1. Companies Alter Design Processes to Meet Consumer Expectations During the Coronavirus: The pandemic has driven many companies to add product features sooner than planned or to create entirely new ones. Brands are adjusting to consumers’ changing needs in the pandemic, with some adopting a startup mentality to release new features fast or websites to retain customers and gain new ones in an uncertain economic environment. – Read More on WSJ
2. Luxury Billionaire Plots Rebound After Taking Biggest Virus Hit: LVMH’s Bernard Arnault has made a career out of investing through downturns when his competitors were too weakened or too skittish to forge ahead. The recession in the early 2000s saw him squeeze Prada Group SpA out of its shareholding at his newly-acquired Fendi brand. It was also when he launched the first luxury e-commerce emporium and built in Tokyo what was then Louis Vuitton’s biggest-ever store. – Read More on Bloomberg
3. RETRO READ: A Timeline Behind the Building of LVMH, the World’s Most Valuable Luxury Goods Conglomerate. “In the 90s, I had the idea of a luxury group and at the time I was very much criticized for it. I remember people telling me it doesn’t make sense to put together so many brands. And it was a success … And for the last 10 years now, every competitor is trying to imitate, which is very rewarding for us. I think they are not successful but they try.”– Read More on TFL
4. Mall owner Brookfield will spend $5 billion to save retailers: Its retail revitalization program will focus on taking noncontrolling stakes in retailers to assist them with their capital needs. Brookfield said it will be focused on funding retailers that were bringing in normalized revenue of at least $250 million pre-Covid-19, and that have been operating for at least two years. – Read More on CNBC
5. Indigenous Designers on What Sustainable Fashion Is Missing: “To truly be sustainable, you have to be small and produce less, which no business wants to hear, and I get it.” Being sustainable will soon be crucial to all industries, and it’s clear the mainstream fashion industry has a lot to learn. – Read More on Vogue