Daily LInks
1. Tapestry Board Had Opened Probe Into CEO Jide Zeitlin Before He Resigned: The parent company of Coach and Kate Spade said Mr. Zeitlin had resigned Tuesday for personal reasons. The 56-year-old executive later disclosed he had quit to avoid causing the luxury-goods company a distraction over allegations about a romantic relationship predating his becoming CEO. – Read More on the WSJ
2. How little is too little to pay for a t-shirt? What’s the difference between good value and a bargain for which someone else pays the price? Boohoo may be in the dock for its alleged reliance on sweatshops, but are we really surprised? Surely it doesn’t take Philip Green to work out that if you charge £3 for something that takes 30 minutes to make, using fabrics, dyes or bleaching from across the globe, and then transport it across the planet and pay the incurred import duties, then someone and something (the planet) is getting a bad deal. – Read More on the Telegraph
3. RELATED READ: Recurring revelations of subpar working conditions and grossly-imbalanced pay structures raise questions about how fast is “too fast” when it comes to fashion, and how cheap is simply too cheap? The problem, in many cases, is that consumers have come to expect increasingly inexpensive wares. – Read More on TFL
4. Walmart, Target, and CVS team up to reinvent single-use plastic bags: “We have to approach this as an industry,” says Kathleen McLaughlin, executive vice president and chief sustainability officer at Walmart. “Walmart’s not going to figure that out on their own, nor is Target, nor is Kroger.” – Read More on Fast Co.
5. What If Your Clothes Could Protect You From Viruses, Keep You Cool, and Simplify Your Life? “The antimicrobial technology isn’t necessarily new, but the applications are more refined and are now extending far beyond medical equipment and high performance sportswear into everyday life. I see it as a burgeoning category.” – Read More on Vogue
1. Is your Hermès bag worth a fortune? How handbags became a bona fide investment: Once, people would have sniggered at the thought of buying a handbag as an ‘investment’. Now, the laugh is on those who did: some designer handbags now outperform art, classic cars and rare whisky in terms of investment potential, according to a new report. – Read More on the Telegraph
2. RETRO READ: Are Birkin bags really a better investment than stocks and gold? One company is actively testing that theory. The notion that Birkin bags are an investment that is just as attractive as – or possibly, even more attractive than – conventional financial vehicles is not exactly a novel one. In fact, the Rally offering comes four years after Baghunter, an online retailer for luxury handbags, garnered headlines when it made a striking proclamation: Hermès Birkin handbags are a better investment – on an annualized basis – than gold and the stocks in the S&P 500 index. – Read More on TFL
3. What’s in a Name? NFL Team’s Decision Should Make Us Ask. Naming power can be illusory in another way. Even the largest private entity can run into insurmountable barriers to its naming efforts. For example, when Standard Oil dominated the sale of gasoline in the U.S., court rulings prevented the company from consolidating its brands nationwide under the single trademark ESSO. – Read More on Bloomberg
4. Avon reports big surge in UK sign-ups to be cosmetics sellers: The company, which boasts 5 million “reps” across the globe, who sell products to people in their homes, said it had seen a 114 percent “surge” in the number of new representatives joining its UK business since lockdown began. – Read More on the Guardian
5. America Went Shopping For Clothes Again in June: Retail sales jumped 7.5 percent in June, giving stores and restaurants a boost, and spending on clothing doubled. Compared to May 2020, sales in clothing and accessories stores were up in June by 105.1 percent. But that came before a new surge in coronavirus cases prompted renewed shutdowns in several states. – Read More on NPR
6. The End of the Trans-Atlantic Tariff Truce: With the room for tax compromises between Washington and Brussels shrinking, investors in marquee European companies need to start worrying about tariffs again. The European Union is intensifying its long-running crackdown on U.S. tech giants. That increases the risk that an uneasy trans-Atlantic tax truce could soon come to an end. Investors may be wise to brace for a hit. – Read More on WSJ
1. Shoppers Used to Have Endless Options, Then Came Covid-19: Thanks to a global pandemic on top of a trade war, American consumers are finding their once-endless array of apparel choices are quickly disappearing. Chains are ordering less merchandise and cutting slower selling products from their aisles and websites in order to avoid accumulating piles of hard-to-sell items. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. Cartier’s Wake-Up Call for Luxury Dreamers: Luxury consumption is likely to be depressed for several years in other big luxury markets such as the U.S. and Europe, leaving brands more dependent than ever on well-heeled Chinese shoppers. Much of the industry’s future demand is expected to come from China’s growing upper-middle class, currently around 65 million individuals, who earn between $30,000 and $45,000 a year. – Read More on the WSJ
3. Alexander Taylor launches online clothing platform to tackle fashion industry waste: “The idea of seasons within fashion generates huge amounts of waste, due to deadlines and ‘consumer’ demands, unsold inventory and the endless creation of new textiles. “Fashion as it is now and sustainability does not work together – the idea of sustainability has to be questioned because there are such huge volumes of waste generated every day.” – Read More on Denzeen
4. RETRO READ: Can the Fashion Industry Ever Really Be Sustainable? Can ethical consumption really exist in the mainstream fashion market? Psychology and behavioral science may suggest that ethical fashion consumption is a pipe dream. – Read More on TFL
5. Perils of the catwalk: African models warn of trafficking threat. While data is scant, models and anti-trafficking activists say abuse in the sector is rife for African hopefuls – due to a lack of oversight and guidance both on the continent and abroad. – Read More on Reuters
6. Why These Black Designers Are the Future of Fashion: Black designers have never been in short supply, although few have enjoyed lasting mainstream success. “There’s just this structural racism that has not allowed us and our talents to be embraced at any scale.” – Read More on the WSJ
1. Italic Brings a Membership Model to Selling Premium Products: The company began nearly two years ago as a $10-a-month club for people who wanted access to lower-priced luxury goods, though it gave customers their first year free. It started with a wait list of 100,000 names and $13 million in funding, according to the company. – Read More on the WSJ
2. A rare pair of Michael Jordan’s sneakers expected to fetch as much $550,000 in auction: “This highly-curated sale marks Christie’s entry into a new collecting category that merges sports’ history, art, fashion, and contemporary lifestyle following the great success of our Hype sale in December 2019.” – Read More on CNBC
3. RETRO READ: Supreme Skate Decks, Nike Sneakers are Small Change in the Auction World, But They Just Might be the Future. Rare sneakers auctions are part of a larger effort by auction houses to remain relevant in the modern market and court the next generation of collectors. “Across the major auction houses, most have plans in place to cultivate a younger demographic.” – Read More on TFL
4. The future of fashion and apparel: Comfortable home clothing and fashionable masks are expected to rise. There is a likely tendency to move away from seasonal fashion (e.g. spring, summer) to an all-year-long comfort wear with a reduction in the number of new SKUs every year (historically at 30-35 percent for the fashion industry). – Read More on Fortune
5. Hard-hit fashion industry is turning to ‘virus-fighting’ fabrics: Diesel, for instance, revealed an ultra-innovative denim treatment that physically “halts” 99% of any viral activity on fabrics. It will implement the ViralOff technology, developed in partnership with Swedish chemicals company Polygiene across a selection of the brand’s Spring/Summer 2021 denim styles, which will go on sale in mid-January. – Read More on MarketWatch
6. Why used clothing can survive the global health crisis: “New clothes, essentially, can be dirtier than they look and if you buy a new item at a department store, you know that very well could have been tried on multiple times, it could have even been bought and returned, it’s been left on floors or dressing rooms.” – Read More on Retail Dive
1. Burberry May Never Be Gucci-Cool Now: Investors are waking up to the fact that Burberry has some distinct disadvantages in the pandemic-plagued world we’re living in. In its third year of a turnaround plan under Chief Executive Officer Marco Gobbetti and Creative Director Riccardo Tisci, the moment when heavy investment in the new strategy was meant to be paying off with higher sales and profits, the brand it has not yet acquired the cachet of the mega brands such as Louis Vuitton. Gucci, for example, was flying by this stage of its reinvention under Creative Director Alessandro Michele. – Read More on Bloomberg
2. RETRO READ: What is Actually Driving the Successful Revamp of Gucci? “Everyone who ever felt like a weird kid, or too smart to be popular, or totally out of sync with the jocks can wear Gucci and feel like they’re finally cool.” And in a landscape that is pushing for more disruption of the traditional high fashion model, including a wider sense of inclusiveness, there’s certainly something to be said for Michele’s approach. – Read More on TFL
3. How to protect company reputations during a pandemic: “How companies treat their employees comes through in the interactions that customers have with them.” The same is true for the way businesses treat their suppliers, which does not bode well for the clothing retailers have drew flak for cancelling orders and withholding outstanding payments to garment factories in Bangladesh — in effect passing on risk to parts of the supply chain least able to survive the shock. – Read More on the FT
4. Consumer Appetite for Cars, Homes Bolsters U.S. Economy: “Looking at the car sales, looking at the retail activity, looking at the housing data, it has been pointing to a bigger recovery story.” Higher-income consumers tend to work in jobs that can more easily be done remotely, providing them with greater job security and confidence to make large purchases during the recession. – Read More on the WSJ
5. How Birkenstock Became a Cult Classic: Birkenstock sandals have withstood decades of passing fashion fads. Since the 1960s they have adorned the feet of hippies, models, moms, dads and now Gen Z. Birkenstock’s success relates to its selectivity in the market. In 2016, it chose to remove its products from the biggest retailer in the world, Amazon. The brand has even found a place in the world of high fashion but turned down a collaboration with streetwear giant Supreme. – See More on CNBC
6. You May Be In Sweatpants, But COVID-19 Hasn’t Stopped Haute Couture. It took the shows online: “What has always been strong with fashion is the possibility to adapt rapidly to different scenarios and follow the direction that the world is taking.” – Read More on NPR
1. Coronavirus offers an opportunity to remake fashion industry: What now for the piles of unsold clothes, unwanted for the warm summer? Retailers will be working with suppliers to carry over stock to next year, reallocating fabric to the autumn and winter, and donating their unsold stock to charities. However, retailers will need to take other steps too. – Read More on the Times
2. E-commerce adoption due to pandemic could result in ‘massive dilution’ of retailers’ profits, according to Bain & Co. Head of Global Retail Practice Marc-Andre Kamel: “The problem is not capacity. Retailers have always been able to build capacity. The real problem is profitability.” – See More on CNBC
3. Can Reese Witherspoon Beat the Lawsuit Her Brand is Facing Over Awkward COVID-19 Lottery? The actress disputes contract formation, which goes to the plaintiffs’ standing, because the suing teachers have not expressly indicated they signed up for the giveaway “based on an expectation that they would be guaranteed a free dress by doing so.” – Read More on THR
4. Burberry to Cut Jobs in Revamp After Lockdown Causes Sales Fall: The company behind the iconic trenchcoat announced last week that it would consolidate its offerings around ready-to-wear, accessories and shoes as it aims to elevate the quality of its products while becoming more agile. The reorganization is part of a plan put in place by Chief Executive Officer Marco Gobbetti, whose urgency has grown with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. How Fashion Brands Can Adapt and Reopen Post-Pandemic: “If your customer is focused on saving instead of spending, find ways to add more value to your product, whether that means creating something special, offering a limited edition product or developing a unique value offer. Make sure your product is worth it to them.” – Read More on Forbes
6. RELATED READ: What Are the Legal Risks and Responsibilities for Companies as Businesses Begin to Reopen? What the U.S. Chamber of Commerce considers to be “perhaps the largest area of concern for the overall business community,” and what is among the most concerning for companies on the verge of reopening, exposure liability is likely to lead to a flood of employee class action lawsuits. – Read More on TFL
1. A brand’s product may be perfect, but if it’s packaged poorly all bets are off. Turns out, a product’s packaging can make or break both a company’s bottom line and the customer experience. – Read More on Modern Retail
2. RETRO READ: Glossier Filed 2 Trademark Applications This Spring That Say a Lot About Modern Branding. Packaging, if done right, can function in just the same way – or potentially, even more enticing (and thus, efficient) ways – than conventional trademarks like a brand name or logo by enabling consumers to connect a product and its packaging with a single source, and in the process, communicating important messaging to consumers about the brand’s reputation, values, and other core identity elements. – Read More on TFL
3. How Luxury Is Reinventing Itself: Differential pricing and discounts across channels may result in cannibalization. In exchange for their cooperation, brand owners can display empathy by relaxing terms concerning the key performance indicators typically found in distributorship contracts. German automaker Porsche, for example, is guaranteeing payouts, extending finance and easing up on dealer performance objectives during this turbulent period. – Read More on INSEAD
4. Can Uniqlo, a Japanese label famous for its simplicity take over the fashion world? Back in 1998, Uniqlo introduced a fleece, and it was an immediate hit. Launched in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, the top was noteworthy because it was so cheap – it sold for just $19, around half the price of those in other shops. Two million were sold within 12 months. Within two years, enough fleeces had been bought to clothe nearly a third of the population of Japan. – Read More on the Economist (via Redef)
5. Maximizing the Benefits of Board Diversity: Lessons Learned From Activist Investing. “We recommend that boards recruit gender, racially, and ethnically diverse candidates who, … enhance diversity on two additional levels: first, by adding new professional backgrounds, skills, and experiences … and second, by introducing new views, perspectives.” – Read More on Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance
6. Luxury brands turn from Hong Kong to mainland Chinese consumers still eager to shop: Despite the economic shock of the coronavirus, analysts say China’s demand for luxury goods hasn’t waned much – and it’s drawing top brands from Hong Kong to the mainland. “Most established brands (LV, Gucci, Cartier, Chanel, Dior, etc.) saw sales increase by 40-90 percent in early June.” – Read More on CNBC
1. Luxury shoppers in China stymied by travel disruption buy second-hand and from local stores as shortages bite: China’s high-end shoppers are finding it hard to splash their cash with the Covid-19 pandemic halting travel and causing shortages of imported goods. Meanwhile, sales of second-hand luxury goods on online platform Paipai jumped 138 percent from 2019 during its summer sale. – Read More on SCMP
2. Why clothes are so hard to recycle: Currently just 13.6 percent of clothes and shoes thrown away in the US end up being recycled – while the average American throws away 81.5 pounds of clothes every year. Globally just 12 percent of the material used for clothing ends up being recycled. Compare that to paper, glass and plastic PET bottles – which have recycling rates of 66, 27 and 29 percent respectively in the US – and it is clear clothing lags behind. – Read More on BBC
3. How Is Rent the Runway Still In Business? The CEO Moved Quickly, Cut Deep. “We need to give people a more measured way to rejoin us, and perhaps for some of them, having unlimited outfits on unlimited rotation doesn’t make sense with a more modified life.” The company has stocked up on more casual offerings, such as athletic or leisure wear, and is working with designers on exclusive collections that will be co-manufactured. – Read More on WSJ
4. This startup sells clothes from the same factories as Alexander Wang and Prada—at a fraction of the cost: Over time, however, value stopped being the main selling point for many DTC brands, although their markups continued to be smaller than those of luxury brands. Instead, they focused on sustainability and ethics, developed distinct aesthetics, and invested heavily in branding. – Read More on Fast Co.
5. RETO READ: Italic Wants to Disrupt the Fashion Industry With “Unbranded” Luxury Goods. Here’s the (Legal) Problem …If companies like Italic can boast about using the same factories as the brands in the upper echelon of the fashion industry, there is a chance that high fashion figures’ mystique – and their air of luxury, quality, exclusivity, etc. – could be diminished. This concern might be heightened further if Italic’s offerings do not ultimately match the quality of the high fashion names it references (and without the same level of quality control, etc. that is exerted in connection with high fashion products, it likely will not be). – Read More on TFL
1. Boohoo shares bounce back after pledge to improve factory conditions: Shares in Boohoo Group rebounded more than 27% on Thursday after analysts and investors were reassured by the online fashion specialist’s plan to clean up its supply chain. – Read More on the Guardian
2. To keep shoppers coming back, Nike is testing a new experiential store format: As part of Nike’s plan to increase the percentage of its sales that come from its direct-to-consumer business, the company has been opening a slew of new stores in order over the past couple of years to boost sales. Now, the company is unveiling a new retail format – Nike Rise – that it hopes will make its stores a more regular destination for shoppers. – Read More on Modern Retail
3. Amazon Settles Allegations of U.S. Sanctions Violations: Amazon accepted and processed orders of consumer goods and services for individuals and entities located in regions under U.S. sanctions, such as Iran and Syria, or that had been blacklisted by the U.S., such as designated as drug traffickers, global terrorists or proliferators of mass destruction weapons, according to the settlement agreement. – Read More on WSJ
4. Black-owned businesses report boost in sales and interest on Blackout Day: Black- and minority-owned business owners were hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of active business owners nationwide fell by 22 percent from February through April, but Black-owned businesses experienced an outsized impact, with a 41 percent drop in working business owners. Latino business owners fell by nearly a third, and Asian-owned businesses fell by 26 percent. – Read More on CNBC
5. Ferrari Just Lost the Trademark Rights in the Design of its Most Iconic Car: Ferrari lost its trademark to the shape of the 250 GTO by running afoul of the European Union Intellectual Protection Office’s “Use It Or Lose It” rules, which mandate that trademark owners must use and enforce their trademarks or lose them. – Read More on Forbes
6. RETRO READ: 3-Stripes, Big Macs, and the European Union’s “Use it or Lose it” Rule. As well as showing that even the largest multi-national corporations are not immune to trade mark actions, this case also shows the importance of sorting and selecting specific pieces of evidence which relate to the case in question, as opposed to taking the “kitchen-sink” approach and merely submitting any evidence which appears to be vaguely relevant to a case. – Read More on TFL
1. Unlucky Charms: The Rise and Fall of Billion-Dollar Jewelry Empire Alex and Ani. P atent No. US D487,709 S was granted on March 23, 2004, to Carolyn Rafaelian-Ferlise. The application captured the concept in a mere five words: “an expandable wire bangle bracelet.” The bracelet’s design was astonishingly straightforward, familiar to hard-core rock climbers and Eagle Scouts as a double fisherman’s or a grapevine knot. Somehow, though, no one had ever thought to patent it for jewelry. – Read More on Medium
2. RETRO READ: Alex and Ani is Suing Bank of America for $1.1 Billion, Citing its “Long, Entrenched History of Illegal Discrimination.”The bank’s fraudulent “image-rehabilitating marketing” efforts and its “discriminatory and illegal lending practices” are an “existential threat” to the jewelry company’s otherwise booming business, Alex and Ani argued in the since-settled lawsuit. – Read More on TFL
3. Fashion’s Racism and Classism Are Finally Out of Style: In fashion, envisioning a path forward is particularly complicated. The veneration of whiteness and wealth isn’t merely incidental to the global fashion business, but central to its vision and embedded in its practices, from who gets hired to how things get marketed. Luxury fashion is built on the emotional scaffolding of human aspiration—what happens to the industry when everyone gets sick of worshipping rich white people? – Read More on the Atlantic
4. Kylie Jenner’s Instagram Propels Black-Owned Fashion Label: Loudbrand’s “raw edge vashtie dress” – which Jenner shared with her 200 million Instagram followers – retails at approximately $145 and is currently sold out along with the brand’s entire collection after catching Jenner’s attention. – Read More on Bloomberg
5. The way we wore: should the fashion industry look to the past in order to move forward? “We saw a real desire to reclaim forgotten skills. The quality of fabric, construction and style brings a practical, emotional fulfilment greater than the instant buy-now click of the mouse.” She says her customers “earn a wardrobe more considered, more conscious and personal.” – Read More on Vogue
6. The pandemic has exposed the dark underside of fast fashion’s supply chains: fast fashion has become an accessible and budget-friendly way for “normal” people to embody the aspirational lifestyles they see on their screens. With an average of 116 new garments uploaded to the Boohoo women’s site alone every day, this influencer-to-landfill pipeline is an affordable way for image-conscious young people to keep up with trends that move so fast they’re over before they even begin. – Read More on the Guardian