauty of 78.5 Million Followers: As beauty has become a pop phenomenon, a radical change in the perception of the cosmetics business has also taken place. Applying cosmetics is a worthy lifestyle choice characterized as self-love, self-care and wellness — all positive, healthful qualities, even if you have the sneaking suspicion that “wellness” is mostly a coded word for the pursuit of being skinny and pretty, or tamping down anxiety about not being skinny and pretty. – Read More on the New York Times
2. U.S. Steelmakers, Industry Users Tussle Over Future of Tariffs: A broad group of U.S. business associations, composed of 37 groups ranging from the American Petroleum Institute to the U.S. Fashion Industry Association, asked President Joe Biden on Wednesday to remove the duties that his predecessor justified on national-security grounds “as soon as possible.” – Read More on Bloomberg
3. How fashion e-tailer Revolve became a global force working with influencers like Kendall Jenner, Nicole Richie, and Aimee Song: Nimble, fleet-footed, with a colossal inventory and a reputation as a pioneer in the business of using influencers to showcase and design collections, the eight-year-old Revolve is a global fashion force. – Read More on SCMP
4. Net-zero targets proliferate, but path to decarbonization remains murky: While more than half of the biggest carbon emitters have set net-zero targets, many are still far behind on setting climate-aligned short- and medium-term goals or committing to make the capital expenditures necessary to achieve those targets, a Climate Action report finds. – Read More on S&P Global
5. How Can the Luxury Industry Become More Inclusive? “The industry is exclusive by product, but it should not be exclusive by identity. Where it gets a little gray — and I think the industry is sorting this out — is how do we become inclusive by socioeconomics when, by definition, our price structure is high?” – Read More on Knowledge@Wharton
6. As stores begin to reopen, retail real estate insiders are cautiously optimistic: Right now, there is an opportunity for brands to shift existing locations to better ones as leases expire. For example, some brands may be offered prime spaces they historically wouldn’t have been able to get. – Read More on Modern Retail
1. Private Equity Firm Carlyle Group Set to Acquire Majority Stake in Luxury Fashion Retailer END: Carlyle Group will purchase a stake from the UK online fashion retailer’s founders in a deal that values the luxury retailer at more than $1 billion, marking the latest foray into the luxury goods sector by private equity firms hoping to capitalize on a rebound in luxury goods sales and expanding markets in Asia. – Read More on Forbes
2. Airport Retail Shops Pin Hopes on Bump in Travel: Retailers and restaurants that were financially strong enough to survive the collapse in business see signs of a nascent recovery. Airport passenger volumes recently reached their highest levels in a year, though the number of people passing through U.S. airports is still about half what it was for most days in 2019. – Read More on the WSJ
3. Talk of De-Globalization is Fashionable but Wrong: Reshoring decreases flexibility and innovation while raising costs, according to Cambridge Judge Business School professor Peter Williamson, and in case that is not enough, the glitches in supply chains in 2020 were often local rather than global. – Read more on Bloomberg
4. RELATED READ: Forget Reshoring, if Fashion Wants to Innovate, Companies Should Focus on Omnishoring: The fashion industry is an interesting case as it is labor-intensive – particularly the stitching, which has not yet been automated – and has off-shored substantially to lower costs. Yet it is also an industry in which clusters exist and flourish – Prato in Italy, or the garment centers in London and Paris. – Read More on TFL
5. The Cultural Endurance of the Mighty, Mighty Birkin: The pricey bag has maintained an ineffable hold over an increasingly broad range of consumers who are taken by its timeless and trend-resistant style, elusive reputation, and strong, long-term investment value. – Read More on Harper’s Bazaar
6. RETRO READ: Can the Birkin Bag Survive the Resale Market? There are now more than a million Birkins in the market. It sounds awfully good. But what does it really mean for an accessory whose image and allure is grounded largely in exclusivity and carefully measured supply? – Read More on the New York Times
7. EU court backs Lego in German design rights case: Danish toymaker Lego on Wednesday won the backing of Europe’s second-highest court in its fight to secure design rights for its colorful snap-together plastic building bricks familiar to millions of children worldwide. – Read More on Reuters
1. It’s 2021. Why Is Buying Clothes Online Still So Hard? The surge in online shopping during the pandemic means that retailers now have a lot more data to tailor their offerings and respond to customer preferences. In luxury goods, for example, that means knowing exactly what VIP customers might like and messaging them when their favorite designer has a new collection in. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Why China is leading the global rebound in luxury spending: more e-commerce, and a growing consumer appetite for shopping rather than experiences. “Proactive interaction and engagement with the younger generations continues to play a key role in regaining consumers’ trust and loyalty as we move into a post-Covid-19 world.” – Read More on SCMP
3. NFTs could bridge video games and the fashion industry: The fundamental value NFTs offer to bridge virtual fashion items with video games is the option to secure custody of the item for use in other games or mobile apps. – Read More on TechCrunch
4. Phillip Lim is on a mission to root out hate against Asian Americans: The designer believes that fashion brands can play a powerful role in building movements against racism, and that fashion designers can no longer just speak through their clothes—they must stand for something and have a point of view, otherwise their brands will ring hollow. – Read More on Fast Co.
5. Garment Workers Win $22 Billion in Historic Victory Against Wage Theft: To date, 21 brands monitored by PayUp have committed to paying for cancelled orders in full, unlocking a total of $22 billion for garment workers globally. 18 brands have still refused to pay — and many have deleted #PayUp comments on their social media accounts in an attempt to shut down the conversation. – Read More on TruthOut
1. Hilco to Advise on Sale of Fashion Brand Worn by Meghan Markle: Advisory firm Hilco Streambank LLC will help market the sale of Ralph & Russo Ltd., the British fashion house that was forced into administration by the Covid-19 pandemic. Prospective buyers could include rival fashion houses, sovereign wealth funds, private equity firms and ultra-rich individuals. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Nike shares fall after mixed earnings report, layoffs news: Nike said it was “focused on shifting resources and creating capacity to reinvest in our highest potential growth areas.” “We are building a flatter, nimbler company and more quickly transforming Nike to define the marketplace of the future.” – Read More on CNBC
3. NFTs for fashion are inevitable: Robert Triefus, an executive vice president at Gucci, said it was inevitable that luxury brands would begin to design NFTs. – Read More on Quartz
4. RELATED READ: NFTs … What Are You Buying and What Do You Actually Own? Ownership of an NFT as a unique token – versus ownership of the content that such NFT may be associated with – is a critical distinction. When someone purchases an NFT tied to a piece of content, they have not automatically purchased the underlying intellectual property rights in such piece of content. – Read More on TFL
5. Inside Vogue, where women have the top jobs but men still rule: The pay is notoriously low unless you’re high up (a popular joke played on how much independent wealth was needed to sustain a career at Vogue: one girl says to another, “I’ll have to get a real job, Daddy can’t afford to send me to Vogue any more”). – Read More on the Guardian
6. Americans are starting to buy real clothes again: Retailers say they’ve noticed a growing interest in trendy tops, wide-leg jeans, even resort wear and swimsuits, as Americans prepare to head back to the office, book summer vacations and make other post-pandemic plans. – Read More on Washington Post