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