Category Archives: Fashion industry

Birkenstock shares open below offer price in US stock market debut

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Shoemaker lands on NYSE with $8.3bn valuation but analysts warn public debut comes amid difficult market conditions

Shares in Birkenstock have opened 11% below their offer price on the company’s US stock market debut, valuing the German shoemaker at $8.3bn as investors bet there was less mileage in consumer demand for its cork-soled sandals, which have become an unlikely fashion success story.

On Tuesday evening the footwear firm priced its shares at $46 ahead of the first day of trading in New York, where it is using the symbol “BIRK”. That figure was in the middle of the $44 to $49 guidance provided last week and valued the company at $8.6bn (£7bn).

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Pakistan welcomes fast-fashion brand Boohoo despite poor staff safety claims

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Call to set up role comes as report alleges retailer uses factories that violate minimum-wage requirements and workers’ rights

Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, has reportedly asked the British fast-fashion brand Boohoo to increase its presence in the country, despite claims that it has failed to tackle poor conditions at its suppliers’ factories there.

In a meeting with Kakar this week, Mahmud Kamani, chairman of Boohoo Group, expressed an interest in establishing long-term buying linkages with Pakistan, according to Radio Pakistan.

Kakar pointed out Pakistan’s pro-investment policies and facilities, and invited Boohoo to open franchises in the country, which is in economic turmoil, with a record inflation rate of 36.4%.

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Zimmermann becomes Australia’s first billion-dollar fashion label after private equity acquisition

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Brand founders Simone and Nicky Zimmermann retain minority shareholding and say they and current management will continue to run the label

Zimmermann has become Australia’s first billion-dollar fashion label after a majority acquisition by private equity firm Advent International.

The label’s founders, sisters Simone and Nicky Zimmermann, have retained a minority shareholding in the brand and said the company would continue to be run by them and current management.

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Stitch in time: France to help pay for clothes to be mended to cut waste

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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.

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Stop dumping your cast-offs on us, Ghanaian clothes traders tell EU

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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.

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Tom Ford bows out as creative director at namesake fashion label

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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.

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Best&Less accused of putting profit before Bangladesh workers by failing to sign safety accord

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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.

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Haiti garment workers share $1m payout after factory closure a year ago

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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.

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Spanish fashion designer Paco Rabanne dies aged 88

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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.”

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Museum seeks Bowie dress for show putting spotlight on Jewish designers

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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.

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Gymshark founder who launched £1.25bn empire in parents’ garage awarded MBE

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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.

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Lingerie firm Agent Provocateur under pressure over Moscow franchise stores

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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.

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Kanye West reportedly no longer a billionaire as companies cut ties

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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.

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Superdry returns to profit despite talks on £70m debt pile

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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.

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Franca Fendi, inheritor of Italian fashion house, dies aged 87

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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.

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Myanmar model who criticised junta says Canada has granted her asylum

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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.

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‘Give workers an equal seat’: pressure builds for Levi’s to protect factory employees

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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.

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Luis Vuitton reduces thermostat and light use in shops to save energy

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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.

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US ban on cotton from forced Uyghur labour comes into force

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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.

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Revlon files for bankruptcy in US after supply chain trouble and surging costs

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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.

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