Daily LInks
1. Hugo Boss staff to only work Tues-Thurs in office even after coronavirus: Hugo Boss will only require that many staff work in the office from Tuesday to Thursday even after the coronavirus pandemic, offering the option of remote working on Mondays and Fridays, the German fashion house said. “The future belongs to tailored combinations of office-based and off-site work.” – Read More on Reuters
2. Who’s wearing vinyl pants in quarantine? How the pandemic could kill fashion trends for good: Why do trends drive fashion in the first place? From the industry’s earliest origins, they’ve been a way to cultivate consumers’ desire for newness, which allows companies to sell us more clothes every season. – Read More on Fast Co.
3. Barneys’ savior Authentic Brands is sitting on about $1 billion in cash and on the hunt to buy more troubled retailers: “At a time when retail is under incredible pressure, we have the opportunity to leverage a fixed cost base,” says Authentic Brands head Jamie Salter, explaining that Sparc is able to spread expenses across its multiple brands. “There are scale advantages … sourcing power. You gain those kinds of economics.” – Read More on CNBC
4. RETRO READ: A Look at the Consolidation of the Luxury Industry. Such large-scale banding together “fortifies” big brands (even if the potential cost savings to be garnered from luxury mergers are not necessarily as sizable as those that abound in more down-market industries or segments), particularly in light of investor fears of a looming global recession, says Gross. And this is something that “has been reflected in stock prices.” – Read More on TFL
5. Selling luxury goods online is a ‘marathon’: Yoox Net-a-Porter’s CEO on life after the pandemic. “We have seen [falling sales] in the past in 2008 [during the Great Recession] … And it doesn’t matter how deep is the shock, because like after a couple of weeks, people wanted to shop.” – Read More on CNBC
6. How the strawberry dress took over the internet: In the space of a few months, a strawberry-patterned dress has all but taken on a life of its own online. First released in 2019, it was initially moderately successful, including being worn to the Grammys by the American model Tess Holliday in January 2020. But in the past weeks, it’s become almost omnipresent in certain corners of the internet, as a meme. – Read More on Modern Retail
7. Posh Watch Collectors Seize the Hour: Watches of Switzerland usually does one-third of its business with overseas visitors during the summer months, but their share of sales dropped to just 3 percent in the quarter. That meant less competition for Rolexes and Patek Philippes—watch brands so coveted that they usually have long waiting lists. As neither company sells online, only domestic collectors got in-person appointments to buy when Watches of Switzerland’s U.S. and U.K. stores began to reopen. – Read More on the WSJ
1. With the coronavirus pushing many fashion retailers into precarious positions, shoppers are finding discounts that are lower and more widespread than usual: The markdown-happy climate of the past four months is reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis, when retailers—burdened by an unexpected glut of dresses, shirts and pants—promoted what some have called “harsh discounts” to lure shoppers. Anecdotal evidence suggests the current sweep of sales is spurring shoppers to buy clothes they otherwise wouldn’t. – Read More on WSJ
2. From livestreaming to online shopping, more and more China jobs are going digital: It’s not clear whether online models, particularly livestreaming, have longer-term potential for driving sales. Some third-party Chinese data estimates indicate the gross merchandise value of goods sold in July by the top 50 livestreamers dropped by a few billion yuan from June, a month that saw major e-commerce platforms hold a major shopping festival. – Read More on CNBC
3. What will being an influencer mean in 2021 and beyond? “The fashion world is in a bit of a reckoning — as the old influencers lose relevance, these new influencers are coming up that are more of the moment. They’re more accessible, they seem less precious about things, and they post in a more low-key or fluid style. If you look into the platforms that younger people use, they’re more video-heavy.” – Read More on Nylon
4. Victoria’s Secret accused of stealthy copying of designs: The relatively few cases of “copying” that result in lawsuits compared to the number of times companies have been called out, is not only a testament to how difficult and expensive it is to go up against big companies, it speaks to the intricacies and complexities of protection and showing infringement when it comes to fashion. – Read More on the Guardian
5. How ‘COVID-washing’ became the new greenwashing: Pseudo-scientific products that claim to help mitigate, treat, or cure coronavirus are still everywhere on the internet, even as the FDA cracks down. Since early March, the FDA has issued warning letters to more than 107 companies for selling unapproved or misbranded products related to COVID-19. – Read More on Fast Co.
6. Selfridges Jumps Into Clothing Rental to Seek Younger Shoppers: Selfridges also plans to sell a selection of vintage clothing for six weeks from the end of September, building on a secondhand clothing concession it launched with online reseller Vestiaire Collective last year. Shoppers can also sell used accessories to the store for credit from mid-October. – Read More on Bloomberg
7. Transparency and Incentives Can Re-Fashion the Apparel Industry: Accountability from transparency requires comparable, trustworthy, and meaningful data. As groups work to save factories and “build back better,” it is critical to advance both greater transparency of supply chains and clearer incentives for motivating real improvements in factories and in the lives of workers. – Read More on Triple Pundit
1. What Sells in a Pandemic? Weight Watchers, Pools and Cereal: The second-quarter earnings season brought fresh evidence of relative bright spots for spending, from the obvious demand for cleaning products to more surprising splurges like swimming pools and Weight Watchers memberships. That’s a shift from the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Licensing Mogul Jamie Salter Builds Retail Empire Out of Pandemic’s Ashes: Jamie Salter, the Canadian entrepreneur who founded licensing firm Authentic Brands Group LLC has a shopping list of consumer and retail brands that had never been longer. Through its partnership with mall owner Simon Property Group Inc. and others, Authentic Brands owns over 1,000 stores, including the Aéropostale, Forever 21 and Nautica names. – Read More on WSJ
3. As The North Face battles Patagonia in outdoors market, it bets tackling climate change will pay off: “One of the fastest-growing brands is Patagonia, and I think its emphasis on sustainability and its very vocal support of environmental issues has helped it. At some point sustainability is just going to be table stakes and won’t be a differentiator, but right now the brands who tell the story the best are brands that are going to win.” – Read More on CNBC
4. IKEA unveils first branded fashion and accessories collection: IKEA’s Japanese arm has released the company’s first branded merchandise collection, featuring 10 pieces of clothing and accessories emblazoned with its logo and the barcode of the iconic Billy shelving system. The Efterträda collection forms part of a wider trend of non-fashion brands dabbling in apparel in a bid to raise their profile. – Read More on Denzeen
5. Farfetch stock soars as the shift to digital, luxury market share gains and exclusive merchandise drive revenue: “We believe physical retail will shrink rapidly (Neiman bankruptcy and we think mono-brand retailers) and we think that luxury brands will want a strong multi-brand online environment,” wrote KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts led by Edward Yruma. – Read More on Market Watch
1. Billionaire Maezawa Bets on Japan Apparel Brands: In a set of filings, Maezawa disclosed stakes making him the third-largest shareholder in fashion retailers United Arrows Ltd. and Adastria Co. The holdings are worth a combined 7.6 billion yen ($71 million). – Read More on Bloomberg
2. What Happens to All of the Unsold Clothes? Amazon said it is rolling out a program in France that allows its third-party merchants to give their unsold stock in Amazon warehouses directly to charity. “We hope this will drastically reduce the destruction of product, with the objective of bringing this number as close to zero as possible,” Amazon said. – Read More on WSJ
3. What will fashion shows look like post Covid-19? With the coronavirus pandemic leading to events being postponed or cancelled, people in the fashion world have been finding creative new ways to use technology. One such person is world-renowned visual designer Tupac Martir, who creates immersive mixed reality experiences and use computer generated models to display the clothes. – See More on BBC
4. RETRO READ: New French Legislation Prohibits the Destruction of Unsold Goods, Including Clothing. Thanks to sweeping new legislation, French companies are slated to be subject to more than 100 new sustainability-centric provisions, such as those that require the systematic phasing out of automatic paper receipts and single use plastic in fast food restaurants, for instance; followed by the outright ban on all single-use plastics by 2040. – Read More on TFL
5. What COVID-19 did to customer loyalty: Consumers recently have become more loyal to the brands they shop, but COVID-19 and widespread products shortages mean that they are not diversifying. A McKinsey report found that more than 75% of consumers have tried new brands, places to shop or methods of shopping so far during the pandemic. Product availability was the number one reason consumers sought out new retailers or products in the past couple months, followed by better prices and promotions. – Read More on Retail Dive
1. Sneakers, Athleisure And Post-Pandemic Chic Look Healthy: What’s kept the sneaker market moving during lockdowns? “Running was a theme among the top-performing brands year-to-date through June. Brooks had a high teens increase, Puma grew in the high singles, Hoka ONE ONE was up more than 75 percent and On Running sales more than doubled.” – Read More on PYMNTS
2. In Luxury Goods, Pandemic Shows Bigger Is Better: Analysts say the damage caused by the pandemic, coming after years of declining results for Tod’s and Ferragamo, could raise pressure on the companies to seek outside investment or sell themselves to one of the industry’s conglomerates: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Kering, Richemont or Capri Holdings. The giants control much of Italian luxury-goods production. – Read More on the WSJ
3. Here’s Why Some Fake Rolexes Are So Accurate: It’s no secret now that if you want to buy a hard-to-find Rolex stainless steel sports watch and you don’t want to spend more than £1,000, you can quite simply buy a fake. These superclone watches are accurate to the finest detail, at least, within the realms of any normal person’s expectations, and it begs the question: how can today’s fake watches be so accurate? – See More on WatchFinder (via Redef)
4. RETRO READ: What Makes a Fake a Fake? A Dive Into Rolex’s Definition of a “Counterfeit” Watch. Courts are willing to consider that the addition of non-genuine parts to genuine Rolex watches that continue to bear original Rolex trademarks falls within the bounds of the technical definition of a counterfeit as set out by U.S. trademark law since “the watches on which those trademarks appear are no longer Rolex’s product.” – Read More on TFL
5. Canada Goose Quickens China Growth to Reach Stuck-at-Home Buyers: The Toronto-based parka maker said Tuesday it is doubling its footprint in mainland China this fiscal year by adding four stores, out of seven planned openings globally. After suffering the world’s first Covid-19 outbreak, China’s economy is now rebounding faster than North America. – Read More on Bloomberg
6. Amazon to hold virtual seller conference as lawmakers examine its power over third-party merchants: The conference comes as regulators set their sights on the ways that Amazon treats and competes against the third-party sellers that now account for approximately 60% of Amazon’s physical sales. In the last quarter, Amazon said third-party sales grew 52% year over year, compared with year-over-year growth of 23% in the same period last year. – Read More on CNBC
1. Fashion businesses are no longer a worthwhile investment. Nearly every flaw in the fashion system can be traced back to a single issue: inventory. The reliance on upfront, bulk production requires time and valuable resources to be allocated before consumers are able to indicate a preference for a style. – Read More on Fortune
2. US online shopping forecast to beat 2019 total by October: American shoppers are on course to surpass total online spending in 2019 as soon as early October, analysts forecast. At current growth levels, Americans will have spent more online than they spent for all of 2019 by October 5 – with Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas to come. “We just trained the consumer to shop in a different way. They have a habit of buying things without ever having to leave their house.” – Read More on the FT
3. Luxury brands turn from Hong Kong to mainland Chinese consumers still eager to shop: “A lot of travelers to Hong Kong are from lower-tier cities (who) don’t have access to luxury stores in their hometowns. Livestreaming is a way to reach them. Online is another way to reach them.” – Read More on CNBC
4. Mark Cross CEO Ulrik Garde Due Talks Launching a Luxury Bag During a Pandemic: “I really believe there is an urge from the luxury consumer to buy into authentic quality brands. I’m seeing the same kind of scenario from a luxury consumer in 2008 and 2009 where during that recession we saw consumers leaning more towards long-lasting products, with the right quality-to-price ratio and looking for investment pieces.” – Read More on Forbes
5. Wall Street’s COVID Bonanza Grew From the Perfect Storm of Fear and Greed: American Airlines was able to raise $1.2 billion on July 23—from Goldman Sachs—by, somewhat incredibly, pledging as security for the loans the “American Airlines” trademark, the “aa.com” domain name, in several jurisdictions, and the airline’s gate slots at LaGuardia Airport and at Washington’s Reagan National. – Read More on Vanity Fair
6. How a pandemic upended the global diamond industry: Prices for high quality one-carat diamonds are rising steadily and are currently around 12 percent higher than at the start of the year, in contrast to still-depressed prices for lower-quality stones of the same size, data from trading platform RapNet shows. “If you are in that top end, the demand is still there because the people who go for these type of goods feel the pressure of the market downturn less.” – Read More on Reuters
1. Flip-flop sales surge as casual and comfortable fashion wins lockdown: Searches for flip-flops have increased 53 percent since June, according to online fashion search business Lyst, a surge that is symptomatic of the new ease that has taken over our wardrobes – elasticated waists are in and flips flops are their footwear equivalent. – Read More on the Guardian
2. The Covid-19 tie-dye boom is real: Google searches for “tie dye” usually climb a little in the summer, but they hit their all-time peak this year. There were 2.5 times more searches in August 2020 than the previous peak in July 2019 (with the debut of Starbucks’ tie-dye Frappucino). Consumers are searching for tie dye at nearly triple the rate of last summer. – Read More on Quartz
3. Garment workers seen losing up to $5.8 billion in wages during coronavirus: With the pandemic leading to store closures and falling sales, many retailers cancelled orders or demanded discounts from suppliers, jeopardizing the livelihoods of tens of millions of workers in the sector. – Read More on Reuters
4. Cosmetics Brands Face Revenue Drop as Department Stores Close: Estée Lauder, Amorepacific Group Inc. and Kao Corp. are looking to manage risk and diversify how their products are sold as department stores represent a sizable share of their revenue “There will continue to be this shift over the next few years in the U.S. in terms of the mix of brick and mortar vs. online and we will manage through that.” – Read More on the WSJ
5. When Will Consumers Feel Safe? In early August, statistically significant differences between generations started to emerge for the first time, with millennials more likely to be comfortable with nearly every activity polled than Gen X and baby boomers. And while the generational gap largely remains, millennials reported statistically significant drops in comfort with regard to a few activities, including going to shopping malls, museums and concerts. – Read More on Morning Consult
6. Why China Will Become the Driving Force of Luxury: The EU and the US have a combined population of around 780 million with an aging demographic. China is home to a much younger 1.4 billion people and has a higher annual population growth than the US and Europe combined. While the average income per capita in China is still significantly lower than in the US or Europe, it’s catching up fast, and more than a hundred million new Chinese luxury consumers will enter the market over the next decade. – Read More on Jing Daily
1. Retail profits won’t rebound until 2022 at the earliest, Moody’s says: Companies in the industry remain under “extreme stress” related to COVID-19 and the ensuing closures, increased costs and other pressures, Moody’s analysts said. Even off-price retail – which has seen significant growth over the past decade –faces an outsized decline in profit as a sector without a significant e-commerce channel and with few remedies to store closures and traffic declines. – Read More on Retail Dive
2. Amazon and Mall Operator Look at Turning Sears, J.C. Penney Stores Into Fulfillment Centers: Simon Property Group Inc. has been exploring with Amazon the possibility of turning some of the property owner’s anchor department stores into Amazon distribution hubs. Amazon typically uses these warehouses to store everything from books and sweaters to kitchenware and electronics until delivery to local customers. – Read More on the WSJ
3. The luxury sector has been hit hard by the virus. And what consumers value has changed: Goods that are set to do well post-pandemic are those that might be called “quiet luxury.” “We’re already seeing the resurgence of quiet luxury and understatement, as evidenced in the more timeless aesthetics of brands such as Hermès, Prada and Bottega Veneta.” – Read More on CNBC
4. Kenya Local Design Boom Still Far Off Despite Used-Clothing Ban: The ban in March, as a measure to curb the spread of the coronavirus, supports government plans to promote the local textile and apparels industry, which the statistics agency estimates to be operating at more than 30 percent below capacity. Kenya earned about $315 million from apparel and $171 million from textiles in 2017. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. RETRO READ: Rwanda Does Not Want Our Used Clothes and is at a Standoff with the U.S. as a Result: Long viewed as a way for consumption-happy Americans to help boost the well-being – and wardrobes – of those less fortunate, the used clothing trade has put a significant rift between the U.S. and Rwanda. In recent years, Rwanda has emerged as the most aggressive country working to phase out imports of secondhand clothing and shoes. In 2016, the nation raised its per-kilogram import tax in 2016 from 20 cents to $2.50, amounting to what SMART calls “a de facto ban.” – Read More on TFL
6. Brunello Cucinelli: The Humanitarian Side Of Fashion. “ The harmony between profit and giving back accounts for one of its most meaningful humanistic moments … There is no plan to recover this money, but we view this gesture as some kind of “investment” for the benefit of Creation, its beauty and its conservation. For example, an esteemed customer of ours might become aware of it and consider this symbolic gesture as a good omen for a new and lasting new time.” – Read More on Forbes
1. This is the moment to ‘win the loyalty of millions of people,’ Etsy CEO says: CEO Josh Silverman said on Thursday that the online retailer has captured new customers during the pandemic and it has led to staggering growth across various segments of the market. Etsy posted a quarterly profit that was up more than 400% from a year ago. – Read More on CNBC
2. Moncler CEO Remo Ruffini: “It is really important to personalize the experience in terms of the contact we have with the consumer… and to build up your own community is the key, and talk with them every day. As of a couple of years ago, we are not a seasonal business anymore. We are monthly. Every month we change our content, our collection. It is very modern.” – See More on Bloomberg
3. ‘There are too many unknowns’: How landlords are giving retailers more lease options. Everything is now negotiable. That means some retailers are able to get an unprecedented amount of concessions from retailers, like a couple months of free rent, and a laundry list of clauses that will allow them to terminate leases early. Landlords, whose biggest priority is to ensure they have tenants, are now willing to take a cut of store sales instead of asking retailers to pay the same amount of rent each month. – Read More on Modern Retail
4. TikTok is luring fashion away from the manicured perfection of Instagram – but can its popularity last? TikTok may still baffle most people over 30, but the app famous for dance videos and viral challenges has captured the eye of the fashion industry but the app famous for dance videos and viral challenges has captured the eye of the fashion industry. – Read More on the Telegraph
5. Will Post-Pandemic Markdowns Hurt Luxury Brands Long-Term? First of all, context matters. To an industry that sells dreams — not just products — aspirational image-making and narratives are what inspire top-end shoppers in the first place. Next, an inconsistent pricing strategy in the digital age is bound to provoke consumer complaints. – Read More on Jing
1. Retail bankruptcies: Creditors are betting that companies such as Ann Taylor’s parent company Ascena – which is using bankruptcy to tweak its business model, planning to reduce physical locations from 2,800 to just 1,200 – and Men’s Wearhouse can become smaller businesses with less debt while maintaining their basic strategy. – Read More on the FT
2. The Netflix effect: DTC brand Italic tacks to memberships as a path to sustainability. Many DTCs have relied on one-off impulse buys or monthly replenishment orders from newly-acquired customers, many of which discover the brand via Instagram or social feeds. As these brands grapple with how to lower their CAC in order to improve their margins, Italic is betting on locking in long term retention with a $99 annual membership. – Read More on Modern Retail
3. NASA’s ‘worm’ logo was dormant for 28 years. So why are people so obsessed with it?It’s developed a cult following of its own over the decades and has been a part of fashion collaborations and pop culture generally. “The general public probably sees it as a nostalgic and retro representation of NASA. That’s a whole genre into itself.” – Read More on Fast Co.
4. RETRO READ: As NASA Reintroduces its “Worm” Logo, a Look at the Branding & Re-Branding of the Federal Space Agency. The 1970s NASA rebrand was part of then-president Richard Nixon’s “urgent desire that the growing partnership between government and the arts continue to be developed to the benefit of both, and more particularly to the benefit of the people of America. Against that background, the government launched the Federal Graphics Improvement Program in 1972. – Read More on TFL
5. What will the focus of fashion be after the coronavirus? Clothes can be a good barometer of the state of the world and how its people are thinking. After economic crashes, flashiness can feel wrong. At the same time, people will tend to value things that are well made and designed to last. Investment feels different after uncertainty: it’s taken more seriously. – Read More on SCMP
6. Fashion industry says purchase order cancellations will endure in Q3 and beyond: Beyond the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the fashion industry’s concerns have remained largely similar to 2019. Increased sourcing costs, supply chain risks and compliance, and diversification remain key challenges. – Read More on Supply Chain Dive