People will be able to claim back €6-€25 of cost of repairing clothes and shoes in latest environmental measure
A broken heel, a rip in trousers, buttons missing from a shirt? Don’t throw them away if you live in France, where the government will pay a “repair bonus” to have them mended in a new scheme aimed at cutting waste.
An estimated 700,000 tonnes of clothing is thrown away in France every year, two-thirds ending up in landfill.
Continue reading...With 100 tonnes of clothing from the west discarded every day in Accra, ‘fast fashion’ brands must be forced to help pay for the choking textile waste they create, environmentalists say
A group of secondhand clothes dealers from Ghana have visited Brussels to lobby for Europe-wide legislation to compel the fashion industry to help address the “environmental catastrophe” of dumping vast amounts of textiles in the west African country.
The traders from Kantamanto in Accra, one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing markets, met Alice Bah Kuhnke, an MEP with Sweden’s Green party, environmental organisations and representatives from the European Commission and the European Environment Bureau to argue that proposed extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation should ensure Ghana receives funds towards managing the 100 tonnes of clothing discarded at the market every day.
Continue reading...Longtime associate Peter Hawkings announced as successor after sale of brand last November to Estée Lauder
The American fashion designer Tom Ford is retiring from the eponymous brand he co-founded in 2005, after its sale to Estée Lauder last November.
Ford’s longtime associate Peter Hawkings will succeed him as creative director, while Guillaume Jesel becomes chief executive and president, taking over from Domenico de Sole, the brand’s other co-founder.
Continue reading...Company says its own code of conduct goes further than the global accord prompted by the Rana Plaza disaster 10 years ago
Major clothing retailer Best&Less has been accused of putting company profit ahead of the safety of Bangladeshi garment workers by declining to sign a key international accord on worker safety and labour rights.
The Rana Plaza disaster, 10 years ago on Monday, prompted outrage at the abysmal safety standards in the Bangladesh factories supplying major clothing brands and retailers, leading to the establishment of a cross-border agreement known as the international accord.
Continue reading...More than 1,100 workers who were left destitute to be compensated by owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein
More than 1,100 garment workers in Haiti are sharing $1m (£830,000) in compensation from the owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein after being left destitute by the closure of a factory.
PVH, which was one of several brand owners sourcing from the Vald’or factory in the Caribbean country, agreed to pay the sum to cover missed severance pay, pension contributions directly to workers and the government pension fund after involvement by the Worker Rights Consortium lobby group.
Continue reading...Eccentric designer became known for his space-age metal dresses and signature range of fragrances
The Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne, best known for his space-age metal dresses, bestselling fragrances and eccentric pronouncements, has died at the age of 88.
His death was announced on Friday in a statement by the Puig group, which owns the Paco Rabanne brand. “I am profoundly saddened by the death of Paco Rabanne,” the group’s chief executive, Marc Puig, said in a statement. “Through his great personality, he transmitted a unique aesthetic and a daring, revolutionary and provocative vision of the world of fashion.”
Continue reading...Museum of London Docklands appeals for missing pieces whose influential creators have been overlooked
Wanted: David Bowie’s dress, Greta Garbo’s hats and the shirts worn by Sean Connery in his first role as James Bond.
They are iconic items of 20th-century clothing – but their whereabouts is unknown. Now the Museum of London Docklands has made a public appeal for help locating these and other garments before a big exhibition scheduled for later this year.
Continue reading...Ben Francis, 30, among slew of businesspeople recognised for services to commerce and economy in new year honours list
The 30-year-old founder of the exercise clothing brand Gymshark has been awarded an MBE in the new year honours list, – just one of a slew of businesspeople to be recognised for their services to commerce and the economy.
Ben Francis, who began his £1.25bn empire sewing his own gym clothes in his parents’ garage in Bromsgrove, near Birmingham, in 2012, is the youngest of those to be honoured for their services to business.
Continue reading...Retailer among companies listed by Leave Russia project but says it does not itself operate there
In its three decades in British retail, the lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, the 1990s brainchild of Dame Vivienne Westwood’s son, has rarely shied away from controversy.
Whether it be its daring window displays or that 2001 TV advert featuring Kylie Minogue riding a velvet bucking bronco, the brand has stirred up some strong emotions. But it had not, until now, been accused of inadvertently helping to finance a war in Europe.
Continue reading...For years critics have denounced Ye for his rightwing views and comments – but only now are they costing him his career
In the span of two weeks, Kanye West has lost his talent representation, connections to major fashion houses and other lucrative relationships over recent anti-Black and antisemitic comments.
As sports brand Adidas ended its estimated €250m partnership with West on Tuesday, reportedly costing the Black American rapper his billionaire status, many are asking if the fashion and music mogul’s actions have ended his decades-long career.
Continue reading...Founder Julian Dunkerton says being ‘cool again’ with TikTok generation helped turn previous £37m loss into £18m profit
Superdry is in talks with its banks to renegotiate up to £70m debt, the fashion retailer revealed on Friday, but investors shrugged off concerns to send shares soaring more than 14% as founder Julian Dunkerton announced a return to profit.
Dunkerton claimed Superdry “was cool again”, with strong demand from the TikTok generation for items such as parachute pants and Afghan coats, as he revealed pre tax profits of £18m, a bounce back from a loss of almost £37m a year before as sales rose almost 10% to £610m in the year to 30 April.
Continue reading...Fendi and her sisters took luxury brand to new creative heights by bringing in Karl Lagerfeld in 1960s
Franca Fendi, one of the five sisters who inherited a small Roman leather goods workshop and together transformed it into a luxury fashion house, has died in Rome on Monday. She was 87.
Born in 1935, she participated from a young age in the management of the company that from the 1960s onwards, under the guidance of the sisters, became a global luxury powerhouse famed for its reimagining of the classic fur coat.
Continue reading...Thaw Nandar Aung, AKA Han Lay, feared being sent home after she was stopped at Thai border last week
A Myanmar fashion model who was denied entry to Thailand and feared arrest by the military government in Yangon if she was forced back home from exile has flown to Canada, which she says has granted her asylum.
Thaw Nandar Aung, also known as Han Lay, left on a flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport early on Wednesday, according to Archayon Kraithong, a deputy commissioner of Thailand’s Immigration Bureau. He said he was not authorised to reveal her destination.
Continue reading...Activists say that the company’s own audits have been ineffective and workers receive inadequate safety protections
Workers and activists have been campaigning to push Levi’s, one of the world’s largest clothing brands, to sign on to an international accord for workers’ health and safety in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
On 24 April 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which housed five garment clothing factories, collapsed, killing 1,134 people and injuring approximately 2,500, in the deadliest disaster in the garment industry’s history.
Continue reading...LVMH announced measures after Emmanuel Macron urged France to reduce power consumption
LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, plans to lower the thermostat at its stores around the world as part energy-saving measures this winter.
The French conglomerate will also turn off the lights at its stores earlier, starting in France in October before being deployed worldwide.
Continue reading...Fashion industry told to avoid cotton from Xinjiang, which accounts for 84% of China’s exports of the product
The fashion industry has been told it must wean itself off cotton from China’s Xinjiang region, as a new law comes into force giving US border authorities greater powers to block or seize goods linked to forced labour in China.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which comes into force today, assumes that any product partly or wholly made in Xinjiang, north-west China, is linked to the region’s labour camps. Since 2017, the Chinese authorities have detained as many as one million Uyghurs and subjected them to forced labour.
Continue reading...Cosmetics company hopes to refinance and keep trading, saying demand for products remains strong
Revlon, the 90-year-old multinational beauty company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US, weighed down by debt load, disruptions to its supply chain network and surging costs.
The New York-based company said that on court approval, it expects to receive $575m (£469m) in financing from its existing lenders, which will allow it to keep its day-to-day operations running.
Continue reading...Fashion retailer’s suppliers in Pakistan have sacked hundreds without pay, as invoices for completed orders remain unpaid
Hundreds of garment workers in Pakistan making clothing for collapsed fast fashion brand Missguided say they have been left destitute and starving after not receiving salaries for more than four months.
The workers, who typically earn between £100 and £160 a month, say that despite not being paid they have continued working even as the Manchester-based retailer went into administration, with suppliers claiming the company owes them millions of pounds for clothing already completed and shipped.
Continue reading...Gesture announced at Copenhagen sustainability summit earns praise – and some cries of ‘greenwashing’
Chinese fashion behemoth Shein might be the organisation least expected to win applause at an international conference on fashion sustainability, but that’s what happened at this week’s global fashion summit in Copenhagen.
The industry’s largest forum for sustainable progress saw the ultra-fast fashion brand praised for making a donation of $15m (£12m) over three years to a charity working at Kantamanto in Accra, the world’s largest secondhand clothing market.
Liz Ricketts, director of the Or Foundation, a Ghana- and US-based not-for-profit working with Accra’s textile waste workers, announced the fund, tearfully telling the audience that the workers are doing “backbreaking” work.
Traces in shirts and T-shirts appear to contradict German firms’ promises to revise supply chains
Researchers say they have found traces of Xinjiang cotton in shirts and T-shirts made by Adidas, Puma and Hugo Boss, appearing to contradict the German clothing companies’ promises to revise their supply chains after allegations of widespread forced labour in the Chinese region.
Recent reports have suggested more than half a million people from minority ethnic groups such as the Uyghurs have been coerced into picking cotton in Xinjiang, which provides more than 80% of China’s and a fifth of the global production of cotton.
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