🇨🇳 Shanghai Style Week chief takes on new function. The Autumn/Winter 2024 season of Shanghai Style Week passed off between Mar. 25 and Apr. 1 in Shanghai, China. The occasion kicked off with the Le Fame present, which lured actresses Angelababy, Yang Chaoyue and Hu Lianxin to the entrance row. Buzzy designer names equivalent to Louis Shengtao Chen and Shushu/Tong took to the runway alongside stalwarts like Xander Zhou and Comme Moi as patrons flocked to commerce reveals, showrooms and showcases together with Mode, Ontimeshow, Tube Showroom, Dadashow, Not Showroom and Tasha Liu’s Labelhood. This season additionally noticed the return of The Subsequent platform, that includes graduate reveals from Donghua College, the Style Design Institute of China Academy of Artwork and Soochow College. One speaking level this season was the longer term function of style week’s general-secretary Lv Xiaolei, often known as Madame Lu, who has steered the occasion for greater than a decade. Lv was just lately named govt vice chairman of the Shanghai Style Designer Affiliation, a parallel initiative revived to assist promote native designers abroad. [China Daily, Shanghai Daily/Shine, SHFW]
🇵🇱 Poland’s LPP bounces again from Russia divestment allegations. LPP Group, one in all Japanese Europe’s largest style producers and retailers promoting manufacturers Mohito, Reserved, Home, Cropp and Sinsay to 39 international locations, has seen its shares get well on the Warsaw Inventory Change after a US quick vendor characterised the corporate’s withdrawal from the Russia market as a “sham.” Final month, Hindenburg Analysis claimed LPP used Kazakhstan as a backdoor to transit items, however LPP executives dismissed the allegations, asserting that a part of the 2022 transitional association to divest from Russia it introduced within the wake of the struggle in Ukraine included supplying garments to brokers that resold the merchandise in Russia. The Gdansk-based attire large then vowed to terminate gross sales to Russia earlier than the top of the present fiscal yr on Jan. 31, 2025. Co-founder and CEO Marek Piechocki sounded bullish final week when reporting an 85.5 % surge in 2023 full yr earnings to 1.61 billion zlotys ($403 million) and a 9.3 % rise in revenues to 17.41 billion zlotys ($4.3 billion). “Within the subsequent three years, we plan to double our conventional [store] community and, within the meantime, generate twice as a lot gross sales quantity as we do right now,” he stated. [Bloomberg, Reuters]
🇲🇾 Malaysian retailer charged and bombed over blasphemous socks. Socks with the phrase ‘Allah’, Arabic for ‘God’, had been present in a KK Tremendous Mart comfort retailer within the Muslim-majority nation, prompting on-line outrage as a result of “placing Allah at our toes is an insult,” defined the nation’s spiritual affairs minister. A courtroom has charged 5 firm executives at each the retailer and its provider Xin Jian Chang in China (the previous has accused the latter of “sabotage”) for hurting spiritual emotions, notably in the course of the holy month of Ramadan. Dealing with jail, a effective or each, all events apologised and pleaded not responsible, however anger nonetheless simmered on Tuesday when a petroleum bomb was thrown right into a department of the identical retail chain, inflicting a fireplace however no accidents. [Al Jazeera]
🇦🇪 Income up 12% at Emirati mall operator Majid Al Futtaim. The Dubai-based conglomerate with a portfolio of dozens of main purchasing malls throughout the Center East and North Africa area together with the Mall of the Emirates, the Mall of Oman and the Mall of Egypt, has reported full yr web revenue in 2023 of two.7 billion dirhams ($740 million) and income of 34.5 billion dirhams, up 1 % over the earlier yr. [The National]
🇨🇳 China’s s-commerce large Xiaohongshu is lastly worthwhile. The social media app with purchasing and livestream commerce options, generally dubbed ‘China’s Instagram’, has earned $500 million in web revenue in 2023 on revenues of $3.7 billion, in accordance with individuals briefed on the figures on the Shanghai-based firm based in 2013. It’s a flip of fortune for the platform standard with magnificence and style manufacturers, having reportedly generated a $200 million loss in 2022, towards sturdy competitors from the likes of Douyin and Kuaishou. [Financial Times]
🇮🇳 India’s style e-commerce large Myntra is operationally worthwhile. The platform owned by Walmart’s Flipkart has reported that its market unit has been “EBITDA (earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) constructive” since October 2023, for 2 consecutive quarters, a milestone the corporate has by no means achieved earlier than. Based in 2007, Myntra sells main style and way of life manufacturers together with H&M, Levi’s, Tommy Hilfiger and Mango. [Business Standard, Mint]
🇬🇹 US launches initiative to spice up textile and attire commerce with Guatemala. American commerce and customs businesses have introduced a capability constructing programme to advance safe commerce between the US and the Central American nation. Guatemala’s attire and textile sector, more and more essential for American companies’ nearshoring efforts, is a significant contributor to the nation’s financial system, constituting 14 % of complete exports and eight.9 % of GDP, producing 180,000 direct and oblique jobs, in accordance with USAID. [Fibre2Fashion, USAID]
🇨🇳 Extra Chinese language firms to be added to US import ban listing. The variety of Chinese language firms banned by the US Uyghur Compelled Labor Prevention Act Entity Record is predicted to develop within the subsequent few months, stated a Homeland Safety adviser. Since 2022 the US has barred most imports with hyperlinks to China’s Xinjiang area, together with textile and attire merchandise, over considerations of compelled labour within the cotton provide chain, claims which China denies. [Wall Street Journal]
🇰🇪 Kenya’s used garments merchants foyer towards EU export restrictions. A proposal by France, Denmark and Sweden to limit second-hand clothes exports from the European Union might harm Kenya’s clothes resale business, which employs two million individuals, stated a consultant of sellers within the east African nation. [Reuters]
🇨🇳 Chinese language mall proprietor Cling Lung Properties stories tenant gross sales rebound. The Hong Kong-based property developer, which owns main style malls promoting international luxurious manufacturers together with Shanghai’s Plaza 66, posted a 42 % rise in tenant gross sales within the first half of 2023, albeit from a low base throughout an preliminary post-pandemic reopening rebound. [China Daily]
🇨🇳 Douyin launches standalone purchasing app in China. The ByteDance-owned social media platform with purchasing options has launched Douyin Mall, in a bid to compete additional with Chinese language e-commerce giants Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao, JD.com and PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo. [South China Morning Post]
🇮🇳 Kamal Lath appointed CFO of Indian magnificence main Good Glamm Group. The Harvard Enterprise Faculty alumnus brings over twenty years of finance and administration expertise to the Mumbai-based content-to-commerce unicorn which started as DTC make-up model MyGlamm earlier than buying a secure of magnificence and private care merchandise. [Economic Times]
🇰🇷 Tumi names South Korean actress Mun Kayoung as model ambassador. The American bag and baggage maker tapped the German-born, South Korean-raised actress, often known as Moon Ga-young, well-known for her roles in standard tv sequence. [BoF Inbox]
